Conduct high-quality research with a solid understanding of contemporary poltical theory. This course responds to an existing demand by policy makers and analysts looking to expand their knowledge and understand how to implement a policy and write reports. The political analysis and report writing course will develop a foundation in political analysis in political science. The course will also help you clarify the purpose and structure to use for your reports ensuring they are practical and can be produced in a timely fashion.

Who should attend? 

• Political analysts
• Personnel working in governmental organizations
• Employees in politics research
• Economists and people working in international relations

Knowledge and Benefits:

After completing the program, participants will be able to master the following:

• Analyzing Administration & Society; Capitalism, Nature, Socialism; Critical Policy Studies; Congress and the Presidency; Fast Capitalism; International Political Sociology; the minnesota review; New Political Science; Peace Studies Journal; Presidential Studies Quarterly; Rhetoric & Public Affairs; and Telos.

• Understand what writing an assignment involves
• Identify strengths and weaknesses
• Understand the functions of essays and reports
• Demonstrate writing skills.
• Write reports with value rather than volume
• Condense lengthy documents into a short summary
• Make yourself understood to a wide range of readers with varying levels of knowledge and need from the documents you write

• Political Analysis
  • Contemporary Political Theory
  • Political Behavior
  • Discourse Analysis
  • Political Analysis: Science or Critique?
  • Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Political Analysis

• Conceptualization and Measurement
• Conceptualization and Measurement in the Real World

• Exploration of Single Variables
• Levels of Measurement and Distributions

• Sampling Distributions and z-Scores
• Confidence Intervals and the t-Distribution
• Sample Size and Statistical Inference

• Theories of Political Behavior
• Politics and ideology – an organized collection of ideas
• International Law
• Political Systems

• Two sample t-tests
• Cross-tabulation and chi-square
• Linear regression: the intuition
• Two-Variable Regression Analysis
• The Classical Model
• Reading Week
• The Gauss-Markov Theorem and Goodness of Fit
• Two-Variable Regression - Interval Estimation and Hypothesis Testing
• Conducting and Interpreting Multiple Regression Analysis
• Dummy Variables and Model Specification

• Public Relations
• Public Administration and Bureaucracy

• Report Writing
• Writing Essays: Addressing a Question
• Concepts and Contexts
• Theory and Methods
• Data Collection in Quantitative Research
• Describing Quantitative Data
• The Basics of Effective Report Writing
• Understanding the reader
• The POWER principles
• Producing a hierarchy of information for different readers
• Report Writing Workshop I: Planning
• Discover planning tools and frameworks
• Develop techniques to help you identify relevant purpose and content
• Report Writing Workshop II: Organizing Information
• Understand how to group different types of information
• Learn how to effectively present information
• Gain best practice techniques to focus on value not the volume of information
• A practical exercise in rewording and reordering
• Providing feedback – a practical exercise in how to give and receive constructive, objective advice
• Learn the most effective and ruthless editing techniques
• Using real-life materials, delegates will edit a document and create an effective summary