1. Writing a course paper Rune J. Sørensen Norwegian School of Management (BI) Lecture 1. Thursday, 19.8 2010 08:00-10:45. GRA 5917 Public Opinion and Input Politics: Parties, Voters and Media

2. The basic rules 1. What is your dependent variable? 2. Do you have an “experiment”? 3. Do you stand on “the shoulders of giants”? 4. Be honest with data. 5. Address the issue of correlation versus causality.

3. The core hypothesis 1. Accept frustrations as you struggle with the research question. 2. Your core hypothesis must pass the ”mother-in-law test”

4. The working process 1. Avoid the “reading trap”. 2. A draft needs to be rewritten. 3. Write the paper as a crime novel.

5. A good way to start Find an interesting existing paper/article Check whether it is possible to replicate the empirical analysis on your own (new?) data Try to find a new twist to the research question or empirical analysis

6. Some ideas/examples Milanovich-article: Test of the Meltzer-Richard article Persson & Tabellini: The performance of different types of democracy Electoral attitudes and military spending after the end of the Cold War (check literature) The effect of immigration on voter attitudes to the welfare-state (check literature)

7. Some of our own recent research 1. Size and democracy: Are people more satisfied with services in small local authorities? 2. Geographical redistribution and election system: Do political parties bias policies in favor of districts with high seat/vote ratios? 3. The democratic agency problem: Do elected politicians slack in their last period?