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Research Design in Politics and International Relations
First Edition
- Anouk S. Rigterink - Durham University, UK
- Mareike Schomerus - Busara, Kenya
Additional resources:
February 2026 | 480 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
This textbook offers the definitive guide to starting your research project in Politics and IR. It shows how methods come alive when applied to real political dilemmas and offers an accessible framework to help make intentional and considered choices across all stages of research—from formulating a question to selecting a design, collecting data, and analysing results.
Rigterink and Schomerus introduce seven core research designs – spanning discourse analysis and ethnography to quasi-experiments and process tracing – through contemporary political topics such as violent conflict, the environment and political protests.
What sets this book apart is starting with topics rather than methods, so you’ll learn how to research real-world issues like climate change, inequality, or war, and see how different research designs can help you understand them. It’s also honest about the challenges of research, offering practical strategies to overcome distractions, doubts, and demotivation.
Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book is as much a practical manual as a conceptual map for navigating the terrain of political research that makes doing research manageable and enjoyable.
Anouk S. Rigterink is Associate Professor in Quantitative Comparative Politics, at Durham University, UK.
Mareike Schomerus is VP at Busara, a research institute headquartered in Kenya, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, USA.
Rigterink and Schomerus introduce seven core research designs – spanning discourse analysis and ethnography to quasi-experiments and process tracing – through contemporary political topics such as violent conflict, the environment and political protests.
What sets this book apart is starting with topics rather than methods, so you’ll learn how to research real-world issues like climate change, inequality, or war, and see how different research designs can help you understand them. It’s also honest about the challenges of research, offering practical strategies to overcome distractions, doubts, and demotivation.
Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book is as much a practical manual as a conceptual map for navigating the terrain of political research that makes doing research manageable and enjoyable.
Anouk S. Rigterink is Associate Professor in Quantitative Comparative Politics, at Durham University, UK.
Mareike Schomerus is VP at Busara, a research institute headquartered in Kenya, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, USA.
Chapter 1: Introduction: Let’s find out what this is all about
Chapter 2: The rewards of a research mindset
Chapter 3: The research process
Chapter 4: How do you know? Your epistemology
Chapter 5: Formulating a research question and contributing to the literature
Chapter 6: Theories and concepts
Chapter 7: On the case: Cases, case selection and case studies
Chapter 8: Knowledge hierarchies: Why you see things the way you do
Chapter 9: The ethics of research
Chapter 10: Testing causes: Quasi-experiments to study polarisation
Chapter 11: Systematically together: Covariation to study voting
Chapter 12: How does one thing lead to another? Process tracing to study social movements and protests
Chapter 13: Compiling knowledge: Systematic reviews to study climate and the environment
Chapter 14: Researching customs, practices and expressions: Using ethnography to study identity
Chapter 15: Experiences, feelings and perceptions: Phenomenology to study inequality
Chapter 16: Text as action: Discourse analysis to study war and violent conflict
Chapter 17: Data collection with human participants: Who, how and why
Chapter 18: Data collection without human participants
Chapter 19: Qualitative data analysis
Chapter 20: Quantitative data analysis
Chapter 21: The final page — only to go back to the beginning
Supplements
Click to read author blog post
Teaching research methods in Politics & IR: Five key challenges for educators, and how to overcome them
Teaching research methods in Politics & IR: Five key challenges for educators, and how to overcome them
Click for webinar recording
Are your students anxious about learning methods? How to teach research methods without resorting to a quant-qual divide? Do your students struggle to decide on a research project? Would you like your students to be sensitive to knowledge hierarchies?
Join Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus, authors of the newly published textbook ‘Research Design in Politics and International Relations’ as they introduce ways in which teaching research methods can empower students to think like researchers, help overcome common student anxieties and reignite students’ curiosity for political questions.
Inspired by research methods teaching experience in the UK and US, Anouk and Mareike’s teaching philosophy puts student reality centrestage. This includes challenging students to break down their research into manageable choices of epistemology, research question, research design, and approach to data collection and analysis.
The approach also champions honesty about the doubts, distractions, difficulties and demotivation that come with research. To build student enthusiasm, it encourages students to learn technical skills through tackling real problems in politics, reframes barriers as decisions, and is frank about getting stuck. It invites students to think about how their approach to creating knowledge can break down existing hierarchies.
Are your students anxious about learning methods? How to teach research methods without resorting to a quant-qual divide? Do your students struggle to decide on a research project? Would you like your students to be sensitive to knowledge hierarchies?
Join Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus, authors of the newly published textbook ‘Research Design in Politics and International Relations’ as they introduce ways in which teaching research methods can empower students to think like researchers, help overcome common student anxieties and reignite students’ curiosity for political questions.
Inspired by research methods teaching experience in the UK and US, Anouk and Mareike’s teaching philosophy puts student reality centrestage. This includes challenging students to break down their research into manageable choices of epistemology, research question, research design, and approach to data collection and analysis.
The approach also champions honesty about the doubts, distractions, difficulties and demotivation that come with research. To build student enthusiasm, it encourages students to learn technical skills through tackling real problems in politics, reframes barriers as decisions, and is frank about getting stuck. It invites students to think about how their approach to creating knowledge can break down existing hierarchies.
