POLSCI 2NN3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Polity Data Series, Freedom House, Operationalization
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You know what you want to look at (democracy, development, political participation, You need to clearly de ne your variables. Conceputalization specifying what you mean by a given variable. De ne what you mean by the term. Your conceptual de nition may or may not capture the objective essence of a phenomenon. But it does need to clearly and unambiguously articulate what you mean by the term. Operationalization linking the conceptual de nition of your variables to observable data o ex. of operationalizing democracy: dichotomous measures, an index like that of freedom house of polity iv. There"s many ways but you need to be explicit - they can"t be vague ideas or vague measures. How will you identify or measure the variables: the possible scores for your variable must be mutually exclusive, your operational de nition must offer exhaustive coverage for all relevant cases. How will you see economic growth, prejudice, alienation, democracy, terrorism, etc.