Capstone 2026/27 (Group 9)

Workshop 4: Situating the project

Violeta Haas

Department of Political Science

School of Social Sciences and Philosophy

Trinity College Dublin

Today

  1. How to write a literature review
  2. Mapping the literature
  3. Theory
  4. Research design
  5. Next steps

How to write a literature review

Adapted from materials by Dr Matthias Dilling

Organise your readings

You want to highlight gaps and weaknesses your research will have answers to, so categorise similar studies into the same family and contrast families.

  • Build an overview table or annotated bibliography while you read
  • Then a one-page mind-map/overview: how readings relate, what is contested, which sides
Author Year Title RQ & puzzle Outcome Key explanatory factor Findings Strengths & limits

How to group readings

Group individual readings into categories large enough for 3+ pieces, small enough to mark a real division.

Examples:

  • Overlap vs differences on key concepts (e.g. “populism” as an ideology vs as a political style)
  • (Type of) variation on the dependent variable (e.g. levels of inequality vs changes in inequality)
  • Key independent variables/theoretical tradition (e.g. institutional: electoral rules vs structural: inequality)
  • Shared strengths and/or weaknesses (e.g. same sample bias: untested in non-democratic contexts or multiparty systems)
  • Measurement/data for key variables (e.g. studies using immigration stocks vs inflows)

Group by claim, not by paper

Prefer:

Research on … finds effects for voters (e.g. …), parties (e.g. …), and norms (e.g. …).

Example:
Most of this work studies police–civilian interactions, documenting bias in whom officers stop and search (Pierson et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2024), how they speak to minority civilians (Voigt et al., 2017; Rho et al., 2023), and when they use force (Ba et al., 2021; Hoekstra and Sloan, 2022).

Avoid:

Author A argues … Author B shows … Author C finds …

Mapping the literature

Identifying Dimensions

Identifying dimensions by which to cluster the literature:

How do LGBTQ+ free zones in Poland affect turnout among LGBTQ+ populations?

What broader constructs are my (in)dependent variables part of?

↓

How do anti-minority policies affect minority political participation?

Who is the actor behind my (in)dependent variables?

↓

How does top-down discrimination affect minority behavior?

Dimensions:

  1. Who discriminates (top-down vs. bottom-up)
  2. Whose behavior is observed (majority vs. minority)

Map the Literature

How do LGBTQ+ free zones in Poland affect turnout among LGBTQ+ populations?

whose behavior is observed?
Minority group
Majority group
who discriminates?
Bottom-up
hostility
Bottom-up discrimination → minority outcomes
  • Swank & Fahs (2013): anti-LGBTQ hate crime → LGBTQ electoral activism
  • Li & Wu (2024): anti-Latino hate crimes → Hispanic turnout
  • Oshri et al. (2026): anti-Muslim hate-crime → Muslim participation
  • Branton & Kropf (2026): anti-African American hate crime → African American mode of voting (vote-by-mail vs. in-person)
Bottom-up discrimination → majority outcomes
  • Roman & Thompson (2024): civilian anti-LGBTQ+ violence → prosocial attitudes among majority
  • Pickard et al. (2023): far-right extremist violence → majority attitudes
Top-down
hostility
Top-down discrimination → minority outcomes
  • Ayoub & Page (2020): LGBTQ rights climate → political participation (efficacy)
  • Page et al. (2022): LGBTQ rights climate → political participation (efficacy)
Top-down discrimination → majority outcomes
  • Abou-Chadi & Finnigan (2019): marriage equality → majority attitudes
  • Flores & Barclay (2016): marriage equality → majority attitudes
  • Campbell & Monson (2008): anti–marriage-equality ballot initiatives → majority mobilization
  • Levy & Levy (2017): US state gay/lesbian rights policy → anti-LGBT hate crime
  • Haas et al. (2025): anti-LGBTQ policies → majority electoral outcomes

Aim for broad dimensions that still leave your RQ in a relatively empty cell

→ Each row, column, or cell can then be one paragraph in your Literature Review!

Exercise: Map your Literature

15–20 minutes

Visualise the dimensions by which you have organised your literature review.

  • Sketch the axes that structure the debate around your RQ
  • Place the studies you already have into a matrix
  • Ask whether a different set of dimensions would yield stronger clusters
  • If time: design one alternative matrix that might organise the literature more clearly

Theory

Theory section

Main goal: explain the theoretical concepts and mechanisms that underpin your hypothesized relationship.

  1. Define key theoretical concepts
  2. Provide a mechanism — a plausible account of the process that produces a systematic relationship between X and Y
  3. State and justify the assumptions of the research question
  4. Formulate empirical expectations (derived from theories you build on and mechanisms you describe) that are falsifiable

1. Theoretical Concepts

RQ: Are governing parties with core ministries electorally rewarded?

Examples:

  • Electoral accountability / retrospective voting — do voters punish or reward parties for governing performance?
  • Coalition government — how credit and blame are shared among partners
  • Core ministries / portfolio salience — why some offices matter more for attribution and reward

2. Mechanism

RQ: Are governing parties with core ministries electorally rewarded?

Core ministry
A
B
C
Electoral support

Links:

A · Competence inference: voters treat control of core portfolios as a signal of party competence
B · Credit claiming: parties in core ministries can more credibly claim achievements
C · Clarity of responsibility: core portfolios reduce attribution ambiguity in coalitions

3. Assumptions

RQ: Are governing parties with core ministries electorally rewarded?

Assumption: voters know which parties hold core ministries

If voters do not know who holds which ministry, links A (Competence), B (Credit), & C (Responsibility) break!

It is thus important to:

  1. Test the assumption directly in the design (e.g. measure whether voters actually know), or
  2. Justify why it is likely to hold in your setting (e.g., core ministries are more visible in media and public debate)

4. Empirical expectations

RQ: Are governing parties with core ministries electorally rewarded?

Hypothesis: Parties that hold core ministries gain more electoral support than coalition partners that do not.

Describing & visualising Theory

Recommendation: See Roman & Thompson (2024) for a clear way to describe and visualise your theoretical model (main causal chain + the links that connect X to Y, empirical expectations).

Figure 1 · Empirical expectations
Roman and Thompson 2024 Figure 1: stylized expectations for no shift, durable shift, and FPVR model after violence against marginalized groups
Figure 2 · Theoretical model
Roman and Thompson 2024 Figure 2: Fickle Prosocial Violence Response model linking salient illegitimate violence to temporary prosocial attitudes

Research design

A useful structure

Main goal: a detailed description of the data, operationalisation, and methods.

  1. Case selection
    Why these countries, this period, or this event are well suited to answer the research question
  2. Data
    What data do you use, and from where, what are limitations,…? What is the unit of analysis (the row in the dataset)?
  3. Operationalisation
    How are Y and X measured? Which controls do you use, and how are they measured?
  4. Method
    Brief description of the method, why it fits the hypotheses, what assumptions it requires (e.g. parallel trends for difference-in-differences)

→ Detailed enough to enable others to replicate your study.

Next steps

Short submission 4

From your Group 9 theme syllabus, the research-design assignment is Short submission 4:

  • Due: Mon 23 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm
  • Length: 400–500 words (5%)
  • Task: an initial research-design outline of how you will assess which answer the evidence best supports

Cover:

  1. Cases / setting / time period — what you will study, and why
  2. Data / sources + unit of analysis — what one row/observation is
  3. Measurement — how you measure the main outcome and explanatory factors (and key trade-offs)
  4. Method — which method, why it fits the question, and important assumptions

Then present it in Workshop 5 (Thu 3 Dec).

Ethics Approval needs to be submitted before December!

Questions