A framing case study discusses Uruguay’s attempt to limit cigarette sales by foreign firms. Then the chapter provides an overview of international investment law. The chapter discusses: (1) how states have historically protected foreign investment using international law, including major concepts and the evolution of investment institutions; (2) major foreign investor rights under contemporary investment law, including rules for expropriation, treatment standards, performance requirements, and legal remedies; and (3) how states seek to balance the protection of foreign investment against their own state authority in areas like maintaining public order and safety, preserving national security, and protecting the environment and labor.

While most programmes in neuroscience are understandably built around imparting foundational knowledge of cell biology, neurons, networks and physiology, there is less attention paid to critical perspectives on methods. This book addresses this gap by covering a broad array of topics, including the philosophy of science, challenges of terminology and language, reductionism and social aspects of science, to challenge claims to explanation and understanding in neuroscience. Using examples from dominant areas of neuroscience research alongside novel material from systems that are less often presented, it promotes the general need of scientists (and non-scientists) to think critically. Chapters also explore translations between neuroscience and technology, artificial intelligence, education and criminology. Featuring accessible material alongside further resources for deeper study, this work serves as an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology, neuroscience and biological sciences, while also supporting researchers in exploring philosophical and methodological challenges in contemporary research.

Data is systematically gathered information based around the concepts expressed in your theory. Identifying observable indicators for concepts in your theory and hypotheses greatly assists in achieving valid, reliable measurement and a satisfactory test of your hypotheses. Qualitative data generally derive from two sources, texts and human subjects. Data collection from texts frequently involves archival research, though data sourcing from strictly secondary sources can also be viable. Data from human subjects may involve elite interviewing, mass surveys, or participant observation. Your reference librarians are best positioned to help you locate relevant resources in your library and elsewhere.

This chapter introduces the basic parts of a standard empirical paper – introduction, literature review, theory & hypotheses, analysis, and conclusions. We then home in on the first one that most people write, the literature review. The literature review is a unique genre of writing with its own conventions and expectations. Good literature reviews are multi-stage processes that show evidence of redrafting and that place literature in a context that allows the reader to not only understand the shape of the forest – the entire body of literature – but to locate the author’s claims within in that literature.

Good hypotheses identify observable implications of the theory – things we would observe if the theory were correct – and make predictions about relationships between measurable indicators of the theory’s concepts. Measurement thus plays a critical role in the transition from claims to tests. Six types of hypotheses are common in political science. Probabilistic hypotheses include directional, relative, no-effect, and conditional types; these hypotheses make claims that they expect to be true, on average, across many cases. Deterministic hypotheses, on the other hand, make claims that should always hold; these include claims of necessity and/or sufficiency. Preregistration attempts to reduce the incentives to adjust hypotheses to match findings.

This chapter presents some of the basic conventions of writing empirical papers in political science. Abstracts, introductions, and conclusions are formulaic and follow a predictable pattern; they are often among the last parts of a paper to be written. Conventions for reporting quantitative results include indicating significance, goodness of fit, and N in tables, discussing the significance of coefficients rather than of variables, and using baseline and multiple models to support your findings. Conventions for reporting qualitative research vary by research design, but they include careful obfuscation of sources for interview data, clear sequencing and temporality indicators in process tracing, minimizing direct quotations, and providing estimates of uncertainty for all conclusions drawn from qualitative data. Always acknowledge all help from outside sources in your paper.

A framing case study examines North Korea’s nuclear tests. Then the chapter examines how states make international law. The chapter specifically discusses: (1) treaties, including entry into treaties, reservations, interpretation, and exit; (2) customary international law, including state practice, acceptance as law (opinio juris), and conceptual challenges; and (3) other important factors, including general principles, unilateral declarations, and peremptory norms (jus cogens).