(I’m also wondering whether I am being overly concerned with theoretically justifying things!)
I think I would agree with this. It seems like you’re trying to demonstrate your knowledge of a particular framework or set of frameworks through this exercise and you’re letting that constrain your choices a lot. Maybe that will be a good choice if you’re definitely going into academia as a political scientist after this, but otherwise, I would structure the approach around how research happens most naturally in the real world, which is that you have a research question that would have concrete practical value if it were answered, and then you set out to answer it using whatever combination of theories and methods makes sense for the question.
I think I would agree with this. It seems like you’re trying to demonstrate your knowledge of a particular framework or set of frameworks through this exercise and you’re letting that constrain your choices a lot. Maybe that will be a good choice if you’re definitely going into academia as a political scientist after this, but otherwise, I would structure the approach around how research happens most naturally in the real world, which is that you have a research question that would have concrete practical value if it were answered, and then you set out to answer it using whatever combination of theories and methods makes sense for the question.
Thanks! I’ll take a break from thinking about the theory—ironically, I am fairly confident I don’t want to go into academia.
Again, appreciate your thoughts on this. Hope I’ll hear from you again if I post another Shortform about my thesis!