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Government 601, Fall 2000: ``Explanantions'' Paper Assignment

Your assignment is to describe, analyze and evaluate the explanation or explanations used in an article published in a high-prestige journal or a book published by a high-prestige press. What is the article or book (or perhaps chapter of a book) trying to explain? What is the explanation, or what are the most important explanations, the piece considers? In terms of the ideas discussed through the first seven weeks of the course (i.e., through October 23), and perhaps other ideas, analyze the explanations. What kinds of explanations are they? What, if any, are the causal comparisons that the piece develops? What kinds of evidence does the piece use to support or refute the explanations or aspects of the explanations? How convincing is the evidence regarding the explanations?

Your paper is due November 6. The paper should be no more than twelve double-spaced, typed pages in length (a title page does not count toward the total).





Walter Mebane
Mon Aug 28 19:04:03 EDT 2000