The Practice of Political Scientists 1.     Why do political scientists compare nations? To gain insights about politics from analyzing similarities and/or differences between different nations 2.     How do political scientists compare nations? They collect data and make observations in order to describe patterns and trends and explain political behavior of the government, individuals, groups, and organizations. 3.     Which six nations will you be comparing in this course? China, Iran, UK, Russia, Nigeria, Mexico 4.     What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative analysis? Qualitative is descriptive (speeches, cartoons), quantitative is numerical (charts tables graphs) 5.     What is the difference between correlation and causation? correlation- exists when there is an association between two or more variables causation- is difficult to determine with certainty in comp politics how is blank causing blank 6.     What is the HDI?  AND What could a political scientists use it for?  (Give an example from gapminder.org or a similar website) Life expectancy, GDP per capita, and literacy - helps analysts see what the standard of living is like in different countries Gapminder HDI Link: [https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$bubble$encoding$color$data$space@=country&=time;&concept=hdi_human_development_index;&scale$type:null&domain:null&zoomed:null;;;;;;&chart-type=bubbles&url=v1](https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$bubble$encoding$color$data$space@=country&=time;&concept=hdi_human_development_index;&scale$type:null&domain:null&zoomed:null;;;;;;&chart-type=bubbles&url=v1) 7.     Define each of the following and explain what it could be used for by a political scientist. a.     Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp) GDP is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services within a country's border - pretty much is a comprehensive score card of the country's economic health- can help political scientists see the effect the government has on the economy, and see the effect of the people on the economy per capita - measurement of the GDP per person in a country's population b.     GDP growth rate [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp) compares the year-year or quarterly change in the country's economic output- measures how fast the economy is growing, also has a close correlation to inflation and unemployment c.     Gini index (coefficient) [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gini-index.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gini-index.asp) Determines a nation's level of income inequality by measuring the income or wealth distribution across its population- can help analysts see how policies and the government and economics are reflected in the income of the people d.     Freedom House [https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2021](https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2021) There are a few different kinds of freedom areas. There's global freedom, Internet freedom, and democracy status. This is helpful for political scientists to see because freedom is often granted by the government, and they can see what different kinds of freedom look like under different types of governments. e.     Transparency International [https://www.transparency.org/en](https://www.transparency.org/en) It looks like this seeks to keep the world free of corruption. Seeing this as a political scientist is important because corruption in rampant in politics and seeing a corrupted leader and seeing the issues prevalent in that nation can explain a lot about different types of governments f.      Fragile States Index  [https://fragilestatesindex.org/](https://fragilestatesindex.org/) This index determines the level of peace in each nation. This is important to political scientists because it helps them see what degree of peace comes with different types of government, and if there is a correlation there.