Throughout the duration of my research internship, I contributed to an ongoing micro-level quantitative analysis of the partitioning of Ireland during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21) with Professor Elissa Berwick of the Department of Political Science along with Dr. Sarah Dreier from the University of New Mexico and Danielle Bohonos from the Centre of the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC). My research internship involved constructing a historical data set of political events and violence using the recently digitized District Inspector reports during the conflict from the Dublin Castle archives. Following the completion of the data set, the first quantitative analysis of the effect of the Irish partition on political violence in the literature will be conducted, with the goal of presenting the results at various political science conferences in the upcoming year.
Furthermore, the research project is distinguished through an innovative research design. In particular, to isolate the causal effects of partition, a triple difference-in-differences research design will be employed, analyzing the levels of political violence before and after partition in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and the border and non-border counties. This is to isolate the various mechanisms for which partition is predicted to have an effect.
This strong focus on research design and methodology attracted me to the project. After taking the highest level of quantitative methods courses in the political science department with Professor Berwick the year prior, I became interested in the application of the concepts introduced in real research. Thus, through the research internship opportunity, I hoped to familiarize myself with how the social science research process is conducted in practice.
Specifically, interacting with my team and other members of the CSDC was a highlight during my research internship. Through our bi-weekly team meetings throughout the summer, I had the opportunity to share my progress on the data set and ontology construction and participate in open-ended discussions on the direction of the research project. Both professors specifically sought my input on constructing the design, for instance, asking me for the underlying dynamics I observed while coding the archives that could serve as a potential robustness check or as something we would want to address in the main analysis. Moreover, with the data set being far from straightforward to code, I had many opportunities to present case-by-case analyses of how to deal with certain events with the team. This made me consistently engaged and allowed me to make valuable and genuine contributions to the research project.
Although the frequent meetings with the team assisted me throughout the summer, the data set construction nonetheless proved to be challenging. The data set involved coding various instances of attacks on people and property, each with different targets and perpetrators. Not only did this involve great mental discipline in reading these reports and coding them accordingly, but it also involved making various ‘judgment’ calls where it was unclear whether a particular event was related to the conflict or details were not made explicit. While this made it daunting to continuously rely on my judgment for coding data eventually to be used in quantitative analysis, my team reassured me and had me take detailed research notes to clarify my thought process. Furthermore, I was trained based on an ontology document clearly outlining how certain cases should be coded, and I had the opportunity to contribute to it as I came across unique events. Lastly, I was also responsible for conducting intercoder-reliability checks throughout the summer, which involved statistically verifying that my team and I coded consistently with each other. Where discrepancies arose, these were identified and discussed in detail, and a decision was made on how to treat the event in question. This was very valuable, as it taught me how political science researchers deal with the inherent subjectivity in the field and the necessary steps to make the research as transparent and consistent as possible.
At the conclusion of my ARIA research internship, I am confident in pursuing graduate studies in political science or a related field. I now know what to expect when participating in future research studies and was able to make valuable contributions to a theoretically engaging project. Furthermore, the connections made throughout the project have assisted me in finding the correct programs and preparing applications for the upcoming year. This is something that would not be possible without the ARIA experience, and I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Joan Eakin and Christopher Hoffmann for their contribution to the program. Exposing undergraduates to social science research in practice is a valuable skill and allowed me to clarify my goals for the future and contribute to important research.
