Choose two readings from the electives list. These are from the most recent few issues of the Annual Review of Political Science. Most of these pieces are a combination of literature review and theory-building through synthesis of existing studies.

Using what we discussed in the lecture, identify the following for each reading.

• What is the general research topic covered by the paper?

• What are some of the specific research questions the author identifies?

• How does the author arrive at the research questions?

What have other researchers said about the topic? How does the author synthesize these previous studies? What are the identified shortcomings?) To answer this question, think about the six cells in the table explaining a literature review. The lecture notes on Caprioli and Boyer should also be useful, but note here your discussion should be more detailed than the lecture notes given the thoroughness of these review papers.

• After reading the literature review, do you have a good understanding of the topic? Why or why not? What else might the author have discussed to help you understand the topic in a more meaningful way?

Choose readings:

Druckman and Lupia, 2015, "Preference Change in Competitive Political Environments

Lawless, 2015, “Female Candidates and Legislators

Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2014, “Public Attitudes Toward Immigration

Valentino, 2014, “Why We Kill

Rudra and Tobin, 2017, "When Does Globalization Help the Poor?.