Advice on Finding a Thesis Adviser - Department of Government ...

Table 1. What type of thesis research do you want to do?
Here
(in Cambridge, or at
home with your laptop)
There
(in the field)
Indoors
I. Stay here and work
indoors. E.g. Read books at
your desk, be in Widener,
stay in front of your laptop
and crunch numbers
III. Go there and work
indoors. E.g. Utilize foreign
archives, or papers that are
kept elsewhere
Outdoors
II. Stay here and work
outdoors. E.g. Stay in the
area and talk with people,
observe people, run surveys
or focus groups
IV. Go there and work
outdoors. E.g. Going to a
foreign country or DC to talk
with people, observe people,
run surveys or focus groups
All four types of research can lead to excellent pieces of scholarship, and the
differences between them do not reflect differences in intellectual rigor, but rather in your
personal preferences for research environment. What type of person you are, and what
you care about will determine what sort of research you’d like to pursue. Remember Prof.
Domínguez’s advice that “the only good senior thesis is the one you want to write.”
Political Theory Theses. In contrast to IR, Comparative, and American theses,
Government concentrators who write political theory theses do often tackle normative
questions. Prof. Nelson points out that there is an enormous array of possible political
theory thesis topics you might write on. Given these many possibilities, one question you
may have is: What does a political theory thesis look like?
Political theory thesis questions can be roughly categorized into three types:
1) Purely historical, e.g. Locke’s theory of slavery has often seemed difficult to
square with the rest of his political theory. Can a consideration of 17 th -century
understandings of slavery and of Locke’s participation in these debates shed light
on this interpretive puzzle? Or, commentators disagree on the substance of
Hobbes’s theory of justice; what is the proper way to understand what Hobbes
means by it?
2) Partly historical/partly normative, e.g. can an explication of the role of
corporations in early modern thought shed light on current debates about the
corporations, globalization, and governance.
3) Purely normative, e.g. should justice be thought of as a characteristic of
institutions, as John Rawls urges us to believe?
Professor Nelson also notes that it is wrong to think of political theory theses as an
“empirics free zone.” For example, topic number one above might involve a fair amount
of research into the institution of slavery in the 17 th century; topic two might require
research into issue of contemporary corporate governance; topic three might very well
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