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Lenses of Analysis is an interactive presentation
of the framework known in political science as “levels of analysis.”
By employing a flexible navigation structure in which students themselves
choose how to engage with the study of international relations,
the webbook attempts to emphasize the basic notion that choice of
assumptions affects what you study and thus affects the conclusions
you draw. If students filter their study through the First Lens,
they will examine the impact of individual leaders and their decision
making. By choosing to view the same international event through
the Second Lens, a different set of variables receives attention—the
domestic structure of states. When they click on the Third Lens,
concentration shifts to the systemic distribution of power and international
organizations. Each of these lenses focuses attention on a particular
factor that is significant for explaining international politics.
Three general learning paths are supported. First,
the separation of variables into distinct clusters that can be retrieved
through a click on a particular lens will help interactively emphasize
the analytical distinction between certain assumptions. Second,
the nonlinear navigation (students can start their case study wherever
they want) reemphasizes this point through a different learning
path. The importance of choice should be apparent when the student
goes to a different lens to examine the same research case. (An
instructor might wish to have a student stop with one lens and debate
another student who has focused solely on a different lens. Students
themselves may wish to discuss with each other along these lines.)
Third, students will be challenged to determine whether all three
lenses are necessary for strong explanation. The students are left
to pull together the competing views they have examined through
each lens. While clicking through all three lenses certainly will
provide more detail, it should not be presumed that mixing all three
leads to better explanation. One lens may become preferred over
others; it may be the basis for a sustainable explanation.
Additionally, students should get a feel for how
the discipline of political science divides itself over basic assumptions.
Lenses of Analysis offers the most simplified version of
levels of analysis clustering study around individuals, the domestic
structure of states, and the international system. Before engaging
in the sophisticated examination of how different frameworks and
assumptions might be integrated into more comprehensive theory (a
call consistently made, but rarely answered within the profession
of political science), students should be aided through Lenses
of Analysis in clarifying the fault lines that exist between
scholars of international relations.
The site is divided into two sections: Demo, and
Main. The demo is an open site that provides an example of how Lenses
of Analysis works. Students can click through a segment of a
case study on the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The main section may
be entered through the use of a password obtained online.
This section contains a full introduction to the conceptual framework
of Lenses of Analysis. The literature and debates concerning
the traditional levels of analysis framework are presented and students
are provided an explanation of how the sets of variables associated
with each lens differ. The trade-off between the parsimony of this
approach and more detailed complex modeling is also discussed, as
well as how Lenses relates to Kenneth Waltz's original conception
of three images found in his seminal work, Man, the State and
War. The introduction of each lens is supported with illustrative
examples of contemporary international politics as well as the classic
historical case of the Peloponnesian War. The student then can use
the framework to guide an examination of two more detailed cases—the
Kosovo intervention of 1999 and the economic integration effort
of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In each section
students can work through a series of linked question strings, in
which the answer to one question leads to feedback and other related
questions and answers. Throughout the site, students may click on
links to glossary definitions, outside sites of related importance,
and audiovisual information that captures key aspects of certain
variables.
The demo is organized around the research question,
why did Iraq and the coalition of the United Nations led by the
United States go to war in January 1991? The demo offers a brief
overview of the question, a historical background section, a First
Lens analysis of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's decision making,
and a single question string related to that discussion. A full
lenses-of-analysis approach would look at several other key players,
how the domestic structure of the United States and Iraq might have
affected the decision for war (Second Lens), and how the influences
of the regional balance of power and United Nations inclined both
sides to conflict (Third Lens). In the main section, the Kosovo
and NAFTA cases are presented through all three lenses with question
strings attached to each. Additionally, each lens is discussed in
detail in main section's introductory chapter.
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