Building an Evidence Base for Research Ethics in Political Science

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The five papers in this panel help build an evidence base in political science to inform decision-making with respect to research ethics and integrity. The first two papers provide new evidence to evaluate risks, benefits, and norms in research on violence and other sensitive topics. Baron et al. present results from a systematic review and an original field experiment to assess the impact–including harms, benefits, and other reactions to research participation–of asking participants to reflect on the violence they have experienced. Kirilova and Elman share findings from a survey of researchers experienced with human participants research, including on sensitive topics; they assess similarities and differences with respect to how researchers view data sharing across disciplines, as well as across individual professional demographics. The following two papers assess the potential effects and current best practices of trauma-informed research. Herman reviews the multidisciplinary evidence regarding best practices for trauma-informed data collection and guidance for how researchers can incorporate trauma-informed approaches in their research. Weiss reviews empirical scholarship on the potential for trauma-related research to induce distress in research participants, compares it to relevant ethics scholarship and raises additional concerns that go beyond a focus on retraumatization of research participants. In the final paper, Tapscott discusses four ethical “scandals” in the social sciences to trace how researchers justify cost-benefit ratios within the current institutional framework for governing research ethics, and critically evaluates the dominant processes that inform ethical decision-making. Taken together, these five papers deepen knowledge on ethical decision-making in political science and other social and behavioral sciences, with practical implications for future research.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Asking about Violence: Evidence on the Ethics of Measurement in Violent Contexts - Hannah Baron, Tulane University; Elayne Stecher; Graeme Blair, UCLA; Rebecca Littman, MIT; Lauren E Young, University of California, Davis

• Researchers’ Views on Data Sensitivity and Data-Sharing Risk - Dessislava Kirilova, Syracuse University; Colin Elman, Syracuse University; Sebastian Karcher, Syracuse University

• Trauma-informed Data Collection for Political Science Research - Biz Herman, International Rescue Committee

• Beyond Retraumatization: Paradigms for Trauma-Informed Research - Amanda Weiss, Cornell University

• Contesting Risks and Benefits through Ethical Scandals - Rebecca Tapscott

Chair

• Hannah Baron Tulane University

Discussants

• Justine Davis University of Michigan

• Elayne Stecher