| name | io-research-design |
| description | Use when defending the research design of an International Organization (IO) manuscript on international-level questions — causal identification with dyadic/TSCS/network data, case selection and process tracing for international cases, survey/conjoint experiments on foreign-policy attitudes, or formal-empirical linkage. IO judges each IR tradition on its own terms and verifies results and proofs before final acceptance. Strengthens the design; it does not write code. |
Research Design (io-research-design)
IO accepts quantitative, formal, and qualitative IR work but is demanding about each. The design must
credibly connect the IR theory (io-theory-building) to evidence at or across the international
level, and rule out the strongest rival international explanation. This skill is mode-aware: pick the
section that matches your work.
When to trigger
- Specifying identification, case selection, or experimental design for an IR question
- A reviewer questioned causal claims, the level of analysis, generalization, or a confound
- Preparing a pre-analysis plan for a foreign-policy experiment
- Justifying why the design adjudicates the rival IR account from
io-literature-positioning
Quantitative / causal inference (often dyadic, TSCS, or network)
- Get the level of analysis right. State the unit (state-year, dyad-year, IGO, directed dyad,
sub-state, transnational) and why it matches the theory. Many IR mistakes are unit/level mistakes.
- Identification first. State the estimand and the assumptions that license a causal reading
(ignorability, parallel trends, exclusion, continuity); defend them, don't assert them.
- IR-specific inference traps: non-independence in dyadic data (cluster on both members /
multiway, or use AME/network models); spatial and temporal dependence in TSCS; selection into
alliances/treaties/conflict; reverse causation (does the institution cause the behavior or vice versa).
- Designs: natural experiments and DID/event study (modern staggered estimators, not naive TWFE),
IV with credible exclusion at the international level, RDD where thresholds exist, matching/weighting
with balance + sensitivity, gravity/PPML for trade flows.
- Sensitivity: how strong must an unobserved confounder be to overturn the result?
Qualitative / case-based (international cases)
- Case selection justified by design logic (typical, deviant, most/least-likely, paired comparison
across dyads or institutions) — say what the case is a case of in IR terms.
- Process tracing with explicit tests (hoop, smoking-gun, straw-in-the-wind); state what evidence
would have disconfirmed the international mechanism.
- Source transparency: archives, diplomatic records, elite interviews — plan documentation and
citation now (QDR; see
io-transparency-and-data-policy).
Experiments (survey / conjoint / lab on foreign-policy attitudes)
- Preregister design and primary analyses; report power/MDE; pre-specify subgroups.
- Be explicit about external validity: from public-opinion or elite-survey results to actual
state behavior is a real inferential leap — caveat it.
Formal-empirical linkage (a core IO design)
- Make the empirical test follow from the model's comparative statics, not a loose analogy.
- Distinguish predictions unique to your model from those shared with rival IR theories.
- Plan the proof appendix the IO editorial staff will verify before final acceptance.
The adjudication test (IO-specific)
For the single strongest rival international explanation, write one sentence: "If the rival were
true rather than my argument, the international data/cases would look like ___; instead they look like
___." If you cannot, the design does not yet identify the IR contribution.
Worked design vignette (illustrative): a treaty-ratification design
Claim: ratifying an international monitoring treaty raises later compliance. The naive cross-section
confounds the effect with selection into membership — states that mean to comply ratify. An
IO-credible design exploits variation in ratification timing: among eventual ratifiers, treat the
staggered timing as identification with a modern staggered DID/event-study estimator (not naive TWFE) and
report pre-trends. The adjudication sentence: if selection drove compliance, the gain would appear
before ratification; instead it appears only after and tracks monitoring intensity. A sensitivity check
then asks how strong an unobserved confounder must be to overturn it (say, twice the observed regime-type
effect — illustrative). Timing-based identification, a rival-ruling counterfactual, and a sensitivity
bound convert an association into an IR causal claim at IO.
Identification-threat table (IR-specific confounds and the design answer)
| Threat | Where it appears | Design answer |
|---|
| Selection into treaty/alliance/IO membership | compliance, cooperation studies | ratification-timing, instrument, or selection model + sensitivity |
| Dyadic / network non-independence | any dyad-level outcome | multiway/dyadic-robust SEs or AME/latent-space models |
Execution bridge (StatsPAI / Stata MCP)
Estimate and audit the design, don't only describe it. Full map:
execution-with-mcp. International Organization is IR — country/dyad panels with difficult identification; foreground the source of variation and robustness to alternative explanations.
detect_design → recommend → fit with as_handle=true → audit_result.- Observational causal claims: staggered DiD (
callaway_santanna / sun_abraham +
bacon_decomposition + honest_did_from_result); IV (effective_f_test +
anderson_rubin_ci); RDD (rdrobust + mccrary_test).
- Experiments: randomization-based inference,
romano_wolf for many-outcome
family-wise control, and mediate for mediation (not naive controlling-away).
- Sensitivity:
oster_delta / sensemakr for observational claims.
Report the effect size in interpretable units; route the full battery to the
appendix/supplement. A run end-to-end (synthetic data, real returns) is in the
JF execution walkthrough.
Anti-patterns
- Ignoring dyadic non-independence; clustering at the wrong level; naive TWFE on staggered treatment
- A domestic-level design used to support an international-level claim (level mismatch)
- "Causal" language on a design that only supports association across states
- Convenience case selection dressed up as theory-driven
- Over-generalizing survey-experiment attitudes to real state behavior with no caveat
- Treating treaty membership as exogenous when ratification is plainly a choice
Output format
【Mode】quant-causal / qualitative / experiment / formal-empirical
【Level of analysis】unit + why it matches the IR theory
【Estimand or claim】what is being identified/shown
【Key assumption(s)】and how each is defended (incl. dyadic/TSCS dependence)
【Rival ruled out】the adjudication sentence
【Robustness/sensitivity / proof appendix】planned
【Next】io-data-analysis
Supplementary resources
