Working as Research Assistants at the Department of Political Science and Management; Project Regions in Flux

We are two lucky research assistants on this project, Marie Nørvåg and Zehra Al-Shamarti. We are both master’s students of Political Science and Management, in our first year. This is the first time any of us are part of a research project. 

At the start of the semester, a posting for the position of research assistant was published on Canvas for the master’s class in Political Science and Management. As with a normal job, we applied with our CV and motivational letters, and had to go through an interview process, before being hired. The position included 50 hours for each of us. 

The Project

These voluntary exits have yet to be systematically studied, and the goal of the project is to compare the mechanisms underlying these withdrawals in different regional settings. In addition, the project argues these exits can be conceived as differentiated disintegration. In some cases, we also observe a path back towards reintegration. The two aspects of voluntary exits are, therefore, their differentiated nature, and their proclivity towards reintegration at a later stage. 

The project employs disciplines from international relations, regional integration and comparative regionalism. 

The Work 

As part of our training for the case studies, we had an extensive session with our subject librarian on how to conduct a literature search. We learned the “coding” on how to use words in our searches, narrow down which keywords to search for, how to use different databases, and how to do advanced searches in Oria. This will definitely be helpful for when we will be writing our master's thesis next year!

The major part of our job has been case studies. We were both handed two cases to research in-depth. Marie studied the case of Chile’s exit from the Andean Community (CAN) in 1976, and the simultaneous six exits from the Union of South American Nations (USAN) in 2018. 

Zehra studied the case of Morocco´s exit from the African Union (OAU) in 1984, in protest against the OAU´s acceptance of the membership of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), and why they rejoined after 33 years in 2017. 

The case studies have made us use our detective hat and lenses, as we have conducted large and advanced literature searches to find relevant and credible research papers, academic articles, and/or primary sources (such as newspaper articles) to understand why these exits (and possible reintegrations) occurred. 

Part of the project has also been a quantitative study, wherein the data on each exit were researched and organized into excel for easy comparison. Examples of data for each exit were the year of withdrawal, degree of democratization in the member state, political leaning of the government at the time of withdrawal, GDPs (1 year before and 5 years after the exit), and whether the member state entered a different regional organization following the exit. 

Our Takeaway 

Our time working with the case studies has taught us good data analysis skills, which could be applied to future careers and also helpful for writing future research papers and master’s theses. We have improved our research skills, expanded our knowledge and we have made valuable connections. We have also gained a deeper understanding of the scientific process, and we have also gotten the opportunity to discover new knowledge and expand what we already know. We have not only improved our academic skills, but also our workplace/career and personal skills, like teamwork, communication, and time management. In addition, we have learned to foster analytical and critical thinking etc.  

We really appreciate the opportunity the arrangements of students in research projects have given us, and encourage fellow students to apply for similar projects. The experience is invaluable!