The reason you finds Apps in the present context is that you often will be searching for theories that can guide you when investigating or analysing empirical research questions. Scholars do such searches all the time. The included applications simply illustrate how analysts have produced theoretically informed empirical studies in different fields of study.
To be ‘informed’ by theory comes in different varieties. Some analysts aim attestingtheories, a procedure that is part of but far from the entire game. Others think through the encounter between theoretical claims and available empirics (also called data or evidence) and use theory to create operational guidelines about features to look for. Still others infer hypotheses from theoretical claims and consider suitable methods to manage analytical procedures.
Readers will know thatInternational Relations Theory: A new introductionis an introduction to theoretical perspectives on international and global affairs. On the one hand it is useful to know about theoretical reflections, how different theorists produce (partly) different worldviews and images or models of international or global actors, processes and structures. But theories are meant to be used, that is, applied. The Apps collection here is meant to serve as a stepping stone between the theoretical perspectives presented in the book and your own empirical investigations. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that the antonym to theoretically informed empirical research is what C Wright Mills calls ‘mindless empiricism’ and that, according to Anthony Giddens, “The best kind of empirical research is theoretically informed empirical research.”
