cps-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a research question fits Comparative Political Studies (CPS) and how to frame its comparative contribution. Tests comparative leverage and travel; it does not design the study or write the paper.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill cps-topic-selection --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Topic Selection & Comparative Fit (cps-topic-selection) CPS publishes work in **comparative politics** — democratization & regimes, political institutions, political behavior & participation, ethnic politics & conflict, comparative political economy, and parties & elections — where the contribution is **comparative** in design or in the portability of the claim. The first job is to confirm the question earns a place in a comparative-politics journal, not a single-country area journal and not a general poli-sci flagship. ## When to trigger - Choosing a question or deciding if CPS is the right venue - A draft reads as a single-country case with no comparative leverage - A reviewer or colleague said "this is interesting but why CPS / why comparative?" - Deciding whether a single case can carry a portable theoretical claim ## The comparative-fit test (run all four) 1. **Comparative leverage.** What *varies* across your cases or over time, and does that variation identify the claim? "Why do some countries/regions/periods do X while others do Y?" is the CPS question form. A snapshot of one country at one time has none. 2. **Travel.** State the argument as a mechanism, then name a *diff
- When to trigger
- The comparative-fit test (run all four)
- Framing priority (highest first)
- Single-case work that still fits
- Sibling guard (do not mis-target)
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the cps-topic-selection skill do?
Use when deciding whether a research question fits Comparative Political Studies (CPS) and how to frame its comparative contribution. Tests comparative leverage and travel; it does not design the study or write the paper.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill cps-topic-selection --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.