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Summary of IPRES Qualitative Part - Readings
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In-depth summary of the qualitative part studied during IPRES. It presents a summary of all the readings needed to pass the course.
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IPRESCHAPTER 2
Challenges to positivist approaches in the social sciences
Interpretivism
Interpretivism: it maintains that the social world is fundamentally different from the world of natural
phenomena and that we, therefore, cannot gain knowledge of it by employing the methods used to
explain the natural world
• Social phenomena are subjectively created
• The primary goal of social science must be to achieve an understanding of human behavior
through an interpretation of the meanings, beliefs, and ideas that give people reasons for acting
• There is a multiplicity of interpretivist approaches: hermeneutics, cultural anthropology verstehen
social theory, critical theory, and post-structuralism
While positivist and interpretivist approach have different ontological and epistemological
commitments, researchers working in both traditions generally follow the same methodological
conventions, and so can understand what those working within the other tradition are doing.
The methodological conventions they share include the following:
a. Clear definition of premises from conclusions
b. Acknowledgement that sampling strategies matter
c. Recognition that some standards of validation must be established for the sources of evidence
used
d. Differentiation of causes from correlations
e. Recognition that the specter of spuriousness haunts all correlations
f. Acceptance of deductive logic
g. Belief in the need for the contestability of findings
These shared methodological conventions may be seen as reflecting a common research practice
founded in the hypothetico-deductive method (Hempel, see page 38).
The hermeneutic method (interpretivism) is actually the hypothetico-deductive method (positivism)
applied to materials that are ‘meaningful’.
,However, interpretivists and positivists differ in their conception of what constitutes explanation and
in their understanding of evidence:
• ‘External’ explanations are associated with positivist research:
o They tend to work via correlations or deductions on the basis of ascribed reasons, and so need
not concern themselves with actors’ understanding of the world
o Rational choice theory: the rational choices of individuals will produce predictable, law-like
outcomes
o Empirical evidence about the behavior, and the effects of the behavior, of particular actors
• ‘Internal’ explanations are associated with interpretivist research:
o They are concerned with the world of meanings inhabited by the actor and with detailed
interpretative work on specific cultures
o Evidence about the beliefs of actors whose actions comprise the phenomena to be explained
The analysis of ethnic conflict: a positivist (rational choice), interpretivist (constructivist), and
critical realist approach
Why have relations among communities that had been living together peacefully became polarized
so quickly, before finally dissolving into savage violence?
Let’s consider, firstly, an analysis which uses rational choice theory and is therefore based on
positivist tenets:
• Rational choice theory explains outcomes as the result of rational choices made by individuals
within a given set of material and structural circumstances
• It shows that, givens a particular set of circumstances, the strategic interactions of agents will
produce predictable, law-like outcomes
• To explain the ‘puzzle’ of why Serbs and Croats in Croatia became rapidly polarized in 1991,
James Fearon developed a game-theoretical model (a model based on assumptions of game
theory) of how groups of people interact when confronted with a situation of uncertainty
• If ethnic minorities don’t believe that the ethnic majority will not infringe on their rights, they
will prefer to fight for succession while the state is still weak
• This explanation is consistent with the hypothetico-deductive model
o First, Fearon specifies the set of initial conditions in which the hypothesized commitment
problem might be expected to arise
o Second, on the basis of his game-theoretic model, Fearon generates hypotheses about what,
with the emergence of a commitment problem, makes ethnic war more or less likely
, • Fearon’s evidence consists in showing that there is a ‘fit’ between the deductions of the theory
and the observed behavioral outcomes: the outcome is consistent with the theoretical predictions
• He suggests that his findings in this case are generalizable to other cases
Let’s consider, secondly, an analysis which uses constructivism and is therefore based on
interpretivist tenets:
• Constructivism maintains that reality does now exist as something independent of us and is not,
therefore, merely discovered by us: it is socially, and actively, constructed
• Social phenomena are social construct in the sense that their shape and form is imbued with social
values, norms, and assumptions, rather than being the product of purely individual thoughts or
meaning
• Society is an environment that forms and influences the identities and interests of actors and
makes them who they are
• Since, the interests and identities of actors are not given – but results from social interaction -they
cannot be abstracted from the social conditions which produce them; and they are subject to
change as a result of political processes (in this, it differs from the rational choice approach)
• Murat Somer argues that ethnic conflict arises when processes of ethnic identity construction in
the public arena construct a divisive image of identities (‘cascade process’)
• He seeks to understand how public political discourses form and influence the identities and
interests of actors
• He then combines survey data with examination of the historical events to provide evidence of
the changing nature of public and private vies and to suggest the relationship between them
Let’s consider, thirdly, an analysis is based on critical realistic tenets:
• Critical realism maintains that explanation can be based both on observable elements of social
life as well as unobservable social structures or mechanisms
• Unlike scientific realism, critical realism insists that social phenomena ‘do not exist
independently of the agents’ conceptions of what they are doing in their activity’
• Critical realism assumes that structures are the ever-present condition of human agency, and that
agents interact with, and thereby reproduce or transform the structures that enable and constrain
their actions
• Margaret Archer’s ‘morphological model’: ‘structural conditioning’ conditions ‘social
interaction’ which in turn generates ‘structural elaboration’
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