Chapter 1 – Political Research
Issues in political research
A significant questin is one that is ‘directly relevant to solving real-world problems and to furthering
the goals of a specifc scientfc literature’. There is not always agreement about what consttutes a
meaningful and plausible answer to a research queston. ut we can all agree that our answers
should help to generate valid and reliable knowledge about the questons that they address. This
requires that answers be developed through a process of inquiry that, at every step, is both self-
aware and critcal, and that researchers make clear and transparent how their conclusions were
reached.
Empirical vs normative research
Empirical research addresses events and politcal phenomena that we observe in the real world:
questons about what is; normatve research addresses questons about what should or iught ti be.
However, this distncton also appears to have decreasing relevance for many scholars. Empirical
research is always shaped to some extent by normatve thinking; and normatve research embodies
‘empirical’ claims about the character of human and natural realites. In sum, good social science is
both empirically grounded ‘and relevant to human concerns’. Normatve theorizing ‘must deal in
facts’ and empirical work ‘must deal in values’.
Positivism vs interpretivism
Positvism maintains that scientfc knowledge of the social world is limited to what can be observed;
and that we can explain and predict social phenomena by discovering empirical regularites,
formulatng law-like generalizatons, and establishing causal relatonships. Interpretvism maintains
that knowledge of the social world can be gained through interpretng the meanings which gives
people reasons for actng, and that we can, in this way, understand human behaviour, but we cannot
explain or predict it on the basis of law-like generalizatons and establishing the existence of causal
relatonships.
Positvism and interpretvism have diferent ontological and epistemological commitments – diferent
views with regard to the nature of the social world and how we can have knowledge of it. However,
researchers working in both traditons generally follow the same methodological conventons. oth
are concerned to show the relatons between premises and conclusions, and to indicate the nature
of the relatons between them. oth recognize that some standard of validaton must be established
for the sources of evidence used.
Quantitative vs quualitative research
Quanttatve research tends to be based on the statstcal analysis of carefully coded informaton for
many cases or observatons. Qualitatve research tends to be based on the discursive analysis of
more loosely coded informaton for just a few case.
Part 1: Philosophy of Social Science: Knowledge and Knowing in Social Science Research
Methodology refers to the conduct of inquiry. Among other things, this involves refecton upon the
system of values, beliefs, principles, and rules that guide analysis within a given discipline. Questons
of ontology and epistemology – questons about the complexites and ambiguites of knowing and
gaining knowledge of the social world – are a core part of this refecton.
In Chapter 2 we address three diferent approaches. The frst approach is ‘positvism’. Positvism is
usually defned by the following three tenets: (1) scientfc methods (testng of hypotheses derived
from pre-existng theories) may be applied to the study of social life; (2) knowledge is only generated
through observaton (empiricism); and (3) facts and values are distnct, thus making objectve inquiry
possible.
,A second approach, ‘interpretvism’, maintains that the social world is fundamentally diferent from
the world of natural phenomena, and that it does not exist independently of our interpretaton of it.
The task of social science, then, is fundamentally diferent from that of natural science, because the
objects of the social sciences are diferent from those found in the natural world.
The third approach, ‘scientfc realism’, maintains that knowledge is not limited to what can be
observed but also includes theoretcal enttes (unobservable elements of social life).
Part 2: How to do Research: An Overview
A second component of the research process involves the basic nuts and bolts of the research
enterprise. y this we mean the steps involved in developing a plan for pursuing research on a topic.
This involves developing a researchable queston, locatng applicable theory and literature,
formulatng testable hypotheses, and clarifying concepts and developing empirical indicators.
Step 1 of the research process involves fnding and formulatng a researchable queston, and locatng
applicable theory and literature. In our view, a research queston is one that (1) has signifcance for a
topic or issue relatng to the subject mater of our feld, (2) is researchable, and (3) has not yet been
answered defnitvely.
Once you have formulated a research queston, you will be ready to move on to Step 2 of the
research process: how to answer it. We discuss the basic components of an answer to a research
queston, what requirements it must meet, and where to fnd and how to formulate one. We
organize our discussion of the various consideratons and tasks involved in developing an answer to a
research queston around three basic requirements. The first requirement is that the answer be
appropriate to the type of queston that is being asked. The secind requirement of an answer to a
research queston is that it makes a contributon to knowledge. The third requirement is that an
answer must be clearly and fully specifed with regard to the factors or variables you think must be
taken into consideraton in order to answer your queston, and how you think these factors or
variables are related to each other.
Hypotheses can either be tested with evidence (confrmatory research), or operate as a guide to a
process of discovery (exploratory research). Exploratory research begins with a queston and perhaps
a basic propositon, probes its plausibility against various types of data, and eventually generates a
more concrete hypothesis, which can be more widely and rigorously tested.
Once you have a hunch or argument about the answer to your research queston, you then need to
develop a strategy for providing a convincing ‘test’ or demonstraton of it. This is Step 3 of the
research process: how to demonstrate the validity of your answer. The plan you develop to do this is
what we call a research design.
Part 3: How to do Research in Practice
Research methods all involve two important components: data collecton and data analysis. And it
pays to think of them as separate. We can therefore think about diferent methods of data collecton,
such as collectng informaton through the use of experiments, comparatve research, historical
research, surveys, interviews or focus groups, partcipant observaton, or collectng archival data or
documentary records such as speeches, policy documents, or media reports.
,Chapter 2 – Forms of Knowledge: Laws, Explanation, and Interpretation in the Study of the
Social World
Introduction
The terms ‘ontology’, ‘epistemology’, and ‘methodology’ relate to fundamental issues concerning
research practce and knowledge. Ontology is concerned with ‘what is’: with assumptons about the
nature of the social world and the basic elements that make up this world. Questons of ontology
relevant to politcal research include whether the social world is fundamentally diferent from the
natural world. Epistemology is concerned with what is kniwable, with what we can know about
social phenomena, and, consequently, what type or form of knowledge we can treat as legitmate
knowledge about the social world. Methodology is concerned with hiw we ibtain kniwledge, with
the means and methods that can provide us with legitmate knowledge of the politcal world.
Positivism
ehaviouralism is the term used for the applicaton of positvism and empiricism to politcal research.
For behaviouralists, politcal research involves studying and explaining the observable behaviour of
individuals or aggregates of individuals. It focuses on the queston of what politcal actors do and why
they do it.
Positivism began as a movement to establish a sound basis for social-scientfc inquiry. This is
a fundamentally important issue in politcal research. Politcal researchers want to be able to ofer
credible answers to important questons, and they are concerned to ensure that the research
practces and methods they employ enable them to do this. Positvism ofers one approach to
resolving this issue: it maintains that researchers can arrive at factual, reliable, and objectve answers
to questons about the social world by employing the methods used in the natural sciences.
Classical positivism
The first tenet of positvism is naturalism: the idea that there are no fundamental diferences
between the natural and the social sciences. Note that this idea entails an ontological presuppositon
about the social world: if there is no diference between the social and natural sciences, it must be
because there is no fundamental diference between the social and natural worlds.
The secind tenet of positvism is empiricism. Empiricism is a philosophical theory of
knowledge which claims that what we know of the world is limited to what can be observed.
Knowledge is only that which originates in sensory experience.
Additonal tenets of positvism provide further elaboraton of its positon concerning the
basic knowledge and the form it takes. Consider a third tenet of positvism: that the goal of social
science is to explain and predict social phenomena by means of laws. If the social world is like the
natural world, then, like the natural world, it also must be regular, systematc, and law-governed.
We have said that positvism holds that the social world is regular, systematc, and law-
governed, like the natural world; that social phenomena can be explained and predicted by means of
laws that have the same status as natural scientfc laws; and that the purpose of social science,
therefore, is to discover these laws. ut how do we go about discovering laws of social life? Classical
positvist thought maintains that laws can be discovered through systematc investgaton of
observable events and happenings, and by means of inductve reasoning. Induction is a means of
reasoning that begins with specifc observatons and measures, moves to an identfcaton of paterns
and regularites and to the formulaton of some tentatve hypotheses, and ends by developing some
general conclusions or theories.
We are stll discussing the third tenet of positvism: the view that explanaton of social
phenomena should proceed by the discovery of laws. For positvism, it should also establish a cause-
efect relatonship between events in the world. Positvism sees the social world as comprising
phenomena that are causally related to each other; consequently, to explain a social outcome we
, must show the factors that combined to bring it about or caused it to be more likely to occur in the
circumstances.
The fiurth tenet of positvism is that it is possible to make a distnctin between facts and
values. According to this fourth tenet, the pursuit of knowledge through applicaton of the scientfc
methods used in the natural sciences can be value-free or objectve, because statements of fact can
be distnguished from normatve statements. Science is concerned with the discovery of facts,
whereas values relate to ethics or policy studies. The argument that it is possible to distnguish
between facts and values, and to treat ‘facts’ as independent of the observer and the observer’s
values, represents a key diference between positvism and alternatve approaches.
Empiricism and logic as the basis of truth claims
Logical positivism began in the early twenteth century as a movement within philosophy. Its goal
was to introduce logical reasoning and mathematcs as sources of knowledge in additon to
empiricism. It advanced the idea that social inquiry should combine inducton and deducton as
methods of reasoning. Deduction moves from broader generalizatons and theories to specifc
observatons. Using deducton, we start, not with an observaton, but either with a theory that has
already been confrmed or with a logical argument, and then we draw out the meaning or
implicatons this has for explaining some partcular case or phenomenon. It should be noted that, in
practce, researchers do not use solely one method or the other. Scientfc inquiry typically involves a
process of contnuous interacton between theory and observaton, in which the researcher moves
from observaton to theory and from theory back to observaton. The term ‘retroducton’ describes
this interacton of inducton and deducton in an evolving, dynamic process of discovery and
hypothesis formaton. ogical positvists argue that both inductve and deductve methods of
reasoning should be used to acquire knowledge of social phenomena.
Challenges to positivist approaches in the social sciences
There are a number of approaches to social inquiry that challenge the positvist positon and that
artculate a fundamentally diferent basis for inquiry. Here, we focus on two alternatve positons –
those represented by scientfc realism and interpretvism.
Scientific realismi
Scientfc realism elaborates a non-positvist version of science that its adherents claim is more
scientfc than positvism. Scientfc realism appears to be similar to positvism in some ways because
it accepts some positvist assumptons, such as that the social and natural worlds are essentally
similar, and that the social and natural sciences are therefore fundamentally similar as well.
So positvism and scientfc realism share some key assumptons. However, there is a key
diference between the two approaches. oth approaches maintain that the subject mater of
scientfc research and scientfc theory exists independently of our knowledge of it, that we can
therefore gain objectve knowledge of it, and can treat ‘facts’ as independent of the observer and of
his or her values. Now, where the two approaches difer is that, while positvists maintain that reality
consists of only that which we can directly observe, for scientfc realists, reality consists of
unobservable elements as well as observable ones.
You will recall that positvists assume that statements not based on observable data are
metaphysical. Scientfc realists break decisively with this assumpton. They assume that there are
knowable, mind-independent facts, objects, or propertes that cannot be directly observed but which
are, nonetheless, real (we treat gravity and subatomic partcles as real because, even though we
cannot see them, we can see their efects). They argue that unobservable elements of social life, such
as structural relatons between social phenomena, are crucial to an understanding and explanaton of
what goes on in the world; and this is precisely what makes the social world similar to the natural
world. This ontological concepton of the social world is, therefore, not metaphysical, but more
scientfc, and more closely aligned with the tenets of natural sciences, than the positvist concepton.
The goal of scientfc research is to describe and explain both observable and unibservable aspects of
the world.
