Political research methods I
Hoorcollege 1: 2 september 2019 (Introduction to qualitative research)
Content
1. Introduction to the substance
• Qualitative research
• Case study research
2. Qualitative research on three levels
• Meta-theoretical level
• Theoretical level
• Methodological level (used most)
3. Introduction to the topic: populism
Topic of the assignment
• The rise and/or success of populism and Euroscepticism (in Europe)
- A broad topic
• What is this a case of?
- This is a causal question
- An explanation in terms of causes
- Social scientists: we want to explain the rise of populism e.g.
• Pick one (supposedly) populist/Eurosceptic political party/newspaper/institution/empirical event
• Examples
- Front National, FPÖ, Vlaams Blok/Belang, PVV, LPF
- NOS, de Telegraaf, CNN, Facebook/Twitter
- An election campaign, Brexit, the Hungarian people, the refugee crisis
• Condition: you should be able to study any literature (think about in which language the material is
written)
Three main objections to qualitative/case study research
What is wrong with qualitative research in comparison to quantitative research?
1. Story telling (narrativism)
• There’s something missing that we need as social scientists
- A general theory social scientists want to predict and write a hypothesis
- This hypothesis then needs to be tested
- It is difficult to test a case study
• Just a few criteria for testing theories available
- Information from case studies are difficult to use to test a claim
- Criterion for statistics/quantitative research: significance (not available in case studies)
• Scholars are telling you stuff, instead of testing their propositions
• More subjective biased, based on own opinions and values
- With quantitative analysis, it doesn’t matter what person does the research
- A qualitative researcher is much less independent
- However: quantitative research is also not entirely objective
2. Cherry picking
• Abritary and unsystematic use of data (empirical sources)
- You only use the data that is useful for your point of view/theory/hypothesis
,- Purposely selecting data that fits with the claims of the researcher
- It is wrong to leave out the parts of the database that aren’t useful for your research
- In quantitative research is easier to leave out the data you don’t need
3. N = 1
• With case study researchers, we study one of a few cases
- Still, we want to say something about a topic in general
- If n is only one, can we then really generalize?
- Small and unrepresentative sample
- This leads to unwarranted generalization: a generalization that is not per se a generally true
Quantitative versus qualitative research
Two visions
• Political science has a vibrant debate on qualitative versus quantitative research
- Started with the book: KKV
- Same approach/logical of interference and same/similar quality criteria
- Case study research is not that different from quantitative research
- The same logic, but on a smaller scale
• George and Bennett: if you measure against the same standard as the quantatitve researchers, you
will always lose
- Because: smaller samples
- So we need different logic for doing qualitative research
Core questions
1. What makes a scientific research method?
• We can all do surveys, observation, et cetera
- It presumes there is something of a constructed, coherent way of doing research
2. What makes a qualitative scientific research method?
• Is it just the number of cases, or something different?
Different meanings of qualitative research
1. They are interpretivists
2. They opt for an inductive approach (relation theory empirics)
3. They use different methods
- Large c
- Cross case comparisons
- Small case study approach
The methods debate on three levels
1. Meta-theoretical debate: different philosophies of science
- Positivism and interpretivism (post-positivism)
2. Theoretical level: different ideas about role of theory
- Deductive (theory testing, explanatory) versus inductive (theory building, descriptive)
3. Methodological level: different methods for collecting and analysing data
- Survey or experiment versus case study
- Cross case comparisons versus within-case analysis
- Variable-oriented versus process-oriented approaches
- Measuring/scoring versus tracing/evaluating
- We will be moving mostly on this, third level during the course
,Level 1: philosopies of social science
• Positivism is the mainstream approach to science
- Confronting our theories with empirical evidence to see whether they are correct or not
- Theory empirics
• Interpretivism questions some of our fundamental ideas about the relationship between
theoretical ideas and empirical observations
- Science is far more blurred than positivism thinks
- There are much more nuances
- Various forms: constructivism, critical science, et cetera
Positivism Interpretivism (qualitative)
Ontology: de zijns-wereld There is a world out there, The socially constructed world
which exists independent of is primary. Access to the
our observations and which we objective reality is limited (or
can study even blocked entirely). The
world is made up by our
observations
Epistemology: what can we We can acquire knowledge of All knowledge is subjective.
see, observe, study? (measure) this external world There is no real distinction
- Observations are between an observation and
objective/intersubjective an interpretation/perspective
- If we look at the same • Example: racism and
phenomenon, we will see the disrespect in football
same thing - Does it exist out there,
independent of what we see,
or is it socially constructed?
The answer to this depends on
your perspective
- Once things become more
implicit (like the racism-
example), it becomes more
difficult to measure Are our
observations still objective?
- However, it is all strange to
say there is nothing to
measure about racism
More distinctions between positivism and interpretivism
, • Positivism: economics
- In markets, all players will act the same
• Interpretivism: political science
- People reason and will then make choices, and we need to reflect on this
- Actor-dominant
- Politics is driven by actors, not by an independent market (economics)
Level 1: middle ground
Scientists agree about this when it comes to qualitative research
We will mostly occupy the middle ground for this course
• Our observations are theory-loaded, but not theory-determined
- Our perspectives influence what one sees as racism, but it doesn’t determine it completely
• Empirical evidence should be able to surprise us
- Force us to revise our theories
- Example: Erdogan should not think Germany is completely full of racism
• Progressive theorizing is possible
- Knowledge accumulation is not linear
• Between general causes and case-specific narratives we find general mechanisms
- Phenomenon: racisms + disrespect in football
- If you want to study this is in a valid way, you want to know how racisms works in general
- How does racism in football manifest itself?
- Such a general visions is called a mechanism
• Focus on meso-level explanations, bound to a temporal or spatial context valid under certain scope
conditions
- Not a theory/definition for racism in the world, but racism in football
