THEORY CONSTRUCTION
Contents
Contents ................................................................................................................................................... i
Introduction: Theorising in the social sciences ....................................................................................... 1
The sociological imagination ............................................................................................................... 1
What would a sociologist say? ........................................................................................................ 1
Theorising........................................................................................................................................ 1
The sociological imagination ........................................................................................................... 1
Connecting personal troubles with public issues (Mills) ................................................................ 2
What you need to theorise ................................................................................................................. 2
1. Knowledge of what make something social ........................................................................... 3
2. Knowledge of existing sociological concepts .......................................................................... 4
Theorising in the social sciences ......................................................................................................... 4
Context of discovery and context of justification ............................................................................... 4
Two phases in scientific research ................................................................................................... 5
Creative theorising: the context of discovery ......................................................................................... 7
Social observation ............................................................................................................................... 7
Theory construction ........................................................................................................................ 7
Observation..................................................................................................................................... 7
Heuristics to find RQ ........................................................................................................................... 8
1. In and out of your comfort zone (Gerring) ............................................................................. 8
2. Use a metaphor/analogy (Gerring/Abott) .............................................................................. 9
3. Problematising the obvious (Abbott) ...................................................................................... 9
4. Reversing theories or concepts ............................................................................................. 10
5. Describe you phenomenon differently ................................................................................. 10
6. Static and dynamic ................................................................................................................ 10
7. Study the literature (Gerring) ............................................................................................... 11
8. Reframe phenomenon (Ragin & Amoroso p64-65) .............................................................. 11
Research paradigms, processes and designs ........................................................................................ 14
What are paradigms? ........................................................................................................................ 14
Paradigmatic debates in the social sciences ................................................................................. 15
Qualitative and Quantitative research.......................................................................................... 17
i
Theory construction
, (Post-) positivist and interpretive approaches.............................................................................. 17
Research Designs .............................................................................................................................. 18
Research process .......................................................................................................................... 18
(Post-) positivist research designs ................................................................................................ 19
Interpretive research designs ....................................................................................................... 21
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 22
Developing a RQ................................................................................................................................ 22
The in between position of social sciences ....................................................................................... 23
Nomothetical (natural sciences) ................................................................................................... 23
Hermeneutical sciences (humanities) ........................................................................................... 23
Social sciences ............................................................................................................................... 24
Research goals .................................................................................................................................. 24
Identifying general patterns and relationships ............................................................................. 24
Testing and refining theories ........................................................................................................ 24
Making predictons ........................................................................................................................ 25
Interpreting culturally/historically significant phenomena .......................................................... 25
Exploring diversity ......................................................................................................................... 26
Giving voice ................................................................................................................................... 26
Advancing new concepts or theories ............................................................................................ 27
Policy evaluation and advice ......................................................................................................... 27
The (post-) positivist approach ............................................................................................................. 28
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 28
Description ........................................................................................................................................ 28
The scientific value of description ................................................................................................ 28
Concepts........................................................................................................................................ 28
Typologies ..................................................................................................................................... 31
Measuring ..................................................................................................................................... 32
Causality ............................................................................................................................................ 35
Introduction: Causality in everyday life ........................................................................................ 35
Causal explanation in the (social) sciences ................................................................................... 35
The process of causal reasoning ................................................................................................... 38
Causal models ............................................................................................................................... 38
The interpretive approach .................................................................................................................... 41
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 41
Inductive or abductive? .................................................................................................................... 41
Grounded theory........................................................................................................................... 41
ii
Theory construction
, Contextuality ..................................................................................................................................... 43
Context .......................................................................................................................................... 43
Concepts........................................................................................................................................ 44
Constitutive causality .................................................................................................................... 45
Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................................ 45
Criteria of good research .............................................................................................................. 45
Where do data come from ............................................................................................................ 46
Check for trustworthiness ............................................................................................................. 47
Evidence ............................................................................................................................................ 48
How to build up evidence for interpretation ................................................................................ 48
Getting going with interpretive research.......................................................................................... 49
Where and when? ......................................................................................................................... 49
Access ............................................................................................................................................ 49
Building up relations ..................................................................................................................... 50
Ethnographic engagements .................................................................................................................. 51
About ethnography: history and theoretical insights ................................................................... 51
Practical guide through ethnographic research............................................................................ 53
My research at large: theories, methods and ethical conundrums.............................................. 55
Levels of analysis in the social sciences ................................................................................................ 58
Introduction: multiple levels of analysis ........................................................................................... 58
Levels of analysis ........................................................................................................................... 58
Units of analysis ............................................................................................................................ 58
Example: Obesity .......................................................................................................................... 58
Keep levels straight? ..................................................................................................................... 59
Fallacies in reasoning ........................................................................................................................ 60
Compositional fallacy .................................................................................................................... 60
Ecological fallacy ........................................................................................................................... 60
Shifting between levels ..................................................................................................................... 60
Different causal paths ................................................................................................................... 61
Comparing ............................................................................................................................................. 64
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 64
Why compare .................................................................................................................................... 64
Research goals .............................................................................................................................. 65
What to compare .............................................................................................................................. 65
How to compare ............................................................................................................................... 66
J.S. Mill’s methods of agreement and difference ......................................................................... 66
iii
Theory construction
, Most similar comparative design .................................................................................................. 66
Most difference comparative design ............................................................................................ 67
Comparison as a conceptual spectrum of cases ........................................................................... 67
Advantages and disadvantages......................................................................................................... 67
Advantages.................................................................................................................................... 67
Disadvantages ............................................................................................................................... 68
Problems of comparison ............................................................................................................... 68
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) ........................................................................................... 69
Key ideas ....................................................................................................................................... 69
Truth tables ................................................................................................................................... 69
Single case studies ............................................................................................................................ 69
Types of selections ........................................................................................................................ 69
Strategies for selection of single case studies .............................................................................. 70
iv
Theory construction
, Introduction: Theorising in the social sciences
The sociological imagination
What would a sociologist say?
E.g. obesity: seems a purely individual feature; outcome of individual lifestyle, genetic and medical
dispositions, etc.
But: lots of sociologically meaningful feature to this situation/ interesting questions to ask:
Norms and values: consensus in our society, across different social groups, as to what constitutes
the legitimate and illegitimate physique (this can differ in other cultures)
Social structure: obesity is not evenly distributed across population groups
Possible causes: poverty (less money/means to buy healthy food), lack of knowledge, socialized
into different eating behaviours
Effects/consequences? In a social perspective: loneliness, social exclusion, depressing,
unemployment,….
Theorising
Theory Theorising
Abstract, technical, and philosophical Practical, creative, intellectual skill
Concepts and definitions Something you do
A body of ideas on how social world works Trying to understand social phenomena by
thinking about possible descriptions,
interpretations and explanations
practical skills rather than knowledge of, but some knowledge of sociological concepts are handy
you can use existing theories and concepts, but key point is that you do it yourself
like a puzzle: emerges from what fascinates you, startles your imagination, or draws you in
R. Swedberg, The Art of social theory, p 16-28
Theory = statement about the explanation of a phenomenon
Theorising = process through which a theory is produced: “to see, to observe, and to
contemplate”: science in action
The sociological imagination
All sciences try to describe/explain particular phenomena (as accurately as possible), but specific to
sociology is the “sociological imagination”
C.W. Mills: The sociological imagination p. 5-11
Specific to sociology
the ability to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two
be able to discuss personal, individual features & connect with (impersonal) structures (≈ culture)
1
,E.g. your favourite lunch:
may seem personal taste: “to each its own”
but: it is strongly related to
o your social identity: subcultures among peers, media consumption, where you live,…
o level of education, class, ethnic background, age, gender, the time you live in,…
E.g. meat: used to be limited => high status, now widely available => lower status: a “remote
transformation”: something impersonal that happens
Cf A social critique of the judgement of taste, Pierre Bourdieu
o Taste ≠ individual: it’s acquired, learned through socialisation
o -> social class (habitus) influences tastes
o Two arrows : economic capital and cultural capital (education, informed)
Leads to different conceptions about healthy food, importance to climate change etc.
E.g. Labour class: functional food: immediately fills you up and gives energy
Distinctions in the flesh, Dieter Vandebroeck
Differences in class/habitues: not just different cultural, consumer, etc preferences: also
materialized in physical contours of body, its size and shape
Drawing on survey data:
o Probability of effectively embodying culturally legitimate/ideal body types is unequally
distributed across social space: lower class = more likely to be overweight
o People more readily attribute most stigmatized body types to dominated social categories
while disproportionality assigning more valorised body times to dominant
o Physical differences not just imbued with aesthetic, also moral significance and deemed
indicative of traits like ambition, intelligence and self-control
Bodies not only function as key markers of class differences, but also help to naturalize and
legitimate such differences
Connecting personal troubles with public issues (Mills)
Troubles: individual, personal, singular, immediate relations, private affairs
Issues: organisation of personal milieux, institutions, public matters
Examples: see text (p. 8-11)
Quantitative differences: broader social structures/patterns
Qualitative differences: structures shapes individuals (and this in turn leads to structural changes)
What you need to theorise
Epistemological rupture (Bachelard): if you do science from certain POV => need to break with how
you usually look at the world:
categories of practice: every day social life
categories of analysis: used in (sociological) science
R. Swedberg: The art of social theory, p 169-180
1. deep knowledge of what makes something social
2. being familiar with a number of concepts and theories
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Theory construction
,1. Knowledge of what make something social
What is the social?
≠ everyday meaning of the term (positive connotations, e.g. “social person”): sociologically
speaking: social = pleasant, harmonious + conflictuous and negative valued relations
What is social? => different answers to question, e.g.:
o Weber: socially meaningful relations (social action = undertaking actions that are
meaningfully oriented to the behaviour of other actors)
o Marx: historically constituted relations of production divide people into ≠ classes
o Durkheim: shared convictions, norms and values imposed by groups or whole societies;
ensuring social integration
o Elias: networks of dependencies from other people: interdependencies, with more and
more complicated networks
Studying sociology = (also) learning to think within terms of different theories:
E.g. obesity in terms of different theories:
o Durkheim: which cultural ideals are at stake? Cf, what is ideal body type? People that do
not adhere to norms => stigmatized
o Marx: about relations of means of production: those who can produce food: globalist,
capitalist food system: prio 1 = make money => need to sell: make it addictive by adding
sugar and fat + take into account price differences (check who can pay what) + add
advertising
Recognising the social dimension not always self-evident:
o goes against our assumption of free autonomous individuals and ego-centric vision of
society => learn to interpret reality in terms of our dependence from others instead
o Norbert Elias “to understand what sociology is all about, one has to look at oneself from
the distance, to see oneself as one human being amongst others”
Even most personal things can have social dimension
What are the causes and effects of the social?
How are specific events/features socially caused (i.e. shaped by social causes, settings etc) ?
And what are the societal/social effects?
For example: Tanja Luhrman on social causes of schizophrenia:
Schizophrenia = seen strictly individual, genetically and biologically caused disease but clearly
related with social factors: not equally/normally distributed
Risk of developing schizophrenia heightened by:
o being migrant/male/living in urban environment/being poor/….
o Psychological causes related to social environment, e.g. sexual abuse, bullying,…
Explanations? Double bind theory (Gregory Bateson): symptoms are expression of contradictory
patterns of interaction/communication in family: e.g. parent says A, other parents says B and you
have to choose, no compromise possible => can’t have love of both => solution = split personality
How does the social change?
Social phenomena, societies, social groups etc are never static: continuously reproduced, demand
continuous work
When we do research, it might be outdated by the time it’s finished: society has changed
already
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Theory construction
,What makes particular topic socially important?
Requires social importance: something that is related to many people, e.g. unemployment, loss of
identity, violence, divorcy,…
Issues that are of public importance: socially meaningful patterns
2. Knowledge of existing sociological concepts
e.g. social action, power, status, meaning, superdiversity,…
Need to know some of them => plenty to choose from when you theorise about a
phenomenon
Engage in casual, indiscriminate reading: anything that fascinates you
What you need to theorise
Deep knowledge of what the social is Familiarity with sociological concepts
Read deeply and with great attention Read widely but follow your interests
Asking questions should be matter of intuition or Think instrumentally how you can usefully apply
trained sensitivity these concepts to the phenomenon you’re
studying
Theorising in the social sciences
Ragin & Amoroso: Construction social research, p 24-32: very thoroughly explained
Social sciences are just ”one among many ways of constructing representations of social life, of telling
about society”: e.g journalism, film, novel, documentaries
Wat is different in social science?
1. Address socially significant phenomena
General issues rather than personal troubles
Socially significant because it is rare or unusual
Or because historically significant
2. Engage directly/indirectly with social theories
Theory as “set of loosely connected, ongoing conversations about abstract ideas with other
social scientists/thinkers
3. Use large amounts of evidence
In-depth information about limited number of cases or limited amount of information
about large number of cases
Purposefully collected through specific research design to collect right type of data to
answer specific research questions
4. Analyse that evidence systematically
Use of specific methodology!
Software programmes
Specialised in-depth interviews
Context of discovery and context of justification
Idea = research starts with research question (RQ), which you then try to solve
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Theory construction
,Reality = fully developed RQ often only clear after long process,
sometimes at the end of the research
Not necessarily a lineair process
Two phases in scientific research
J. Gerring, Social Science Methodology, 27-36
Two goals (and thus phases) of science:
Discovery: “uncover new things” ; make science progress
Appraisal: test theories: justification
R. Swedberg, art of social theory p16-28:
Phase 1 = prestudy or early theorising (“context of discovery”)
o Observe and focus on something interesting/surprising
o Generate ideas that help understand/explain phenomenon
o Think creatively and wildly: anything goes
Phase 2 = main study (“context of justification”)
o Turning early theories into RQ and designs
o Execute research, draw conclusions from data and theorise again
o Construct fully fledged theory of phenomenon
o Refute alternative explanations
Discovery
Context of discovery: contribute something novel (can be new data or new theory)
Often exploratory, initial phases of research
Inherently anti-nomothetic (anarchic): no systematic procedure to discover new things
Crucial phase to develop theoretical (scientific) insights
Popper: “discovery contains irrational element, or creative intuition” (Verschraegen: can be
learned)
Play with ideas, theorise wildly, use imagination
Gerring: strong emphasis on innovation => contributing something novel: think about specifics
we do not know yet
e.g Democratisation: how and why do some states democratise, while others do not?
Descriptive innovation: how can we conceptualize and measure democratisation?
o Are there critical moments of transition? E.g when people stop being afraid and start
protesting
o Is there a point of consolidation beyond which reversals are unlikely? E.g. when parliament
has been established, when people can vote and results are accepted
o Are there distinctive sequences that all countries go through?
o Which subtypes exist?
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Theory construction
, Causal innovations:
o Are there certain authoritarian regime types more likely to democratise?
o Does existence of mineral wealth make democracy less likely? E.g. “the Dutch disease”:
lots of mineral wealth => People more likely to try to keep/get control: continuous fighting
o Role of colonial experiences?
o Economic development?
Appraisal
focus for a lot of scientists
Rigorously testing theories: try to be sure descriptions and explanations are true
Popper: “criterion of scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability
Following rules and procedures, cf research design
domain of methodologists
E.g. Marxism & Freudianism = unscientific because theories are difficult/impossible to falsify
(because too broad?)
Discovery and appraisal
Popper saw them as perfectly complementary, but there are irresolvable tensions between them:
anarchic systematic/rigorous
goal = discovery of new theories
o researchers should propose broad, abstract theories without clearly testable hypotheses
o theories = open-ended, surprising, original
o may not be very convincing: but may be provocative and may eventually lead to more
convincing demonstrations of the truth
goal = test truth-value of existing theory
o theory should be framed as precisely as possible
At some point, all theories ought to be falsifiable, but different views on precisely when this should be
Gerring: good science must embrace both goals, one without other is not serviceable. Science
advances through dialectic of these two goals
Both require different attitude, skills, ways of thinking and approaching your phenomenon
Context of discovery Context of justification/appraisal
= Form in which thinking processes are = form in which thinking processes are
subjectively performed communicated to other persons, trying to
convince them of correctness of theory
often chaotic, not necessarily written down Structured: following certain rules of form
Initial phases of research Later phases of research
Find interesting preliminary RQ Empirically testing possible answers to RQ or
Finding puzzle + theory about how to solve it puzzle
Theoretical Relying on as few theoretical assumptions as
possible
Explorative Falsifiability as ideal
Not systematic: making conjectures Systematic: general methods/procedures
“Revolutionary science” (T. Kuhn): outside the Normal science (T. Kuhn): within current
box/paradigm paradigm
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Theory construction
