Research Methods in International Relations Week 3 05/03/2013 We are talking about knowledge and how we acquire knowledge in social

l sciences. The topic is also refers to philosophy of social sciences. Mainly philosophy is applicable to research in social sciences. You are not expected to acquire knowledge in formal education and you put this on the humans and there are many consequences attached . you also need to have awaraness of limitations of knowledge that you have acquired. The main point is we need to distinguish between a university education and a theological seminary in which you dont ask question, youll learn, get the stuff, get the information, you have preached, you never questioned, you are not in a position to question anything. Universities should be able to challenge the knowledge that could be introduced and you should be able to question them. Many students in IR first rely on textbooks and monographs. Textbooks are books written for specific course. Textbooks dont include original research. They dont include contraversial topics, they stay away from contraversy. They approach topics in a specific area of research, in areas where there is no debate. In theological seminar you can learn dogmas but in university you can challenge and question but universities have always the risk of turning into theological seminars. Textbooks have the same risk that transforming the study areas into the religious areas. Textbooks are also reflective of the ideology of study areas, each study area may have an ideology. There are lectures in universities. These lectures are supported by usually textbooks. Textbooks dont offer any original research. Textbooks and lectures are rely on monographs. Lectures and textbooks are inabled by monographs, monographs are books, articles, reports. Monographs are concentrated on one single topic, one single aspect and very detail information

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about it; textbooks have title like Turkey-EU relations, etc. Therefore, textbooks and lectures have to rely on monographs. Most of the monographs are contraversial because they are seeking to further state of knowledge in study areas. They have to be contraversial to suggest new ways, new techniques, new areas. Textbooks and lectures are not original and monographs are original because they introduce knowledge. Textbooks and lectures are inabled by monographs and monographs are inabled by knowledge. By knowledge we understand ideas and information. Knowledge is inabled by research. Research has 2 important aspects. One is the craft of the research and the other is the philosophy of research. This craft refers to certain data gathering and processing techniques. Data is observation. These observations are gathering in a book. You collect data by conducting actual survey by reading, testing. We collect and gather data and we will process them. Data gathering and processing involves various skills. There are many research techniques which we are not responsible in exam. One of these techniques is case study. It is making in specific topics. It could be ethnic separatism, as we know when state establishes there are minorities in it and they have religion, language, etc. In some states they are ignored and in some they arent. To study each case one by one this is known as index studies. After applying some cases like six or seven cases, there is second stage the researcher compare these cases. After this there is a cross case examination. Another technique is formal models. A researcher may decide to use a formal/ mathematical models. The background of it is formed by varieties of game theories. In international relations there are games like prisoners dilemma. Another technique is quantitative analysis which is most widely used in natural sciences. Because this method is suitable for inanimate objects. It is also used in social sciences. In case study methods you draw on a limited number of cases like 5,6, at best 10 not more than that. But in quantitative analysis there is no limit, you bear to respect of people. If research is about 200

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million people you have 200 million people in attractive. You have to choose sample randomly usually by computer software. In case study you have case and you dont choose the case randomly. In quantitative analysis the researcher has trust, in case studies we dont trust a researcher because the researcher doesnt allow to choose the cases randomly. The final technique is the qualitative analysis which is also known also classical analysis. In classical analysis the researcher seeks to understand it in its context, context is a set of circumstances surrounding the object of research. There is one more factor in the process and it is philosophy of research, the most important part in the chain. This part is the concept of knowledge, what knowledge is. What is knowledge, how they acquire knowledge? What methods we are going to use, what elements being decisive in constructing knowledge, is it fact or value? For example when a foreigner came to Ankara and went to Kzlay and walked in there. Suddenly somebody bumped into him/ her. For some countries this is rudeless but the question is are you sure, this is rudeness, this is local culture? You also have to understand local culture. They have intention of being rude, how do we know that? We are talking about engine room, in this room what is about knowledge? What are the limitations of knowledge, how do we acquire knowledge? ... In this room there are some epistemelogical perspectives. Epistemelogy is theory of knowledge. There are many theories of knowledge. One of them is positivism, another is normativism and the other is post-positivism. If the guy bring the bumping issue into the engine room, there is adebate now. Positivist may say these guys are incredible, normative guy claims that we cant really claim that these guys are rude or not because we dont know anything about them. Post-positivists are like angry guys like ar how is going to know the knowledge, why is that, what road is this? The answer has 2 parts. One part, one reason is pragmatic reason and other part is ontological reason. Ontology is
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the knowledge of being, being in the world and relating to others. Consider you go and eat in a restaurant or cafe almost everyday for lunch or dinner, you love their foods, you dont know how these foods are prepared, you have never been in kitchen area. In some time, you really enjoy the food and you dont want to know about preparation. Kenneth Waltzs theory of international relations neorealism and structural neorealism, in international system there is an anrchy and there is no higher authority, all states try to seek to survive, maximize power in order to survive. There is no central authority. They are identical. Conflict is inevitable. In first option you enjoy your food whatever its ingredients, in the second option you need to know what is it in it. Plato says that life unexamined is not worth living. We should question everything. In international relations we have knowledge and behind this there will be an IR theory. Behind this theory there will be another theory: epistemelogical perspective. You study epistemelogical perspective not only to make sense of research techniques but the study of this will also reclassified of you all those constructions which go under theory of international relations. Knowledge is a form of awareness which emerges encounter of the researcher and object of research. Object of research could be anything. Researcher forms an awareness of research. Encounter through awareness which is developed manner a direct encounter between the researcher and object of the research. Knowledge is always theoretical knowledge because there is always theory behind it. Knowledge as mirror image of reality and knowledge as an angle, there is a difference between them. Imagine a journalist in Turkey who is travelling a Syria and trying to put together a report about what is going on in Syria, talking to people etc. He or she is going to get knowledge and this knowledge wil be reported as a reality. The difference between journalism and international relations is you dont have the luxury, you know this is

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knowledge in much sense of reality. In international relations you have cruel sense of reality. In realism states are the matters and agents. People are not the matter.

D n o t Je

i n i j g uka

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