Research Methods

Education is the ability to listen to almost

anything without losing your temper or your
self-confidence. Robert Frost
Science vs Meta-Physics
 Production of knowledge moved from meta-
physical theories to scientific knowledge from
around 1600.

 What is a Science
◦ Coherent Body of Thought
◦ What our senses can verify

 Actual Practice
Different Perspectives with Different Orientations and
Explanations
 Research in Social Sciences

 Natural Science vs Social Science

 Questioning the ‘Science Status’ of Social/
Societal Knowledge
 Contestations vs Explanations
Relationship between Social Theory
and Social Research
The Objective World
Understanding ‘How’
 OBJECTIVITY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

 One of the fundamental pillar of Science

◦ Social Science research offers knowledge about
social world that is not necessarily available by
other means.
◦ It is more than a reflection of opinion and
prejudices
◦ It substantiates, refutes, organizes and generates
the thinking.
 OBJECTIVITY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

 Objectivity and capability of detaching the

Social Values
 Objectivity can be defined as:
the basic conviction that there is or must be some
permanent, ahistorical matrix or framework to which we
can ultimately appeal in determining the nature of
rationality, knowledge, truth, reality, goodness, or rightness.

• What Science Actually can pronounce upon?

 Positivism

 Sense of Belonging is of secondary importance

 Social facts exist and it is only that, that
matters
 Human Behavior can be explained in terms of
cause and effect
 Definition
Positivism sees social science as an organized
method for combining deductive logic with
precise empirical observations of individual
behavior in order to discover and confirm a set
of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to
predict general patterns of human activity.
 Positivists Scientific Knowledge
Ability to Detach
Social Belongingness

 Objectivity set of ‘true’, precise and

wideranging ‘laws

Generalizations and Explanations

 Empiricism

 As Positivists, Empiricits believe in the

existence of ‘Facts’ about Social World.
 Accuracy and Neutrality of Data Collection
Instruments and Methods

 Positivism vs Empiricism (Difference in Scope)

 Empirical vs Empiricism
Positivists Research Traditions in
Political Science
 Institutionalism
 Bahavioralism
 Rational Choice Theory
 Institutionalism

 Dealt with questions relating to institutions

 How Governments work rather than how they
should work
 Emphasis was on formal and informal rules,
political standards, norms and guides for
accepted political behavior
 Still prevalent among researches on public
administration and constitutional studies
What’s New?
 An old focus on organization towards a new focus on
rules
 A concentration on formal concepts to informal
definitions of institutions
 A view of political institutions as static to a view of
them as dynamic
 Submerged values to a position that sees values as
critical to understanding
 A holistic view to one that focuses on the individual
parts and components
 A view of institutions from independent entities to one
embedded in societies
 Behavioralism
 Learn about behavior by research in the ‘real
world’
 Regularities
 Verification
 Techniques
 Quantification
 Values
 Systematization
 Pure Science
 Integration
David Easton’s Comprehension of
Political System
 Rational Choice Theory

 All human behaviors occur for a purpose

 People always look for greatest payoffs
 Individuals make political decisions
 Compromise occurs when it resulted in
greater utility
 All players know and adhere to the rules of
the game
Prisoner’s Dilemma (Neo-Realism/
Neo-Liberalism)
 Criticism on Positivism

 ‘a silent civic disease’ - Harry Boyte

 Depreciates existence of many different
kinds of valuable knowledge
 Over-obsession with introduction of new
modelling/ statistical techniques
 Ends up with Applied Science
 Alternative Epistemic Community
The Experienced (Subjective) World-
Explaining ‘Why’
 Phenomenological Approaches

 Believes in Hermeneutic Principles

 Inter-subjectivity rather than Detachment
 Ideas and Interpretations (Constructionsim)
 Commitment and Engagement as a condition
for understanding rather than Objectivity
 Human activity is not behaviour (an adaption
to material conditions), but an expression of
meaning that humans give (via language) to
their conduct.
 Interpretation of Fact rather than Fact itself
 Different but not Inferior
Post-Positivists Tradition in
Political Science
 Feminist Research
 Marxist Research
 Post-Modernists
 Feminist Research Approach

 Developed as an emancipatory tool

 Emphasis is on Genderification of political
and social world
 Political theory is both overtly and covertly
gender biased
Feminist Action-Orieted Research

 Action Research
 Participatory Research
Equitable involves different groups of society, community
members, organizational representatives and researcher

 Empowerment Research
 Research for Women
Feminist Research
 Marxist Approach

 Political world is manifestation of conflict

between have and have-nots and between
workers and owners
 Highlights disparities, identifies the structures
that form and restrict development of society
 Emancipatory Research
 Four Main Principles of Marxist
Approach

 Economism
 Determinism
 Materialism
 Structuralism
 Leading to Next Debate,
Questioning Legitimacy and
Authenticity of Knowledge
 Post Modernists

 Challenging Epistemological grounds of

Positivists and Scientific Knowledge
 No Universal Standards of Truth
 No Method to justify or validate data
 Objectivity vs Relativism
In Practice- Eclecticism
 Anthony Giddens- (Correspondence between
Actions and Structures)
 Pierre Bourdieu (Interpretive Tools and Methods)
 Roy Bhaskar
 Bridging the gap between ‘Why’ and ‘How’
 No clear divisions of most of school of thoughts
of Social Sciences
 Mixed Approaches are more prevalent