AESEARCH METHODS MIVTERNATONAL RELATIONS.
RHUAN
5
QUALITATIVE METHODS
IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
“The next three chapters will address
Q
Chapter 7. These three approaches to data collection, and analysis, include
cific research tools and techniques that are frequently used by students, research-
crs, and scholars of IR alike. However, one b
98 on to these next three chapters
Foran example, see Chapter 1 of Lamont, International Criminal Justice,
explanatory studies of norm
jtion within IR scholarship in theFESEARH ETHODS BM IVTERNATONAL RELATIONS (QUALITATIVE METHODS IN FTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
9 pointed out by Klorz,
ch is approached from
Qualitative Methods
numer dat
In fact, qualitative researchers include empiricist, such ¢s King, Keohane, and
fen 23 been referred to
tive and quantitative
racial guide to major qualitative data collection and analysis techniques wed 2
Within the field of IR. ‘and instead seek to understand the meaning of.
described in this chapter will include
encompass both the empirical and
Qualitative Methods in International Relations: What are
they? And Why use them?
broadly to data
of the spoken or
ming. This is because
2008, a period of time which included the country’s turbulent
interviewed members of political parties on their electoral
party system as party officals were aware that they were talking to an outs!
researcher and wanted to present their parties in the best possible light, In this
18: 366), qualitative methods
which have been used by scholarsSeance METHODS iv INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
k Obama's 2014 State of the Union address, you would be engaging with
document, whereas, if you have instead referenced an article
criminal trial would in themselves be secondary sources.
Official Documents and Archival Research
documents can give us a
however, in most cases, you will not have
ion’s documents. While most organizations
0 a particular organi
tnlimised access (0 an gad
CQUALATVE ETHODS WRETERNATIONAL RELATIONS
{orcign policy and salient questions in international politics means that we will be
seeking to collect document have an interest,
fr need, to conceal much
making processes in the
actors who might use that informat
ind decision-making
is wide range of documents that are pul
documents to a wide range of
bsence of access to 2 central authoritative archive on our topic of
th you could methodically and systematically go through to conduct
sch for documentation on your particular topic, we should guard
‘against focusing too narrowly on a few documents that could give us a distorted
picture of the topic under study. One way to do this is to be transparent about
the documents you have used and those that you have not used. Clearly define
the scope of documents you set out to collect and those that you have examined.
Media and Secondary Source Collection
Media reports can
‘upon media sources
with basic background information on our research
it is important to distinguish between international media sources, such
whether of not
politcal grouping.
local media sources cater to a particular ideological or
a