Qualitative Transparency Deliberations

Nate Breznau raises some interesting points. Here are three responses that come to my mind: First, the term “empiricist” does not exclude the term “interpretivist,” except in the usage of the dominant positivists. Interpretation, especially of the ethnographic sort, requires the personal participati...

While a crystal clear analysis and critique of mainstream positivism’s antiquated and ill-fitting methodological paradigm for political science, as I will argue below, the Final Report’s “Recommendations” lack practical substance.* The problem is that the positivists have already captured the profes...

As the number of my posts on this site suggests, I am delighted to have this opportunity to engage with my fellow political scientists on a subject of great interest to me – the scope and methods of our profession. Much of this discussion is an extension of the conversation begun in the Spring 2015 ...

Hawkesworth claims to be interested in "getting the world right" and guest asks about the basis for others putting credence into that kind of claim. ... and guest asks for a clarification about what constitutes good research and analysis from this perspective. Cramer appears to dispute Ha...

From the moderators: What can ethnographers generally not share about their research process and why can they not share those things? I would like to respectfully point out the positivistic bias in the way this question has been phraised. The question presupposes a condition of objectivity when its...

From the Introduction: This working group will, in particular, focus on two potential types of transparency with ... evidence: [1] transparency about how scholars have made observations or generated evidence through research with human participants; and [2] questions of when, why, and how this evide...

Marcus Kreuzer et al. pose several thoughtful and central questions that deserve careful consideration if the DA-RT “transparency” challenge to non-positivistic methods of political science inquiry is to be fully understood. (See their post introducing this thread at https://www.qualtd.net/viewforum...

Alice Goffman lived with a group of inner city youths as a participant observer.[1] The study revealed the unintended consequences of an urban “get tough on crime” public policy. It exposed how the crime policy has been deleterious for a poor urban population. Her empathic interpretation was based o...

All political scientists who attempt to explain political behavior exercise empathy. Empathy is a form of interpretation. Its practice involves assuming a human-to-human relation between the interpreter and his or her subject. This is not an “objective” relationship in the sense that a physicist or ...

I agree with "Guest 2"

Do courts of law accept as definitive evidence the accused's own record of his or her activities on the night of the crime? Shall we ask field researchers wear body-cameras as they do their interviews, so that these recordings can later be to submitted for review by suspicious journal editors? The ...

One way to help promote more mutual understanding between Quantitative and Qualitative political scientists is to consider why the polls leading up to the Trump election failed to detect the number of potential voters who intended to vote for him. Retrospectively one can excuse the error by saying t...

How should we address the normative dimension of our research? ... Rather, I worry that in explicating our normative grounding we might open up the possibility of a positivist critique of our work being beyond the purview of acceptable 'political science.' You are in good company. David Easton addr...

What are your recommendations for best practices in interpretive social science? I agree with Prof Schwedler for the reasons stated at , https://www.qualtd.net/viewtopic.php?p=700#p700 'Best practices' can be discussed, but to aim at establishing 'methodological steps' to be followed for 'verificat...

If you were setting the agenda for profession-wide deliberations on guidelines for qualitative research, what would your top priorities/issues/questions be? Methodological Priorities for Political Science First, see my comment at, https://www.qualtd.net/viewtopic.php?p=699#p699, concerning why Empa...

But the stress on transparency as an unalloyed good is possible only from the perspective of a particular subset of political science, and the myriad issues and dangers posed by human subjects and vulnerable populations have been inadequately addressed by the journals that have signed on to DA-RT a...

There are some excellent comments here on the undesirable unintended consequences of DA-RT. Other unintended consequences of DART are that in favoring numbers, research results are necessarily superficial. Numbers can’t get into the motivations of actors, or interpret the different meanings that pol...

Other unintended consequences of DART are that in favoring numbers, research results are necessarily superficial. Numbers can’t get into the motivations of actors, or interpret the different meanings that policies and events have for people. In this sense, numbers compel triviality. Studies have sho...

The safety and privacy of subjects is way more important than "transparency." If appropriate, critics can challenge the sources and let the writer defend as he/she sees fit. Also, I have reservations about requiring an appendix to every publication on paper. It would take up space, and edi...