[Interpretationandmethods] Non-variables-based security studies

[Patrick Jackson]

As Ed and others have noted, this is a complex question, consisting  
of at least two parts:

1) the sampling/selection bias issue; and
2) the general issue of a non-variables (or what I'd call "non- 
neopositivist") approach to security studies.

The second issue has already been well addressed by previous  
responses. To what has already been suggested I would add Jutta  
Weldes' Constructing National Interests (U Minnesota, 1999) and Iver  
Neumann's Uses of the Other (U Minnesota, 1999). I might also  
immodestly suggest my own book Civilizing the Enemy (U Michigan,  
2006) which makes a pretty sustained case for a relational, discourse- 
theoretic approach to security topics like alliance-formation and the  
deployment of military forces. And I can also plug Peter Howard's  
December 2004 International Studies Quarterly piece on North Korea  
and the discursive politics of threat-construction.

Of course, the Copenhagen School/"securitization" folks might be of  
some help here: Ole Waever, Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, etc. In  
particular, Lene's 2006 book Security as Practice is marvelous.

But all of this only answers the second issue, and establishes that  
people do in fact do respected work on security issues using a non- 
neopositivist methodological orientation. The first issue, although  
it's the technical method question rather than the philosophical  
methodology question, is potentially the more complicated one to  
address, not in the least because even some avowedly "interpretivist"  
authors (Checkel, Hopf, the Haases) still speak in their work in the  
language of representative samples and truth-as-correspondence (which  
is what random sampling is supposed to ensure: that our picture of  
reality is as "accurate" as it can be, where "accurate" means that it  
faithfully represents what is "really there"). Method/methodology  
conflation and tension -- perhaps even contradiction -- this might  
be, but nevertheless: such is the dominance of neopositivist  
statistical-comparative reasoning that the idea that "representative  
sampling" is appropriate to any kind of knowledge-production is a  
difficult one to combat.

One way to go here might be to clarify the aim of the interviews, as  
Will suggests. If you are not seeking to use these interviews as a  
basis on which to generalize about broader respondents, but are  
instead looking to flesh out some particular piece of discourse, then  
there's no need to sample randomly. Indeed, a nonrandom sample  
technique might be better, inasmuch as it allows you to get at  
certain particularities better by talking to the people directly  
implicated in the discourse. This doesn't "refute" the accusation of  
selection bias as much as side-step it; to a neopositivist this is  
still going to look like selection bias no matter how you spin it.  
Your only hope with the reviewers is to hope that they or the editor  
acknowledge that there are other ways of constructing knowledge than  
the neopositivist approach.

It's distressing that we still have to spend time explaining these  
things to reviewers and editors. Apparently we haven't made as much  
progress as I might optimistically hope that we had.

PTJ

On Sep 18, 2007, at 2:33 PM, Dvora Yanow wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> I am wondering if any of you (Patrick, Cecelia, Claire, Ido,  
> others?) might help with a question that has come up.
>
> I am looking for sources that would help support an argument on  
> behalf of a non-variables approach to an issue in security  
> studies.  Specifically, the research in question is based on 12  
> interviews, selected via purposive "sampling" (I would prefer to  
> use the term exposure).  Reviewers are asking for clarification of  
> the dependent and indep. variables, as well as about "selection  
> bias" because of the small sample size.
>
> Peri and I take up the matter of interpretive research as non- 
> variables-based research in various intro. sections of  
> Interpretation and Method, as well as in chs. 4 and 5; and other  
> chapters provide examples.
>
> But I'm wondering:  can someone point me to works in security  
> studies itself, or perhaps in IR or Comparative Government more  
> broadly, that would help advance/support a non-variables argument?
>
> Cecelia, I don't have your book at hand -- do you and Audie engage  
> this question there?  If so, can you point me to the ch. or pages?
>
> Dvora Yanow
>
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===
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
American University, SIS
patrickthaddeusjackson at gmail.com
http://profptj.blogspot.com | http://www.kittenboo.com
calendar: http://ical.mac.com/onyxdr/Patrick



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