Three chapters of the book Qualitative Methods in International Relations.

1. Selected
Chapters
KHALID SAIFULLAH
PHD SCHOLAR – BAHRIA UNIVERSITY,
ISLAMABAD

2. Ch 5, 8 & 10 21 May 2020

3. Ch 5 – Discourse
Analysis
Representations: Perceptions/Reality
(socially) produced by human through
combining their senses and language (as a
social system with its logic).
People having similar representations are
placed at same position in a discourse.
These representations and positions may
be marginalized or strengthened
relatively.
To initiate the discourse analysis, a
researcher is to show similarities and
differences between representations in
order to demonstrate whether they belong
to the same discourse.

4. What is a
discourse?
A discourse usually contains a
dominating representation (of reality)
and one or more alternative
representations.
Discourse analysis is to study situations
where power is maintained by aid of
culture and challenged only to a
degree (Gramscian’s hegemony).

5. Prerequisite:
Cultural
competence
Cultural competence: basic language skills
and historical knowledge
The more in-depth the general knowledge,
the easier the specific research.
It is fully possible to do discourse analysis in
the culture you know best, but you still
some kind of distance.

6. Three lessons
to conduct
Discourse
Analysis
FIRST, DELIMIT
THE DISCOURSE
TO A WIDE BUT
MANAGEABLE
RANGE OF
SOURCES AND
TIMEFRAMES.
SECOND:
MAPPING
REPRESENTATI
NS THAT
COMPRISE THE
DISCOURSE
FROM THE
AVAILABLE
TEXTS, TAKING
INTO ACCOUNT
CENSORSHIP
AND OTHER
PRACTICES THAT
SHAPE THE
AVAILABILITY OF
THIRD:
UNCOVER
LAYERING
WITHIN THE
DISCOURSE.

7. Step one: Delimiting Texts
 A given discourse cannot be entirely detached from all other discourses.
 Some texts will show up as crossroads or anchor points, such as short
government treatises outlining policy (called white papers). These are called
canonical texts or monuments. It is useful to select texts around these
monuments, since monuments also contain references to other texts.
 Participants themselves also delimit their discourses.
 Some texts can acquire importance from the medium through which they are
published.

8. Step two: Mapping Representations
 Mapping means searching out and identifying various representations and possible
asymmetries between them.
 The researcher accepts and works with the inherent conflict between representations.
 If there is only one representation, the discourse is closed.
 The discourse with two or more representations with none of them are dominating is open.
 Yet it is difficult to imagine a discourse that is entirely open or closed over time. Social
relations will always be in some degree of flux.

9. Step three: Layering Discourses
 To determine the difference in different representations in terms of
historical depth and in degree of dominance/marginalization in the
discourse.
 Certain representations in a discourse will be slower to change than
others.
 Meaning and material facts must be studied together.

10. Conclusion: A
Discourse
Analysis
Toolkit
1- Carver - helps the researcher to identify and separate the text
from the social world.
2- Equalizer - to equalize the symbols, ad or gestures with the
texts during the analysis.
3 - Herding dog - to goup various phenomena based on their
similarities and difference.
4 – Slicer - to breakdown a phenomenon into different
representations with similar characteristics.
5- An optic device - to analyse the texts and materials in depth.
6- Self-reflecting quill - to monitor the quality of research
leading to self-accountability during the research process.

11. Ch 8 – Process Tracing
 Process tracing is identical to the understanding of theories as based on causal
mechanisms.
OR
 to study the causal mechanism, we must employ the method of Process Tracing
 Process tracing supports to move us beyond unproductive ‘either/or’ meta-
theoretical debates to empirical applications where both agents and structures
matter.
 Employs both positivist and post positivist methodological lenses.

12. Defining Causal Mechanism
 Operates at analytical level below a theory
 A set of hypothesis
 An explanation of social phenomenon (of interaction of individuals and groups)
 A recurrent process
 A connector
How to study the causal mechanism: by process tracing

13. What is process tracing?
 A process of identifying causal chain that link IV and DV
 A process tracing means to trace the operation of the causal mechanism(s) at
work in a given situation.
 For process tracing, the author follows the micro-level decision making
process or interaction among agents.
 Process tracing is positivist or scientific realist position epistemologically.
 The data for process tracing is overwhelmingly qualitative in nature, and may
include historical memoirs, expert surveys, interviews, press accounts, and
documents.

14. What is good
in Process
Tracing?
Process tracing can minimize the problems of the so-
called first mover advantage.
Process tracing answers “how much data is enough”.
Helps to bring (causal) mechanisms back in practice.
Process tracing has a central role to play in contemporary
debates over theoretical bridge building.

15. Issues and failings associated with PT
 Process tracers often complain the unrealistic proxies that quantitative
researchers employ in the construction of data sets.
 Process tracing is time intensive and can require enormous amounts of
information.
 How micro should we go?
 Process tracing is not helpful to the development of generalizable
theories.
 Sometimes the outcome observed is the result of multiple mechanisms
interacting over time, PT may miss causal complexity.

16. Questions in need of attention related to
PT
 Losing sight of broader structural context.
 Process tracers may be particularly prone to overlook normative ethical
context. (losing the ethics)
 Process tracing only works if you hold things constant in a series of steps:
A causes B; B then causes C; C then causes D; and so on.

17. Ch 10 - Content Analysis
 Content analysis helps us learn more about essentially unavailable public
figures, because it does not require their cooperation.
 Content Analysis is a set of procedures to make inferences from text.
 It is a method to understand the ways people use or manipulate symbols and
communicate with meaning.

18. Eights steps to consider before Content
Analysis
 The researcher should be aware of the construction of his research question. Whether or not his
research question involve extracting meaning from communications.
 The researcher needs to understand what kinds of materials are available to him and how will he
access those materials.
 The researcher should be aware of his research design, whether it is qualitative or quantitative.
Although content analysis is categorized as a boundary-crossing technique, however, a researcher
must be familiar of his research design.
 A researcher should be aware of the nature of available materials of his subject. Whether the
available materials are representational (directly concerned with the subject matter) or instrumental
(a means to understand the subject) in nature.

19. Eights steps to consider before Content
Analysis
 A researcher needs to define his unit of analysis. He should select the
coding rules and procedures to use during the process of content
analysis.
 A researcher must be aware of the situation, culture, and history related to
the subject of research.
 The techniques, coding rules and procedures should be replicable.
 The researcher should be aware of the fact that the method of content
analysis matches well with the type of research and is aligned with his
research question.

20. Conducting Content Analysis
 Step 1: considering the research question - Does your research question involve
extracting meaning from communication?
 Step 2: selecting material - books, films, pamphlets, party manifestoes, television
programs, speeches, interviews, children’s readers, newspapers, election
commercials, blogs, diaries, letters, open-ended interviews, survey responses,
cartoons.
 Steps 3 and 4: deciding on the nature of the content analysis – qualitative or
quantitative analysis, contingency analysis (when words phrases, or themes
appear together – when one is dependent on the other), Evaluative assertion
analysis (focuses on the strength with which some thing is said).

21. Conducting Content Analysis
 Step 5: determining the unit of analysis and coding - Units can range from
words to phrases, sentences, paragraphs, themes, and whole documents,
percentage of time, number of themes in speeches per 1000 words.
 Step 6: contextualizing the information - Break down the sets of leaders into
particular regional, country, and cultural groups and compare the leader under
study to a group that is close geographically and culturally.
 Step 7: determining reliability of results – (i) how easy it is for those unfamiliar
with the coding rules and procedures to learn and apply them to leaders’ interview
responses with the same skill as that of the author, (ii) the stability in leaders’
scores - how sensitive a leader is to the political context.

22. Conducting Content Analysis
 Step 8: ascertaining validity - Are the results consistent with other information about the phenomenon being studied?
 Content Validity reasonable
 Predictive validity deals with the ability to use what has been learned from the content analytic technique to
forecast or understand future events.
 Concurrent validity focuses on using the results.
 Construct validity ‘is concerned not only with validating the measure, but also the theory underlying the measure’.