Spring 2004 Newsletter
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Spring 2007, Vol. 5, No. 1 Qualitative Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Methods Organized Section on Qualitative Methods Letter from the President Contents James Mahoney Northwestern University [email protected] Symposium: The Perestroika Movement The Perestroika Movement, its Methodological Concerns, The Qualitative Methods Section will be sponsoring a and the Professional Implications of These Methodologi- large range of activities at APSA’s Annual Meeting in Chi- cal Issues cago: panels, short courses, a working group, and a recep- Kristin Renwick Monroe ..................................................2 tion.1 In large part thanks to the very successful set of panels Systematizing the Ineffable: A Perestroikan’s Methods for organized by Melani Cammett and Julia Lynch in 2006, APSA Finding a Good Research Topic allotted our section 26 panel slots for this year’s meeting. As Rogers M. Smith .......................................................................6 you will see from the panel listing in the back of this issue of the newsletter, our 2007 division chairs, Dan Slater and Randall Symposium: Multi-Method Work, Dispatches Strahan, have organized a great lineup. With co-sponsorships, from the Front Lines there will be 30 panels affiliated with the Qualitative Methods division! Introduction The section will co-sponsor four APSA short courses on Andrew Bennett ................................................................9 Wednesday, August 28: “Multi-Method Research,” “Research Qualitative Methods as an Essential Complement to Design and Field Method,” “Introduction to Qualitative Com- Quantitative Methods parative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets,” and “Interpret This! A Con- Hein E. Goemans .................................................................11 ceptual and Practical Workshop in Interpretive Political Sci- The Trouble with Multi-Methodism ence.” For more details and to enroll in these courses, please Susanne Lohmann ..........................................................13 visit the newly designed section Web page: http://www.asu. Some Observations on the Interweaving of Model and edu/clas/polisci/cqrm/Qualitative Methods APSA.html. Narrative We also will again be sponsoring a working group on the Daniel Carpenter .....................................................................17 topic of “Qualitative and Multi-Method Research.” The work- Peril and Promise: Multi-Method Research in Practice ing group provides a framework for graduate students inter- Jason Wittenberg .............................................................19 ested in qualitative and multimethod research to attend The Role of Iteration in Multi-Method Research panels, short courses, and other special events together. As Thad Dunning ......................................................................22 was true the last two years, working group members can be Trends in Multi-Method Research: Sailing Ahead, Reckon- identified by their badges (provided by the APSA conven- ing with Old Risks and New ers). At the end of the meeting, group members will receive a Scott Siegel with Ariel Ahram, Julia Azari, Ashwini Chhatre, certificate from APSA, certifying that the participants had a Bridget Coggins, Jana Grittersova, Matthew Ingram, Mat- substantive professional development experience. The new thew Lieber, Claire Metelits, Tom Pepinsky, Andrew Pieper, section Web page provides details and enrollment informa- Karthika Sasikumar, and Prerna Singh ..............................24 tion. Our section business meeting at APSA is scheduled for Web Sites and Working Papers ..............................28 Thursday, August 30, at 6pm. In addition to the usual organi- zational logistics, we will be presenting the awards for the Announcements ...............................................................29 section’s book, article/chapter, and conference paper awards. At the conclusion of the business meeting, we will be holding a reception, the first that we have co-sponsored with our sis- ter section, Political Methodology. We owe special thanks to Janet Box-Steffensmeier, President of the Political Methodol- ogy section, for proposing the joint reception. We hope that it Qualitative Methods, Spring 2007 will be the first in a long-lasting tradition. As our two groups hosted 128 graduate students and junior faculty. Since its in- are now among the very largest of the organized sections, we ception the institute has trained nearly 500 attendees. The call look forward to a good turnout for the joint reception! for open-pool applications to IQMR 2008 can be found in this Since this issue of the newsletter features a symposium newsletter, as well as at CQRM’s Web site at http://www.asu. on multi-method research, it is an especially appropriate place edu /clas/polisci/cqrm. to announce that CQRM’s Institute on Qualitative Research Again, more information on all of these events and changes Methods—held each January at Arizona State University— can be found at the section and CQRM’s Web pages, via the recently underwent a name change to the “Institute for Quali- links noted above. Meantime, enjoy the newsletter! tative and Multi-Method Research.” The new name better reflects the ways in which the institute has always sought to Notes bridge qualitative and other approaches. Like the section, the 1 My thanks to Colin Elman for helpful comments and fact check- institute continues to thrive. In 2006-2007, CQRM had ap- ing on this letter. proximately 50 institutional members, and the 2007 institute Symposium: The Perestroika Movement The Perestroika Movement, fair to say that its existence played a critical part in the impetus its Methodological Concerns, and the for reform.2 Professional Implications of These What was Perestroika all about? Why did the movement 1 occur when it did, and in this form? What has it accomplished? Methodological Issues What might it have done differently? What remains to be done? And, most important, what can we learn about the issues on Kristin Renwick Monroe which Perestroika has focused: the scientific nature of political University of California, Irvine science, methodological pluralism and diversity, APSA gover- [email protected] nance, the community of scholars in political science, and gradu- ate education. These issues are discussed briefly here and are Late in the summer of 2000, a small group of political sci- addressed more fully in an edited volume (Yale University Press, entists decided they had had enough. Fed up with what they 2005) that includes both proponents and opponents of Pere- saw as the narrow parochialism and methodological bias to- stroika. I am grateful to the contributors,3 to Yale University ward the quantitative, behavioral, and rational choice ap- Press, and to my editor at Yale, John Kulka, for allowing me to proaches in American political science and concerned that the quote extensively from this volume and from the original intro- American Political Science Association (APSA) system of gov- duction. Both because the heart of the Perestroika move-ment ernance systematically underrepresented critical groups, they concerns methodological pluralism, and because this issue is established an untraceable email address under the name of of most interest to readers of the newsletter, however, I focus Perestroika and issued a call for change. The name Perestroika on the methodological issues raised by Perestroika. Because was drawn from the term in Soviet politics and was chosen to of space constraints, I cannot discuss any of these issues fully suggest that political science should be more welcoming, as a but rather try to highlight some of the themes addressed more “warm house” is welcoming, to diverse kinds of political sci- fully in the edited volume. The volume itself discusses APSA ence. The movement was anonymous because the initial par- governance, graduate education, and publications in the jour- ticipants feared professional reprisal from an establishment nals, since these are important arenas in which methodological angered at criticism and calls for transforming the discipline. issues get played out in the profession. (See note 3 for a list of The initial Perestroika communiqué was sent to some ten topics and contributors.) individuals, who then were asked to forward it to anyone else History, Background, and Perspectives on Perestroika they thought might be interested. The movement spread like the proverbial wildfire. Fueled by discontent within the acad- First, some background and context. Perestroika devel- emy, the list of political scientists receiving the Perestroika oped into what Susanne Rudolph aptly described as a “rela- emails grew. Perestroika sponsored several events at the APSA tively acephalous and loose organizational form for conversa- meeting in 2001 and thereafter, and at several regional associa- tion and engagement with the diverse groups within the politi- tions, and within two years the face of political science had cal science community.”4 The conversation took this form, in changed. A new journal was established by the APSA. Women Rudolph’s view, to accommodate the multiple modes of inquiry were chosen as APSA presidents-elect three years in a row. subsumed under the Perestroika label. Indeed, one of the uni- And the APSA established formal committees to encourage fying tendencies that brings together the various strands of mentoring of women and minorities and to examine graduate Perestroika is the opposition to the monopoly