Contemporary Challenges in Political Methodology

Rigorous methodologies are the backbone of any project in political research. They determine the connections between our research questions and our empirical analysis as well as our ability to draw the correct conclusions. However, political methodologies do not exist in a vacuum of their own and much like everything in political research, they also evolve hand in hand with our discipline. Methods are informed by other research disciplines and technological advancements. This section explores contemporary challenges to political methodology both in data collection and data analysis. New data sources may challenge researchers in many ways. For instance, technical advancement may allow us to collect data and evidence of a scope that we have never envisaged to have access to, but these data may require revision of current ethical standards, sampling strategies, and other rules of data collection (and analysis). Complex concepts, such democracy and autocracy, behaviours of participation in society may lead to novel questioning techniques that allow us to be more precise in how go from concept to measurement and improve the precision of the data (analysis) and revisit the conclusions we can draw on their basis. New documentation techniques may allow keeping better track of data, versioning, and management, but they may come with issues of anonymisation and reidentification. At the same time, novel and innovative methods of data analysis may be used to analyse data – old and new – that move political science and international relations research into new directions. Equally, beyond defending the appropriate method for our research question, we need to acknowledge the value various kinds of methods bring in advancing our understanding of complex political phenomena and recognize that methodological silos do not help us in seeing how we can combine methods to approach research objects laterally. To celebrate the pluralism and diversity of research methods in politics and international relations, this section invites papers and panels addressing: • Novel methods of data collection including new ways to collect data, new ways of detecting and correcting measurement bias, techniques to estimate equivalence of measures, new survey methods and question, innovative experimental designs, and ways to harvest and analyse big data • Innovations in qualitative data collection such as new interviewing techniques, research protocols, archives, focus groups and other ethnographic methods aimed to study politics and international relations • New ideas to systematically apply and document critical methods to create sophisticated analytical frameworks • Challenges to traditional and new methods of data analysis across methodological approaches that new research objects bring about, especially in the interface of politics and international relations with psychology, sociology, economics, media & communication and law. • Creative approaches to teaching research methods to junior researchers in politics and international relations and increasing the prominence of methods to increase rigour. The organizers of the section will explore the possibility of a special issue based on the methodological contributions to this section. Endorsement: Standing Group on Political Methodology Section Chair: Theofanis Exadaktylos Section Co-Chair: Bernd Schlipphak The section is proposed by the members of the Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Methodology: Jos Elkink is Associate Professor in Social Science Research Methods at University College Dublin. He specializes in research methods and spatial and network econometrics, and his applied work primarily concerns the study of electoral behavior and Russian politics. Theofanis Exadaktylos is Senior Lecturer in European Politics at the University of Surrey. He has expertise in research methods and research design issues with regard to Europeanization research, experiments, content and discourse analysis. Bernd Schlipphak is Associate Professor for Empirical Research Methods at WWU Muenster. In his research on elite communication and public attitudes toward the domestic and international level, he collects and links different sorts of data stemming from survey experiments, (automated) content analysis and observational data collection. Lea Sgier is Senior Lecturer in qualitative methodology at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Geneva. Her main methodological interests are in qualitative-interpretive research, applied to issues of gender and politics and to dementia policy. Kathrin Thomas is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Aberdeen. Her research and teaching expertise are on research methods, especially survey methodology and quantitative data analysis, comparative public opinion research, participation and electoral behaviour.