Political Science and Research: Methods Matter

Abstract

The selection of methodological approaches in political science research has always been surrounded by debate. During the late twentieth century, quantitative analyses were argued to be preferable over qualitative ones. However, this paradigm was gradually demystified thanks to the work done by Brady and Collier (2004) and Goertz and Mahoney (2012). This article starts out by trying to uncouple the existing hierarchy between methods which political science inherited from a classic vision of research in the discipline and proposes some guidelines to face methodological decisions while doing research in the field. After introducing the different research traditions used by researchers in political science, it suggests focusing not only on the research questions, but also taking into account the hypotheses in order to highlight the importance of congruence between theory and methodology.