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Are there really two cultures? A pilot study on the application of qualitative and quantitative methods in political science
Author(s) -
KUEHN DAVID,
ROHLFING INGO
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/1475-6765.12159
Subject(s) - politics , causal inference , argument (complex analysis) , empirical research , qualitative research , epistemology , positive economics , inference , social science , quantitative analysis (chemistry) , sociology , political methodology , qualitative analysis , test (biology) , political culture , political science , systems theory in political science , law , economics , econometrics , biology , paleontology , biochemistry , philosophy , chemistry , chromatography
In their 2012 publication A Tale of Two Cultures , Gary Goertz and James Mahoney argue that empirical research in the social sciences aiming at causal inference can be differentiated into a qualitative and a quantitative methodological culture. The two cultures differ fundamentally in how researchers approach and implement empirical studies. The argument is well laid out and comprehensively illustrated, but the empirical validity of the two cultures hypothesis has not yet been evaluated systematically. This note introduces a research project that aims to test the two cultures hypothesis via an empirical analysis of how qualitative and quantitative methods are applied. To determine whether there is a qualitative and quantitative method culture, the researchers initially sampled 30 articles from three journals ( Comparative Political Studies , European Journal of Political Research , World Politics ) in the 2008–2012 period. Based on this dataset, no evidence was found for the existence of coherent systems of methods practices in political science.