Epistemological and Methodological Foundations

Understood literally, method-ology means the study and/or use of methods. This understanding implies the existence of more than one method and that the utility of a particular method can vary across contexts. For many practitioners in political science, the method of choice is determined by the number of observations: Students of relatively abundant political phenomena rely on statistical techniques, students of unique political phenomena use case study techniques, and those in the middle sample choose from a wide array of qualitative or small-N comparative approaches. This methodological rule of thumb is derived from an implicit hierarchy of methods, which is the product of a particular, and very influential, research tradition.

This entry examines the ontological and epistemological foundations of this research tradition to explain the reasoning behind its implicit hierarchy of methods and to show some of its inherent limitations. There are two objectives for this. The first objective is to broaden the reader's methodological horizons by showing how one's choice of methods should reflect the nature of the subject one studies as well as the way in which one can acquire knowledge about that subject. By examining these methodological foundations, political scientists can become more aware of both the potential and the shortcomings of the methods they use. Just as important, methodological reflection can encourage political scientists to use a broader range of methods. In recognizing how the usefulness of any particular method will depend on the nature of the subject under study as well as on the mode of explanation that the analyst deems most appropriate, political scientists may find it necessary to adapt their methods, or adopt new ones, as the nature of the political world (and political scientists' interest in it) evolves.

To stimulate this sort of reflection, this entry focuses on the philosophical underpinnings of the most common approaches. For empirically minded political scientists, these philosophical concerns are twofold: (1) they need to be aware of the nature of the things they study, and (2) they need to concern themselves with the various means by which they can secure reliable knowledge about those things. These two concerns provide the basic framework for this entry. The first section examines the way in which mainstream approaches depend on a particular understanding of the political world to produce the theories and generalizations that the political science profession admires. The most common methods are designed to exploit specific ontological contexts and epistemological standards; as a result, they do not always work as designed when transplanted to new and different contexts. The second section introduces an alternative ontological approach and its relationship to the same, commonplace methods. In short, the relationship among ontology, epistemology, and the methods is discussed in the first two sections that follow. The third section examines some of the most common difficulties facing researchers who are trying to secure reliable knowledge about that political world. In their attempt to secure and understand knowledge about the world, they inevitably impose their own ways of ordering it. Recognizing and correcting these inherent biases is the subject of the third section, which harks back to Francis Bacon for the task.

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