Daniel Druckman - Doing Research: Methods of Inquiry for Conflict Analysis

Doing
Research

Methods of Inquiry for Conflict Analysis

Daniel Druckman

Copyright 2005 by Sage Publications, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Druckman, Daniel, 1939
Doing research : methods of inquiry for conflict analysis / Daniel Druckman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-2778-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-7619-2779-4 (pbk.)
1. Conflict managementResolutionResearchMethodology.
2. Social conflictResearchMethodology. 3. Interpersonal
conflictResearchMethodology. 4. International
conflictResearchMethodology. I. Title.
HM1126.D78 2005
303.69072dc22

2004024120

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

T here is no book on methods quite like this one. Having taught research methods in the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) doctoral program for more than a decade, I recognize the need for a book that makes research interesting, worthwhile, and relevant while engaging the student in the debates concerning how to do it. Rather than discuss research methods in the abstract, as is done in most methods texts, this book presents methods in the context of actual research projects. More emphasis is placed on the way projects are done than on how to execute particular techniques. A central theme of the book is the value of multi-method approaches to research on conflict and related topics. Understood in the context of programs of research, this approach consists of moving vertically from small (single experiments or cases) to large studies (meta-analyses, comparative case analyses) and moving horizontally from simulations to case studies. Bridging a gap between theory and research, the approach provides the flexibility needed to bring scientific findings to bear on practitioner training and decision making. I include key insights derived from conflict research conducted with a multi-method approach.

Books on research methodology, like other kinds of books, reflect their authors experiences and perspectives. This text is not an exception. My decisions about topic coverage and the way each of the topics is treated were influenced, to a large extent, by the teachers and texts that I have been exposed to and the experiences that I have had in a professional career that began on May 17, 1966, the day I was awarded a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. For this reason, it would seem useful to discuss briefly some of these influences.

My professors in the graduate department at Northwestern valued rigorous approaches to research, with a preference for quantitative over qualitative methods. Within this framework, however, there existed a tension between the experimentalists and the social psychologists. Tight laboratory controls, favored by Benton J. Underwood and his students, contrasted with the relaxation of controls reflected in the quasi-experimental designs proposed by Donald T. Campbell and his students. This tension between internal (represented by Underwoods approach) and external validity (emphasized by Campbell) strongly influenced , has emerged in recent years as part of a post-positivist culture of scholarship. It weaves through the treatment of topics in this book, not as a doctrine but as a flexible foundation for generating and accumulating knowledge.

I was exposed also at Northwestern to the use of simulation in international relations. Pioneered by Harold Guetzkow, simulation was construed both as an approach to modeling complex social processes and as a context for laboratory experiments. As a member of Guetzkows team, I conducted research on the inter-nation simulation and constructed lifelike situations for exploring negotiation processes. This experience sensitized me to issues of generality of research, known also as external validity. A good deal of my research since graduate school has consisted of developing methodological approaches that would enhance the generality of findings from empirical studies. These concerns also weave through many of the discussions in this book.

I have benefited from exposure to other research traditions as well. A summer at the University of Michigans survey research center introduced me to the intricacies of survey sampling and questionnaire design. As a research assistant on Donald Campbell and Robert LeVines cooperative cross-cultural study of ethnocentrism (LeVine & Campbell, 1972), I was exposed to an ethno-graphic research tradition favored by many anthropologists. This experience taught me about the possibilities for comparative case or ethnographic studies as an approach for evaluating theory-based propositions. During this period, I learned about a wide variety of methodological issues and challenges, including the value of using unobtrusive measures in evaluation research designs. The captivating book on this topic by Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, and Sechrest (1966) was energized by Campbell working with several of his faculty colleagues during my time as a graduate student.

Courses on statistics stretched from undergraduate days through the doctoral programs at Duke in sociology and at Northwestern in social psychology. My first encounter with the analysis of variance occurred in a very difficult senior-level course in the statistics department at Michigan State. Concentrating primarily on the algebraic foundations for the technique, the professor used a text by Dixon and Massey (1957) to introduce the students to the topic. A more complete understanding of the technique was gained from the experimental perspective of Edwardss textbook Experimental Design in Psychological Research (1960), used in Albert Erlbachers graduate course at Northwestern. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was the primary technique used to analyze the data collected for both my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation and has been the primary statistical tool used in my research, especially in my earlier publications. Blalocks book