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The Logistics of Interviewing in International Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Edward Miles
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Extract

This note is intended primarily for graduate students and other researchers without previous field experience in studying international organizations. I do not propose either to summarize or to repeat the many expositions on survey research, interviewing, and the like; radier the focus here will be primarily on a number of the “nuts and bolts” problems not usually treated in the literature that the researcher is likely to face. If the individual is aware of these beforehand he can save himself time and a few mistakes.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Spring 1970 , pp. 361 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1970

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References

1 For some particularly helpful examples see Cicourel, Aaron, Method and Measurement in Sociology (New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar, chapter 2. (This is the best concise yet comprehensive treatment I have seen.) Becker, Howard S., “Problems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observation,” American Sociological Review, 12 1958 (Vol. 23, No. 6), pp. 652–660CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Royal Anthropological Institute, Notes and Queries on Anthropology (6th ed; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951)Google Scholar; Junker, Buford H., Field Work: An Introduction to the Social Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Hoebel, E. Adamson, The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 37–45Google Scholar. See also Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden Oity, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1959)Google Scholar; and Goffman, Erving, Encounters (Indianapolis, Ind: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1961)Google Scholar; Hyman, Herbert H., and others, Interviewing in Social Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)Google Scholar; Merton, Robert K., Fiske, Marjorie, and Kendall, Patricia L., The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures (Glencoe, III: The Free Press, 1956)Google Scholar.

2 Hammond, Phillip E. (ed.), Sociologists at Work: Essays on the Craft of Social Research (New York: Basic Books, 1964)Google Scholar and especially the selection by Blau, Peter M., “The Research Process in the Study of The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, in Hammond, , pp. 16–49Google Scholar; Scott, W. Richard, “Field Methods in die Study of Organizations,” in March, James G. (ed.), Handbook on Organizations (Chicago: Rand McNally St Co., 1965), pp. 261–304Google Scholar; Guetzkow, H., “An Exploratory Empirical Study of the Role of Conflict in Decision-Making Conferences,” International Social Science Bulletin, 1953 (Vol. 5, No. 2), pp. 286–300Google Scholar; Marquis, D. G., and others, “A Social Psychological Study of the Decision-Making Conference,” in Guetzkow, Harold (ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men (Pittsburgh, Pa: Carnegie Press, 1951), pp. 55–67Google Scholar; Alger, Chadwick, “Personal Contact in Intergovernmental Organizations,” in Kelman, Herbert (ed.), International Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), pp. 521–547Google Scholar; “Systematic Research on International Organizations,” paper presented to the International Political Science Association, Brussels, 09 18–23Google Scholar, “Interaction in a Committee of the United Nations General Assembly,” in Singer, J. David (ed.), Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence (New York: The Free Press, Collier-Macmillan, 1968), pp. 51–84Google Scholar; Hadwen, John G. and Kaufmann, Johan, How United Nations Decisions Are Made (New York: Oceana Publications, 1962)Google Scholar; and Kaufmann, Johan, Conference Diplomacy (New York: Oceana Publications, 1968)Google Scholar; Jacobson, Harold Karan, “Deriving Data from Delegates to International Assemblies: A Research Note,” International Organization, Summer 1967 (Vol. 21, No. 3), pp. 592–613CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Becker, , American Sociological Review, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 660Google Scholar.

4 For examples of the kinds of entries diat one can make in such diaries see Junker, pp. 22–27 and 117–119.

5 Siotis, Jean, “Les Missions permancntes à Genève et la CNUCED,” Rapport préliminaire, Groupe d'étude sur l'organisation Internationale, Dotation Carnegie pour la paix internationale (Genève, 01 17, 1968), p. 1Google Scholar and footnote 2.

6 Alger, Chadwick F., “United Nations Participation as a Learning Experience,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 1963 (Vol. 27, No. 3), pp. 410–426CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Jacobson, , International Organization, Vol. 21, No. 3, p. 597Google Scholar.

8 On the status of social research in the Communist system seeShippee, John, “Empirical Sociology in the Eastern European Communist Party-States,” in Triska, Jan F. (ed.), Communist Party-States: Comparative and International Studies (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1969), pp. 282–336Google Scholar.

9 See Cicourel, pp. 41–42.

10 See for instance Cicourel, pp. 81 and 87; Hyman, and others, pp. 34–137; andRichardson, Stephen A., and others, Interviewing (New York: Basic Books, 1965), pp. 59–124Google Scholar and 138–206.

11 I am grateful to my colleagues Thomas Drabek and James Sorenson of the Department of Sociology and College of Business Administration, respectively, for these suggestions of probable bias.