Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:45:48.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Process Tracing and Elite Interviewing: A Case for Non-probability Sampling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2007

Oisín Tansey
Oisín Tansey
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article explores the relationship between the method of process tracing and the data collection technique of elite interviewing. The process tracing method has become an increasingly used and cited tool in qualitative research, a trend that has recently accelerated with the publication of Alexander George and Andrew Bennett's text (2005), Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. That book outlines and explores the process tracing method in detail, highlighting its advantages for exploring causal processes and analyzing complex decision-making. Yet while the book presents a rigorous and compelling account of the process tracing method and its critical importance to case study research, the value of the method itself remains contested in some quarters, and there are aspects of George and Bennett's treatment of it that require further exploration.

Type
THE PROFESSION
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 765 - 772
Copyright
© 2007 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aberbach, Joel D., Robert D. Putnam, and Bert A. Rockman. 1981. Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Aberbach, Joel D., and Bert A. Rockman. 2000. In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Press.Google Scholar
Aberbach, Joel D., and Bert A. Rockman. 2002. “Conducting and Coding Elite Interviews.” PS: Political Science and Politics 35 (December): 673–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babbie, Earl. 1995. The Practice of Social Research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Colin Elman. 2006. “Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 455–76.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M. 2002. “Validity and Reliability Issues in Elite Interviewing.” PS: Political Science and Politics 35 (December): 679–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biernacki, Patrick, and Dan Waldord. 1981. “Snowball Sampling: Problems and Techniques of Chain Referral Sampling.” Sociological Methods and Research 10 (November): 141–63.Google Scholar
Checkel, Jeffrey. 2006. “Tracing Causal Mechanisms.” International Studies Review 8 (June): 362–70.Google Scholar
Collier, David, Henry E. Brady, and Jason Seawright. 2005a. “Critiques, Responses and Trade-Offs.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, eds. Henry E. Brady and David Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 195–227.Google Scholar
Collier, David, Henry E. Brady, and Jason Seawright. 2005b. “Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference: Toward an Alternative View of Methodology.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, eds. Henry E. Brady and David Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 229–66.Google Scholar
Davies, Philip H. J. 2001. “Spies as Informants: Triangulation and the Interpretation of Elite Interview Data in the Study of the Intelligence and Security Services.” Politics 21 (1): 73–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denitch, Bogdan. 1972. “Elite Interviewing and Social Structure: An Example from Yugoslavia.” Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 143–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dexter, Lewis Anthony. 1970. Elite and Specialized Interviewing. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 7.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Gary King. 2002. “The Rules of Inference.” University of Chicago Law Review 69 (winter): 1–209.Google Scholar
Farquharson, Karen. 2005. “A Different Kind of Snowball: Identifying Key Policymakers.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (October): 345–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Alexander L. 1979. “The Causal Nexus Between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision-Making Behavior: The ‘Operational Code’ Belief System.” In Psychological Models in International Politics, ed. Lawrence S. Falkowski. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 95–124.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L., and Timothy J. McKeown. 1985. “Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making.” In Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, eds. Robert Coulam and Richard Smith. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 21–58.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Kenneth. 2002. “Getting in the Door: Sampling and Completing Elite Interviews.” PS: Political Science and Politics 35 (December): 669–72.Google Scholar
Hammer, Dean, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1989. “The Open-Ended, Semi-Structured Interview: An (Almost) Operational Guide.” In Craftways: On the Organization of Scholarly Work. Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Henry, Gary T. 1990. Practical Sampling. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Kidder, Louise H., Charles M. Judd, and Eliot R. Smith. 1991. Research Methods in Social Relations. Fort Worth, TX: Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 132.Google Scholar
Kramer, Mark. 1990. “Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis: Should We Swallow Oral History?” International Security 15 (summer): 212–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2000. “Strategies of Causal Inference in Small-N Analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research 28 (May): 387–424.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Gary Goertz. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis 14: 246.Google Scholar
Odell, John S. 2006. “A Major Milestone with One Major Limitation.” Qualitative Methods: Newsletter of the APSA Qualitative Methods Section 4 (spring): 38.Google Scholar
Rivera, Sharon Werning, Polina M. Kozyreva, and Eduard G. Sarovskii. 2002. “Interviewing Political Elites: Lessons from Russia.” PS: Political Science and Politics 35 (December): 683–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seldon, Anthony, and Joanna Pappworth. 1983. By Word of Mouth: Elite Oral History. London: Methuen Publishing.Google Scholar