How qualitative research really counts

Author

Kenneth BENOIT, Singapore Management UniversityFollow

Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

3-2005

Abstract

The main point of this essay is straightforward: The distinction between quantitative and qualitative research, when applied to empirical political analysis, is exaggerated and largely artificial. In fact, most political scientists can happily perform valid and useful research without being concerned about where they stand on the quantitative-qualitative divide. Furthermore, qualitative characterizations are often easily converted into quantitative characterizations, and many qualitative characterizations are implicitly quantitative to begin with. Finally, qualitative characterizations of the empirical world are almost always more useful when converted into quantitative ones.

Discipline

Political Science | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Qualitative Methods: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association

First Page

926

Last Page

12

ISSN

1544-8045

Publisher

American Political Science Association

Citation

BENOIT, Kenneth.(2005). How qualitative research really counts. Qualitative Methods: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association, , 926-12.

Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4053

Copyright Owner and License

Publisher

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.