Study Skills : Network methods

Nicola Headlam21st Nov 2014

“Social research is the art of getting elites

to tell you things that they don’t want to tell you :

Everything else is just public relations*”

Today 11-1

i. Introductionii. Wordsiii. Picturesiv. SNAv. Questions about Research Design and Data collection

Dr Nicola M Headlam@networknicolanicolah@liv.ac.uk

Almost all empirical research into governance is designed with the goal of culling information about three factors: (1) the individuals who wield the greatest influence over political decisions; (2) the nature of the organisational resources these persons use to wield influence; and (3) the particular activities or policies that were carried out over a specific period of time. (Gissendanner 2003)

researching the ongoing process of institutional emergence is dirty work…to unearth the real rules that shape local political behaviour (informal as well as formal, invisible as well as visible) We need to talk to the local government actors themselves. We need to ask them ‘How are things done around here?’ ‘why do you do x but not y?’ obtaining information about rules-in-use requires spending time at the site and learning how to answer non-threatening context-specific questions about rule configurations” (Lowndes, Pratchett et al. 2006)

“by the time the anthropologist has got his tent up the reality he went out to explore has changed” (Lash, 1995)

Social and political scientists have traditionally conceived elites as those individuals ; so placed within the structure that by their decisions they modify the milieu of many other men (Mill 1953, 112). There are those who dispute the usefulness of the term ‘elite’ arguing that if the shift from urban managerialism to urban entrepreneurialism is anything to go by then elites can also include local celebrities and business barons from the private sector (Peck 1995 and Harvey 1989)’ Rice, 2010 pp 71

Researching institutions of governance and interviewing elite personnel has long been a difficult issue for social researchers. Even before the emergence of relatively fragmented and non-locally accountable institutional structures, research that sought to uncover elites and identify influences over decision making processes came up against a series of barriers in terms of access and accessibility. (Raco 1999 pp 274)

the issue of power was always and ever a consideration. Given the situatedness of the hybrid elite actors within the blurred academic, industrial and political fields, an interrogation of the relations of power connecting the researcher, researched and the research findings became a significant point of consideration. Invariably, any attempt to map the researched–researcher relationship inevitably centres on the question of power and in particular its exploitative potential. This is because with elite interviewees the relationship is inevitably asymmetrical regardless of the research strategies deployed. The researcher is dependant on the cooperation of a relatively small number of people with specialized knowledge, [Desmond, 2008pp 265]

Co-producing research entails tussling with the dialectic between unity and difference, sovereignty and independence, the self and the other. Co-producing research holds the potential for creative coalitions but also the possibility of the clash of civilisations. Co-production is therefore in inherehently political process which requires continual negotiation” (Orr and Bennett, 2010 pp 202)

Other key terms : Structural hole

Map 1

Map 2 IN

INF

BROREP

other

Map 3

+44 (0)151 795 2485heseltine@liverpool.ac.uk

Twitter: @livuniheseltine

www.liv.ac.uk/heseltine-institute