How to Research Researchers

How to Research Researchers: Methods for Studying Political Scientists Worldwide provides methodological guidance for scholars and graduate students seeking a deeper understanding of the study of researchers as a field of inquiry. While the volume focuses on political science and its key actors, political scientists, the methods and examples it presents are adaptable across disciplines. Each chapter introduces a method and guides the reader through its practical application. The volume covers well-established methods such as surveys, interviews, and bibliometric network analysis, as well as approaches gaining traction, such as archival analysis and autoethnography. Other chapters explore approaches that are widely used in some fields but remain underutilized in the study of political science’s history and development, including set-theoretic methods of concept analysis and comparative analysis, ethnography, storytelling, and mixed- and multi-method designs. Across the chapters, contributors engage directly with the specific challenges of researching disciplines and their practitioners. The introductory and concluding chapters offer timely reflections on methodological pluralism and reflexivity, emphasizing how diverse methods can illuminate knowledge production, the organization of the discipline, and the inequalities that shape it, as well as the role of political science in contemporary society. By foregrounding the experiences and practices of researchers, the book advances a deeper and more critical understanding of political science, an endeavor that is especially important in the context of ongoing global crises.

Mehtap Söyler is Associate Professor at İzmir Katip Çelebi University and an associate member of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA). She also serves on the board of the IPSA Research Committee 01 (Concepts and Methods). Her book, The Turkish Deep State, focuses on case study methods and theory generation. Her research interests include social science methodology, political science as a discipline, peace studies, and political regimes and institutions.Paulo Ravecca is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University and former Chair of IPSA’s Research Committee 33 (The Study of Political Science as a Discipline). He is the author of The Politics of Political Science: Rewriting Latin American Experiences (Routledge, 2019).