THOUGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES ON RESEARCH DESIGNING IN POLITICAL INQUIRY

Abstract

This paper interrogates the place of research designs in political inquiry. Beyond exploring and explaining the essence and qualities of a good research design, the objective of this work is to provide epistemological insight to the broad options and how to maximize the key options in research designing in the discipline. The paper hypothesizes first, that a good research design has identifiable qualities; and two that that given the specificities of the social sciences, particularly political science discipline, it makes epistemological sense to think and explain research designing in political inquiry from the broad prisms of whether it is quantitative, qualitative or combined. Accordingly, the paper posits in the main, that qualitative, quantitative and combinational options present formidable templates for robust research designing in the length and breadth of the discipline. In probing or arguing the proposition, the paper relies substantially on personal and public documentary sources and materials for the generation of data, while grounded theory technique and analytic inductive technique enabled one to analyze data. The findings of this study indicate that researches in the discipline have a range of three research designs each for qualitative and quantitative research design options. In each case, the trio are explanatory, interpretive and critical designs for qualitative research design options; and exploratory, descriptive and causal designs for quantitative research design options. In the quest for due conceptualization and effective application of research designs, it is also possible to rely on combinations of the two broad options.