1. Mapping the ontologies, methodological approaches and methods of social sciences: application of social network analysis
Dmitry Zaytsev, Daria Drozdova
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

2. Research design: question and goal
How do ontology shared by researcher implicitly defines his/her research focus, determines the choice of methodological approaches that already have standardly formulated research questions, and limit our analytical tools or methods?
Research goal is to identify the most different clusters of related ontologies-approaches-and-methods in social sciences
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2014

3. Research design: existed attempts
Donatella della Porta and Michael Keating (eds.) Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences A Pluralist Perspective. Cambridge University Press 2008.

4. D. Marsh, G. Stoker. Theory and Methods in Political Science. Palgrave

5. Research design: initial model
Ontologies or Paradigms – general philosophical attitudes related to certain academic tradition and school, which propose an answer to the questions: What is the social reality which we study? What we can really study in society? Methodological Approaches define research subject and the research question, as well as used theories and hypothesis
Research Methods – concrete procedures which allow to answer the research question and test initial hypothesis or theories
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2014

6. Methodological Approach
Research design: initial model
Paradigm
Methodological Approach
Methods
Why to study \ research?
What is social reality? How does social system work?
What to study \ research?
How to study \ research \ analyze \ evaluate \ measure ?

7. Paradigms
Idealism
Marxism
Freudism
Positivism
Post positivism
Neo/Post-Marxism
(Post) Structuralism
Postmodernism
Methodological approaches
Historical, Legal, Institutional
Dialectical Materialism
Psychoanalysis
Behaviorism, System approach, Structural functionalism
Phenomenological Sociology, Ethnomethodology, Theory of rational choice, Neo-institutionalism, Comparative analysis
Structural constructivism, Actors Centered
Social constructivism, Hermeneutic, Cultural approach
Communicational, Feminism
Methods
Formal logic, Description, Analysis, Comparison, Deduction, Induction, Conceptual Analysis
Interview, Experiment
Survey, Formalized interviewing, Content analysis, Social Experiment, Statistics, Secondary Data Analysis
Not-formalized interviewing, Focus groups, Mathematical modeling Comparative method, Social network analysis
Case studies, Event analysis, Situational analysis, Impact Analysis, Policy Analysis
Qualitative Methods of Text analysis, Discourse analysis
Network Analysis
Periods (starting from…)
Ancient Greece…
19th century ss
2 waves: ss: ss ss ss ss
Disciplines
Political History, Political Philosophy, Comparative Politics
Political Psychology
Political Sociology
Political Economics
Political Analysis
Political Linguistics
Political Communications

8. Mapping Paradigms, Methodological approaches and Methods
Problems:
no clear boundaries between Paradigms, Approaches and Methods
periodization: starting point & accelerated appearance in the last decades of 20th century
diverse understanding of paradigms / approaches / and even methods in different (sub-) disciplines

9. Research design: initial model
Paradigms
Approaches
Methods
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

10. Data: paradigms - approaches
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2014

11. Network: paradigms - approaches
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

12. Data: approaches - methods
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2014

13. Network: approaches - methods
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

14. Network: paradigms – approaches - methods
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

15. Final Methods - Paradigms Matrix: reduction formula
𝐶 𝑖𝑗 = 𝑘 𝐴 𝑖𝑘 𝐵 𝑘𝑗
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Higher School of Economics , Moscow, 2017

16. Final Methods - Paradigms Matrix: standardized values

17. Final Methods - Paradigms Matrix: Clustering Results

18. Final Methods - Paradigms Matrix: with clustering results & pre-specifications about network structure
‘universal’, ‘specialized’ and ‘topside’ methods’ relational structure?
‘core-periphery’, ‘hierarchy’, ‘clustering’ or ‘brokerage’ methods’ relational structure?

19. Strong connection: if 𝑉 𝑝𝑚 > <𝑉 𝑝 > + 0.7 𝜎 𝑝
Final Methods - Paradigms Binary Matrix
Strong connection: if 𝑉 𝑝𝑚 > <𝑉 𝑝 > 𝜎 𝑝

20. Mapping Methods relationally: Clustering Results

21. Mapping Methods relationally: Blockmodel Results

22. Conclusion: work in progress
Analysis of Textbook about methodology of social science (+textbooks and disciplines as nodes)
Analysis of Papers published in advanced journals (+journals as nodes)
Survey of experts in the methodology of social science (+experts as nodes)
Survey of sociologists, political scientists, social psychologists (+scientist as nodes)