# 2.1 Positivism and interpretivism revisited

As you can see, positivist and interpretivist approaches to research pose quite different questions of international relations. The former tend to seek causal explanations, while the latter aim to understand how the world has been socially constituted.

But one should be careful not to see the distinction between the two approaches as binary, or as mutually exclusive. Indeed, research might draw on aspects of both frameworks, adopting more ‘middle-ground’ approaches. Scholars adopting neoclassical realism, Critical Theory, or constructivism, for instance, might draw on both positivist traditions that emphasise the material and the causal, while also allowing – to a greater or lesser extent – for the importance of norms, ideas and the construction of meaning within international relations.

To summarise, there is no easy or singular answer to the approach that you should take in your research – there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. What matters is that you are clear about what you are trying to achieve and say with your research; that you think carefully about the conceptual, theoretical and methodological assumptions you are making in the research design; and that these are appropriate together.

OpenLearn - Developing a research question in International Relations
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