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Introduction

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Research questions represent a key starting point when conducting research and they often vary according to the kinds of research inquiry chosen. One important distinction is between ‘positivist’ and ‘interpretivist’ approaches in the discipline. Positivist research focuses on explaining a phenomenon. They are often interested in establishing causal relationships – for instance, why did x happen? They incline towards using and analysing quantitative data and testing hypotheses to establish ‘facts’ through which we can understand, and perhaps predict, the social world.

Interpretivist (or ‘critical’, or ‘post-positivist’) research focuses on understanding social phenomena. Such questions ask how a certain understanding of the world, set of social relations or array of practices comes to be. Implicit here is the sense that other ways of understanding and arranging the social world are possible, and perhaps desirable, even if something appears to be fixed and timeless. Such work often utilises more qualitative data, exploring how meanings are produced and shared through discourses and practices.

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This OpenLearn course will guide through the different types of research questions in international relations (IR), and it will help you develop the skills necessary to develop your own. Through a series of activities, including a bespoke Masterclass, you will have the opportunity to reflect on what makes a good research question and to consider the types of questions that one might ask when doing a research project in international relations.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course D828 MA International relations part 2. You might also be interested in studying the sister OpenLearn course International relations: exploring territorial divisions which is an adapted extract from the Open University course D818 MA International relations part 1

Learning outcomes

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

After studying this course, you should be able to:

understand what makes a good research question
reflect on and apply positivist and interpretivist approaches in international relations
identify different types of questions and how to use them

1 Masterclass: research questions in International Relations

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In this masterclass, you will hear from Professor Jamie Gaskarth about the types of research question that inform scholarly inquiry into international relations (IR).

Activity 1 What makes a good research question in IR?

Timing: approximately 20 minutes

Watch the following video and, as you watch, take notes on the two approaches to research questions identified by Gaskarth: ‘how’ questions and ‘why’ questions.

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Video 1: What makes a good research question in IR?

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Transcript: Video 1: What makes a good research question in IR?

JAMIE GASKARTH

Hello, my name is Jamie Gaskarth. I’m Professor of Foreign Policy and International Relations at The Open University. In this video, we’ll explore two kinds of research question, one aimed at understanding, and the other explaining international politics. As we’ll see, they lead to different, but equally valid research avenues.

First up is Roxanne Doty’s article from 1993, ‘Foreign policy as social construction: a post-positivist analysis of US counterinsurgency policy in the Philippines’ published in International Studies Quarterly. The title is a clue to the kind of approach Doty will adopt, emphasising social construction and post-positivism. This article emerges from the so-called ‘third debate’ when a new generation of scholars began to question the taken-for-granted assumptions of IR scholarship. The aim was to deconstruct how we describe the world and unpick our knowledge claims.

Traditional positivist research tended to ask why things happened, which meant comparing and ranking the causes of things. Roxanne Doty notes that ‘why’ questions ‘generally take it as read the possibility that a particular decision or course of action could take place.’ Instead in this article, Doty wants to explore a ‘how possible’ question. How do our practices enable certain social actors to act in the way they do?

Doty identifies two ‘how possible’ questions. Here, we’ll just discuss the first: ‘how were particular subjects and modes of subjectivity constituted so as to make possible United States interventionist policies in the Philippines circa 1950?’ There are three mechanisms Doty identifies by which subjects are constituted: presupposition, predication and subject positioning.

Presupposition means the assumptions you make about reality. Who are the important actors in world politics? How do you expect them to behave? Predication is about the qualities one associates with the subject. Here, you might look at the adjectives used. Are they angry, sad, lazy, emotional, cold? Subject positioning is how you relate subjects to one another via means such as binary oppositions, north/south, male/female, civilised/uncivilised, rational/irrational?

Her analysis looks at the US intervention in the Philippines and how it was made possible via these mechanisms. Looking at official records of the intervention, Doty notes a pattern in the kinds of predication attached to the Filipino population. They are described as childlike, inept, wasteful. Meanwhile, the US has obligations, is responsible, and must protect them – paternalistic images.

The presupposition Doty identifies was that Asian thinking was very different from non-Asian thinking. This difference is structured in terms of reason and passion, with the US as reasonable and the Filipino population as passionate and emotional. A further supposition was that the Filipino population could be divided into good and evil. This leads to particular subject positions. A hierarchy is implied, with the US as reasonable, good and possessing moral obligations, while the Filipinos were passionate, some were evil, and all had to be looked after rather than be independent.

These were common ways of thinking and describing during the colonial era. Look at it that way, it begins to make sense how the US could justify intervention to itself and others, overriding the autonomy of the Filipinos. In essence, ‘how possible’ questions are a kind of gap-spotting exercise, where much of the literature focuses on what happened and why. ‘How possible’ questions introduce the important element of how these events are enabled. It leads to a radically different way of thinking about international

politics, critiquing power structures, delegitimising forms of domination, including the production of knowledge.

Our second research question is drawn from an article by Virginia Page Fortna from 2004. This too was published International Studies Quarterly. But it’s a very different sort of project. Fortna asks, ‘Does peacekeeping keep peace? International intervention and the duration of peace after civil war.’ It was written at a time when many scholars were questioning whether UN peacekeeping did more harm than good, with Edward Luttwak arguing, ‘We should give war a chance.’

Fortna notes a ‘lack of rigorous testing of the effectiveness of these interventions by the international community.’ In other words, she too spots a gap in our understanding. Fortna’s paper examines peacekeeping in the aftermath of civil wars. She adopts a positivist approach to explain outcomes by hypothesis-testing. Her two hypotheses are ‘that peacekeeping contributes to more durable peace, and the null hypothesis that it does not make peace significantly more likely to last.’

Fortna explains that at first glance in civil wars since 1944, there is another round of fighting between the same parties in about 42% of cases, where no peacekeepers were deployed, and in approximately 39% of those with peacekeeping. The numbers are even worse for UN peacekeeping with peace slightly more likely to fail when UN peacekeepers are present than when they are absent.

After the Cold War, the record of peacekeeping is slightly better. But in none of these tabulations is the difference between peacekeeping and no peacekeeping statistically significant. But looks can be deceiving. Fortna takes the analysis further by arguing we need to be able to gauge the degree of difficulty of the various cases, as well as the durability of the peace. UN peacekeepers are more likely to be deployed to difficult situations.

When you factor that in, Fortna suggests that ‘after 1989, when the International community deploys peacekeepers, the risk of another round of fighting drops by almost 70 per cent.’ She concludes that ‘peacekeeping works, particularly after the Cold War when most of the attempts to keep peace after civil wars have been made.’ ... It does not guarantee lasting peace in every case, but it does tend to make peace more likely to last, and to last longer.’

These two articles are great examples of clear research questions leading to fruitful research and interesting findings. To recap, Doty’s is a ‘how’ question. And by posing it in this way and then doing lots of empirical research in the National Archives, she draws attention to the power structures and knowledge claims that legitimise intervention by powerful states.

Meanwhile, Fortna uses a positivist approach to test hypotheses. Setting out clear parameters for the research and defining her cases carefully, she provides a stronger evidence base with an important conclusion: UN peacekeeping works. In your own research, you need to begin by thinking about the puzzle you want to examine and the best way of interrogating it. Will you ask a ‘how’ question to understand something, or a hypothesis-testing ‘why’ question to explain it? Either way, this will hopefully say something important about the way international relations operate.

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2 Positivist and interpretivist approaches

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Having watched the masterclass and taken notes on the use of ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, this activity is an opportunity to apply your understanding of the differences between positivist and interpretivist research questions.

Activity 2 Positivist and interpretivist approaches in practice

Timing: approximately 20 minutes

Take a look at the following two abstracts for journal articles by scholars researching different aspects of international relations. Can you identify which research project takes a positivist approach, and which research adopts an interpretivist approach?

Make notes in the text box below. To distinguish between the positivist and the interpretivist approaches, you might wish to consider what question is being asked by each abstract, what sort of claims are being made about the phenomena they are interested in and what data they are drawing on to make these claims.

Abstract 1

This article addresses the puzzle of why, and under what conditions, international organisations cease to exist. International Relations literature offers rich explanations for the creation, design and effectiveness of international institutions and their organisational embodiments, international organizations (IOs), but surprisingly little effort has gone into studying the dynamics of IO termination. Yet if we want to understand the conditions under which international organisations endure, we must also explain why they frequently fail to do so. The article formulates and tests a theory of ‘IO death’ using a combination of population-wide statistical analysis and detailed historical case studies. My analysis is based on an original dataset covering the period 1815–2016. I find that exogenous shocks are a leading proximate cause of IO terminations since 1815 and that organisations that are newly created, have small memberships, and/or lack centralised structures are most likely to succumb. My analysis leads me to suggest a number of extensions and refinements to existing institutionalist theories.

Source: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2021) ‘What kills international organisations? When and why international organisations terminate’, European Journal of International Relations, 27(1), pp. 281–310.

Abstract 2

Post World War I, Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African movement managed to coalesce, however briefly and imperfectly, an extra-territorial sovereign authority in the form of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Through the recollection of this project the article seeks to disturb the predominant uni-linear narrative in IR debates of the transformation of sovereignty that posit a recent shift from territorial exclusivity to multi-level governance encapsulated in the emergence of the European Union. By narrating a string of transformations of sovereignty that led to Garvey’s UNIA the case is made that such transformations have not directly followed one universal logic but have been multi-linear in character, and further, extra-territoriality has been a defining principle of sovereignty in the modern epoch and by no means peculiar to the contemporary European milieu. Through exploring the generative relationship between capitalist, nationalist and racialist forms of sovereignty the article contributes theoretically and empirically to a historical sociology adequate to capture the multiple, yet related, transformations of sovereignty in the modern epoch.

Source: Shilliam, R. (2006) ‘What about Marcus Garvey? Race and the transformation of sovereignty debate’, Review of International Studies, 32(3), pp. 379–400.

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Discussion

In Abstract 1, Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni undertakes positivist research. She presents a clear hypothesis and a ‘why’ question, using quantitative data to answer her research question: ‘Why, and under what conditions, [do] international organisations cease to exist?’ Her conclusions are based on findings drawn from her analysis of a dataset she created, which lists all instances between 1815 and 2016 of international organisation termination.

In Abstract 2, Robbie Shilliam uses an interpretivist approach to present an alternative to existing narratives about sovereignty in mainstream International Relations (IR) theory. This is a ‘how’ question, asking how particular narratives of sovereignty have come to be seen as authoritative in IR, and showing how they might be understood differently. To do so, Shilliam examines different extraterritorial sovereign actors (such as Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey’s pan-African movement and the European Union) as well as different, intersecting power logics (capitalism, nationalism and racism). Shilliam backs up his interpretive scholarly claims by using qualitative data (a discourse analysis of policies and historical texts).

2.1 Positivism and interpretivism revisited

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

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.

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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.

3 Types of research questions

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

While developing a research question, it is also worth considering what it is that the research is trying to achieve. Depending on the goal of the research, you might design and frame your research question differently.

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A photograph of a protest. Activists participate in a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline March in Washington, DC, 2017. The image is of the front of what appears to be a demonstration. Many people are visible in the foreground. It is a grey day, and two umbrellas are visible. Many banners and placards are visible, but are hard to discern. At the front of the demonstration, around half a dozen people hold a banner, across the top it says ‘RECOGNIZE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS’, below which are three sections. The left section is a white block, with a black drawing of a face, below which it says, ‘WE EXIST’. The middle section is a red block, with a black drawing of a black hand holding a quill, below which it says, ‘WE RESIST’. The right section is a yellow block, with a black drawing of a bird in flight, below which it says, ‘WE RISE’.

The following table gives a (non-exhaustive) list of types of research question that further specify the objective of the research.

Table 1 Types of research questions
Research question type	Purpose	Example question
Descriptive	To describe the features, dynamics, or processes of a phenomenon	What are the properties of A?
Comparative	To compare two or more cases to assess similarities and differences	What are the similarities and differences between case B and case C?
Exploratory	To gain a better understanding of a topic, often where existing research is limited	What factors might be important in understanding political problem D?
Explanatory	To understand the cause(s) or dynamics of a specific issue or relationship	What are the causes of political issue E?
Evaluative	To assess the effectiveness of an intervention or explanation	What is the impact of an international policy on political issue F?

These formulations don’t neatly map onto the distinction between ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions outlined previously. Rather, they give texture and purpose to the research being conducted. Indeed, within each of these ‘types’, one could articulate both positivist and interpretivist questions. Take a ‘comparative’ question, for instance; one could adopt a positivist framework to compare causes of war using large datasets, but one could also compare the emergence of nationalist discourses within an interpretivist framework.

Activity 3 Types of research question

Timing: approximately 10 minutes

Descriptive

Comparative

Exploratory

Evaluative

Explanatory

The correct answer is b.

Answer

This is a ‘comparative’ question. It invites a comparison between one or more different states to assess the (likely) different ways in which they use soft power.

Descriptive

Comparative

Exploratory

Evaluative

Explanatory

The correct answer is c.

Answer

This is an ‘exploratory’ question. It seeks to explore the role of ambassadors in foreign policy. In not giving specific variables or aspects to be assessed, the question is open to exploring the dynamics that might be important in this process.

Descriptive

Comparative

Exploratory

Evaluative

Explanatory

The correct answer is a.

Answer

This is a ‘descriptive’ question. It looks to describe the responsibilities of the UN.

Descriptive

Comparative

Exploratory

Evaluative

Explanatory

The correct answer is d.

Answer

This is an ‘evaluative’ question. It looks to evaluate the utility of an IR theory – in this case, whether neorealism can theoretically account for state behaviour.

Descriptive

Comparative

Exploratory

Evaluative

Explanatory

The correct answer is e.

Answer

This is an ‘explanatory’ question. It seeks to identify and explain the specific ways in which one variable (international norms) influences a specific outcome (state behaviour).

4 Descriptive versus analytical questions

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

At some point in your academic study, you may have been asked to be more analytical and less descriptive. However, it can be difficult to understand exactly what is being requested when a tutor or a marker encourages you to be ‘less descriptive’. So, let’s break down the distinction.

Descriptive questions ask about the properties of a phenomenon; for example, what are the properties of A? What does it look like? What does it contain? What processes does it involve? Descriptive questions can be useful when starting to think about a topic of interest.

What are the key aspects of your topic of interest that are discussed in the literature?
What theories or methods are commonly used to study your topic of interest?

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However, these questions don’t get us very far in terms of explaining or understanding the social world. They might describe how the world is, but they do not help us in understanding how the world came to be. They might describe a political process, but not why a process produces particular outcomes.

Answering these questions requires analysis, demanding, for instance, that we explain, explore, evaluate or compare. What explains why A happens? What factors are important in producing B? What is the impact of policy C? What does comparing two cases tell us about D?

As you can see, these analytical questions allow you to engage much more deeply with your chosen subject, moving beyond surface description to investigating the how and why of such things. In doing so, you will find that you naturally begin to develop an argument, evidence critical thinking and analysis, and demonstrate how your answer is a contribution to an academic debate.

Thus, when developing your research question, your ambition should be to do so in a way that promotes analysis of the topic you have chosen. For your research question, you want to avoid descriptive questions and to avoid research that merely describes a phenomenon, as opposed to exploring, evaluating, explaining or comparing it.

5 Developing a good research question

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

You have now spent some time thinking through both what makes a good research question, and the types of research question you might ask. Now you will bring all this together with an activity that asks you to assess the quality of some example questions.

Before moving onto the following activity, you might want to think back to Jamie Gaskarth’s masterclass, where he discussed two pieces of quite different research that both represented excellent research questions. First, Roxanne Lyn Doty’s explanatory research was formulated as a ‘how’ question. She then undertook archival research in order to analyse the power structures and knowledge claims that served to legitimise military intervention by the United States in the Philippines. Second, Virginia Page Fortna also asked an explanatory question, but did so with a positivist, hypothesis-testing approach. She achieved this by setting out clear parameters for the research and defining her cases carefully. In doing so, she was able to provide stronger evidence that UN peacekeeping is effective.

Activity 4 Formulating good research questions in IR

Timing: approximately 1 hour

Take a look at the following six research questions. Spend around ten minutes on each one, thinking about the following questions:

Does it imply a positivist or interpretivist approach?
What type of question is it? (i.e. descriptive, comparative, exploratory, explanatory, evaluative.)
Is it a ‘good’ research question? Why/why not?

1. How successful has NATO’s response to the Russia–Ukraine War been?

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Discussion

This is a fairly good research question. It implies a positivist approach to the research and poses an evaluative question (in this case, assessing the impact of NATO support for the outcomes of the Russia–Ukraine War). The question is specific and focused, and clearly sets out the key actors to be studied – NATO – and the political event (the Russia–Ukraine War). The answerability of the project would depend on the kinds of primary and secondary data available. It might also be strengthened by further narrowing down the focus. One option would be by identifying a timeframe, for example, to examine NATO activities following the Russian invasion of 2022. Without a timeframe, the research project could potentially become very large and unmanageable. The question would also need to specify what it means by ‘success’ and with which NATO ‘responses’ it is concerned, but these could be achieved through sub-questions and discussed in the introduction.

2. What is the role of soft power in international diplomacy? A comparative study of the United States and China.

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Discussion

This is a good research question. Its purpose is both explanatory and comparative (explaining how soft power functions through a clear comparison of important states) and it could invite either a positivist or interpretivist response, depending on how one conceptualises and measures ‘soft power’. The question has a clear focus, with the researcher choosing two actors (the US and China) and one political phenomenon (the use of soft power in international diplomacy) to investigate. The researcher would need to conceptualise both ‘soft power’ and ‘international diplomacy’ in this study and could draw on large bodies of literature that explain and debate the two concepts. This research question could have been made stronger by including a timeframe, and it could also have identified a specific area or dynamic of soft power to focus on. The researcher will also need to ensure that they are able to access and gather enough primary and secondary data to ensure that the project is answerable.

3. What is the use of social media in diplomacy? An exploration of its efficacy and challenges.

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Discussion

This is a weak research question. The question is exploratory, and it could be addressed through either a positivist or interpretivist prism. The researcher has chosen one political phenomenon – the use of social media in diplomacy. However, they have not chosen any cases to study (such as the US and China in Question 2 above) and there is no timeframe. It is not clear what ‘efficacy and challenges’ in this context mean and both terms would be difficult to conceptualise and qualify meaningfully in a way that adds to our understanding of international relations. As a result, the research question is vague, unfocused and the project is in danger of becoming too descriptive and generalised, poorly structured and unmanageable for the researcher.

4. To what extent do NGOs shape global governance regimes? An analysis of norm-building in successful arms control regimes.

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Discussion

This is a good research question. It is framed within an interpretivist approach to international relations. The question is exploratory yet opens the door to explanation, too. The research question is likely answerable because while primary research might be possible, albeit potentially bringing challenges of access, the researcher could nevertheless draw on significant bodies of academic literature related to NGOs, global governance and arms control regimes. The research will need to consider what, exactly, it is referring to by ‘successful arms control regimes’ and make this clear to the reader. It will also likely need to identify key cases to analyse, and the question might be stronger were these indicated in the core research question.

5. Human security as power/knowledge: an analysis of biopolitics.

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Discussion

This is a weak research question. It adopts an interpretivist framework, centred on ideas of power/knowledge, but it is not clear what the purpose of the research question is. Although undertaking a research project on human security and biopolitics would be feasible given the large bodies of scholarly research on the subject, the current research question is too vague. Stating the actors and political event to be studied and providing a timeframe would strengthen the research question, making the research project more feasible and manageable. Further exploration of the existing literature to identify areas of neglect could help to narrow down the research question.

6. Compare and contrast the foreign policies of Russia and India.

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Discussion

This is a weak research question. The question is clearly comparative, but it is also descriptive. It is not clear whether foreign policy would be approached here through a positivist or interpretivist framework. Although the question identifies two actors (Russia and India), it is not clear why these cases have been chosen, or what value their comparison will bring. Moreover, researching ‘foreign policies’ is too vague and needs to be further specified, likely in terms of timeframe and empirical focus. This project could become too large for a dissertation project and potentially unmanageable in the time allocated for completing the project. The lack of focus could also mean that the researcher is in danger of providing quite generalised and descriptive answers.

Conclusion

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As the activities in this course have shown, writing a good research question is not easy, and even good research questions can still be improved. You have now spent a fair amount of time thinking about research questions, reflecting on both what makes a good research question, and the types of research question one might ask. Writing a good question is a real skill, and it takes time to practise and develop. Just bear in mind that a good research question should be clear and answerable, it should indicate to the reader that the topic under consideration is significant, and that the topic is being approached in an appropriate and coherent way.

Please also remember that this is a reflexive process. It can take time to narrow and clarify the exact scope of a piece of research. As Activity 4 showed, being specific about the cases and timeframe of the research can really help clarify what it is the research will do, as well as ensure that it is based on an answerable research question.

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We hoped you enjoyed this OpenLearn course and if you want to learn more about the MA in International Relations from which this was adapted, you can follow this link.

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This free course was written by Filippo Boni and Thomas Martin.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

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Introduction: Woman at a desk. Photo: FG Trade / iStock

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Section 3: Activists participate in a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline March in Washington, DC, 2017. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

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Conclusion: A group of students sit around a table discussing their research. Photo: SolStock/Getty Images

Text

Abstract 1: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2021) ‘What kills international organisations? When and why international organisations terminate’, 27(1), pp. 281–310, European Journal of International Relations.

Abstract 2: Shilliam, R. (2006) ‘What about Marcus Garvey? Race and the transformation of sovereignty debate’, 32:3, July 2006, pp. 379–400. International Review of International Studies. Cambridge University Press. https://www-cambridge-org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/what-about-marcus-garvey-race-and-the-transformation-of-sovereignty-debate/82EB0F78BD1970612442A8079DE4C510

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RSS feed for Developing a research question in International Relations

Introduction

Learning outcomes

1 Masterclass: research questions in International Relations

Activity 1 What makes a good research question in IR?

Transcript: Video 1: What makes a good research question in IR?

2 Positivist and interpretivist approaches

Activity 2 Positivist and interpretivist approaches in practice

Abstract 1

Abstract 2

Discussion

2.1 Positivism and interpretivism revisited

3 Types of research questions

Activity 3 Types of research question

Question 1a

Answer

Question 1b

Answer

Question 1c

Answer

Question 1d

Answer

Question 1e

Answer

4 Descriptive versus analytical questions

5 Developing a good research question

Activity 4 Formulating good research questions in IR

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgements