Beyond the Static: Analyzing Conservativism Dynamically

The following chapter deals with the methodological implications of studying conservativism from a dynamic perspective. Here, I argue that the phenomenon of a political culture cannot be operationalized by the simple administration of a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. For studying the phenomenon of conservativism wholistically, we need to investigate what preserving or conserving means for the individual we are dealing with. For that purpose, the methodological implications of the present study are disclosed and discussed. As such, the present study works with the interaction of investigating what conservativism means introspectively and how this meaning becomes fixed extrospectively in the material environment. Here, a dynamic interview guide is presented that helps researchers and practitioners to study conservativism beyond the previous scientifically static inquiry of conservativism. By drawing on the Trajectory Equifinality Approach (TEA), we present a model that might be apt to study how something preservable comes into being in the long run.