Research Methods in European International Relations Scholarship
摘要
This chapter presents a summary of how research methods have been used in mainstream, English-language International Relations (IR) journal articles by Europe-based authors from 1980 to 2018. It situates this examination in larger debates in IR around research methods and disciplinary pluralism. Throughout, the findings on Europe are contrasted with analyses of US-based IR scholarship. The descriptive analyses show that published European IR remains fairly diverse in research methods, today sitting at about 40% quantitative methods, 30% qualitative ones, and 15% pure theory. This stands in contrast to US IR, where these shares amount to 60%/20%/7%. Furthermore, the largest national IR communities in Europe show distinct characteristics within the analyzed sample of articles. Finally, I analyze patterns of intra-European and international collaboration. I advance three main recommendations based on my findings. First, European IR should retain its pluralist methodological tradition, compared to the less diverse contemporary landscape of US-based IR. Second, although qualitative and quantitative research are roughly equally common in European IR, there is less multi-method research than in the United States, suggesting untapped potential. Third and relatedly, despite their geographic proximity, Europe-based scholars collaborate far less with one another than with US-based colleagues. Given the methodological diversity surrounding them, multi-method research may be one avenue of useful intra-European collaboration among IR scholars.