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Lively introduction to the many interesting ways to do political theory in the 21st century. - ;Political theorists are too often silent on questions of method and approach. David Leopold and Marc Stears have assembled a distinguished group of contributors to break that silence and to explain and defend the research methods they utilise in their own work. The result is a rich and varied collection which does not suggest that there is only one right way to conduct political theory, but rather introduces readers to many of the often unelaborated methods and approaches that. currently inform the

Despite widespread agreement about goals of knowledge development in public administration, there is imbalance in efforts directed at these goals. The overlap between the domains of theory and practice is not substantial. Important concerns in public administration theory and practice are outweighed by naïve quantitative bias (NQB), an unfortunate methodological artifact. This symposium seeks to highlight this imbalance and to nudge the public administration scholarly community toward paying attention to theoretical and practical matters, recognizing NQB and mitigating its undesirable effects on knowledge development. Broadly speaking, two recommendations emerge from symposium contributions. The first recommendation emphasizes paying attention to theoretical goals. The second recommendation is to promote reflexivity about how the domains of theory and method interact to counter the methodological artifact of NQB. A brief overview of each article in the symposium and its contribution to advancing knowledge development is provided.

This paper demonstrates the benefits and application of Straussian Grounded Theory method in conducting research in complex settings where parameters are poorly defined. It provides a detailed illustration on how this method can be used to build an internationalization theory. To be specific, this paper exposes readers to the behind-the-scene work to develop a theory on the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises based in transition economies. It describes each step from sampling to coding and then to theory formation, explaining the rationale each step of the way. The readers can therefore see how a theory took shape and develop from raw data to refined theoretical propositions/hypotheses.

Now with substantial extra coverage of methodological issues and an additional chapter on the philosophy of politics, this widely-used text introduces students to the approaches and methods of political science

Many social theories have been called scientific, but no one has insisted more than Marx on the scientific nature of his system of thought. It is the purpose of this article to examine the ambitious claim of Marxism to be the only real science of society. Dialectical materialism may be omitted from consideration since it concerns not science but philosophy (or even metaphysics), and in any case it is the Marxist social theory, or historical materialism, for which the claim of science is most insistently made.There is no need to give here the details of Marx's historical materialism. The main point to be kept in mind is Marx's assumption, lying behind the entire body of his theory, that history and society move according to a pattern of knowable laws, the so-called "laws of motion" of society; and that Marx claims to have done nothing more than to have laid bare these laws. If Marx is right he obviously ranks as the greatest social scientist of all time. If he is not right he is a misguided and fanatical genius who has led man's thought up a long blind alley.A preliminary word on the application of scientific methods to the study of society may not be out of place. The purposes of study, whether in the natural or social sciences, are the same: to explain how, to accomplish a practical result, or to predict. These three criteria may also be used to test a scientific theory. There are of course certain special difficulties in the social sciences, difficulties arising (to select from many reasons) because of the nature of the data, or because inference may so easily be confused with fact, or because merely studying the behaviour of people and publishing the results may affect the very behaviour being studied.

Delinquency theory must come to terms with experimental studies of causation and with existential studies of delinquents in situ The three are closely related. Existential studies provide insight into both the forms of delinquency and its causal matrix, and causal studies suggest both the relevant context and lawful regularities in the nature of delinquency. Moreover, using the concepts of domain and generality, one sees that strain "theory" is not a theory but a causal paradigm and that it is not competitive with control theory. One also finds that social control theory and cultural deviance are parallel in that both deal essentially with conforming behavior.

Concrete theory is defined by a cluster of attributes—emphasis on governmental and other political elites, on strategic decision-making processes freed from narrow notions of economic rationality, and on a concern with the environment and institutions within which choice occurs. The approach has been observed recently in all research-oriented subfields within political science. Eight exemplars are discussed. Concrete theory demonstrates a novel combination of strong interest in empirical political processes, formalized through models that emphasize logical structure and depth explanation. Its effect is to bridge the gap between behavioral and institutional approaches.

This volume of Theory and Method in Higher Education Researchexplores several timely topics including transnational approaches to higher education policy, universities contributions to society, data collection in higher education, virtual and blended research, and more.

Der Beitrag reflektiert auf die Grounded-Theory-Methodologie (GTM) als Methodologie und Methode der Analyse visueller Kommunikation. In Ergänzung zu bestehenden GTM-Konzepten, die das Thema Sichtbarkeit mit der Untersuchung akteur/innenbezogener Handlungspraktiken engführen, wird die Frage erörtert, wie die GTM für eine soziologische Hermeneutik visuell gestalteter Objekte im weitesten Sinne (Dinge, Körper, Bilder u.v.m.) genutzt werden kann. Das vorgestellte Gegenstandsverständnis identifiziert die soziale Komplexität der Untersuchungsobjekte als zentrales Bezugsproblem eines methodologischen und methodischen Perspektivwechsels hin zu einer GTM visueller Kommunikation (GTMVK). In der Auseinandersetzung mit den Begriffen Praxis und Struktur wird gezeigt, dass und inwiefern eine breitere und systematischere Einbezugnahme soziologischer Strukturbeschreibungen in die GTM und ihre Forschungspraxis unerlässlich ist, wenn sie sich auf die Komplexität ihrer Daten einstellen will.