About this Research Topic
How and why does a particular method have the potential to enhance research in political science? As exemplified by "Designing Social Inquiry" and numerous other works, researchers are consistently seeking better methodological solutions to real-world problems. However, papers focusing on specific methods often receive limited attention, particularly outside specialized journals. This Call for Papers aims to bring method-oriented papers to a broader audience, encompassing those - for example - related to new interview techniques, big data, and the integration of methods in unique ways. It seeks to spotlight new developments, enhancements, and adaptations to existing methods in political science that hold the promise of broader applicability in the future. These may include methods already familiar to the field or those imported from other disciplines.
We welcome papers from all disciplines, with a particular emphasis on addressing political science problems. Papers should not exceed 7000 words, excluding the bibliography. While we anticipate papers to possess a clear methodological orientation and highlight the novelty of the approach, we still require theoretical elements as part of this call. This may include meta-reflections on scientific methods or scoping reviews on specific methodological developments.
All papers are expected to include an introduction, a literature review (and theory where applicable), a method section, a brief illustration of the method's potential (and results where available), and a concise discussion/conclusion section. For mixed methods papers, it is not necessary to present all the results generated from a specific methodological configuration. We also strongly encourage the inclusion of the used dataset and/or syntax, recruitment strategies, interview guides, codebooks, etc., to facilitate wider applicability.
Keywords: methods, qualitative, quantitative, mixed, innovation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.