Why Be Critical

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12918396
AutoresSlavko Splichal (0000-0001-7678-2676, University of Ljubljana, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume1
Fascículo1
Páginas20-30
Data de publicação2008-02-29
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCommunication Culture and Critique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1753-9137 • E-ISSN: 1753-9129
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1753-9137.2007.00003.x
OpenAlexW2166172264
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas15

Almost 60 years ago, Lasswell (1949) asked, “Why be quantitative?” and vigorously argued that “the study of politics can be advanced by the quantitative analysis of political discourse ... [b]ecause of the scientific and policy gains that can come of it” (pp. 40, 52). He suggested that severe “limitations of qualitative analysis,” such as imprecision and arbitrariness, could be overcome by quantification. A decade later, Lazarsfeld (1957, p. 41) pleaded for a more balanced view, suggesting that empirical research cannot only provide “sharper conceptual tools” that would bring to light “new implications of all sorts” (usually championed by representatives of the empirical paradigm; Noelle-Neumann, 1979, p. 144) but also that “the very act of inspecting this classical material brings to our attention ideas which might otherwise have been overlooked” in the process of empirical research. He concluded that “[t]heorizing itself can make progress, and the logic of empirical

Arbitrariness · Economics · Empirical research · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Philosophy · Social Media and Politics