Possibilitiesof the JSM-Method for Creating Sociological Hypotheses (Using Asan Example the Analysisof Political Participation)

This article demonstrates the possibilities of the method of formalized qualitative analysis of sociological data (FQASD) for creating sociological hypotheses. FQASD is a version of the JSM Method which is tailored to solve sociological problems. The JSM Method is a logical-combinatorial (non-statistical) method based on using actual logic tools and designed for analyzing causal relations between feature combinations (object characteristics) and the sought-for effect or a variety of effects (object properties).The basic ideas underlying the philosophy of this method include the principles of empirical induction, structural analogy and abduction (in the interpretation of Charles Peirce) as a means of accepting hypotheses. The authors provide theoretical foundation and a brief description of the procedures they have developed.The main investigative question is — who are party activists in medium-sized Russian cities? An additional question — what groups of people can be considered the closest to political activists based on civic participation criteria?To answer these questions we used the FQASD method. First of all, political participation is shown by a small fraction of the voting public (which makes it impossible to use statistics).Second — we are dealing with a great number of characteristics which presumably determine the sought-for behavior (political participation) and we assume that they might have a complex effect.In addition to political activists, we’ve constructed three more groups: Civic Activists, Individual Helpers and Inactive People. The characteristics of political activists were consistently compared to the characteristics of these three groups. In such a comparison they became antipodes to each other. The most non-trivial and substantial conclusion we arrived to concerns how respondents define their own subjectivity and the subjectivity of their fellow citizens. Political activists consistently attribute social subject status to themselves and deny this status to others. In this respect they correlate with the proportion of the respondents with the weakest resource base. Civic activists, being antipodes of political activists, recognize the social subject status of their fellow citizens.The advantages of the FQASD in this and similar cases are that: 1) the results obtained were not formulated as preliminary hypotheses; 2) the results give new directions for analyzing the social activity of ordinary citizens; 3) the method demonstrated the possibility of revealing sociological patterns in small samples

Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Law · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research · Social Power and Status Dynamics · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia