defending interpretation
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Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1950, USA E-mail: [email protected] b Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra ACT0200, Australia E-mail: [email protected] doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210059
Abstract An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and practices that are interpretations of interpretations. We develop this argument using the idea of ‘situated agency’. There are many common criticisms of such an approach. This article focuses on eight: that an interpretive approach is mere common sense; that it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices; that it ignores concepts of social structure; that it seeks to understand actions and practices, not to explain them; that it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data generation; that it must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs; that it is insensitive to the ways in which power constitutes beliefs; and that it is incapable of producing policy-relevant knowledge. We show that the criticisms rest on both misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced beliefs in the false idols of hard data and rigorous methods.
Keywords
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interpretation; meaning; situated agency; qualitative methods
nterpretation is perhaps ubiquitous. Even accounts of the physical world are, in a sense, interpretations. However, if accounts of the physical world are interpretations, accounts of actions and practices can be interpretations of interpretations. Beliefs and discourses are themselves ways of making sense of the world; they are interpretations. So, when we explore actions or practices as informed by beliefs or discourses, we interpret interpretations. An interpretive approach to political science does just this. The details of an interpretive ap-
proach are, however, often misunderstood. It is these details we want to explore. To begin, we will suggest that an interpretive approach focuses on meanings because its analysis of beliefs treats them as constitutive of actions and as holistic in nature. Next, we will try to resolve debates among proponents of an interpretive approach by defending situated agency. However, our main concern is not to provide an introduction to interpretation (see Bevir and Rhodes, 2003) but to respond to some of the more common criticisms. So, we concentrate european political science: 5 2006
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on explaining how an interpretive approach can avoid the problems ascribed to it by others.1
MEANING IN ACTION All political scientists offer us interpretations. Interpretive approaches differ in offering interpretations of interpretations.2 They concentrate on meanings, beliefs, and discourses, as opposed to laws and rules, correlations between social categories, or deductive models. Of course, the distinction between interpretive approaches and others is fuzzy. After all, laws, social
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