Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Military Studies

ISBN-13: 9780415635332 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 336 str.

Joseph Soeters;Patricia M. Shields;Bas Rietjens

Opis

This volume offers an overview of the methodologies of research in the field of military studies. The military is not just like any organization or profession. It is an organization that is heavily influenced by politics, which dispatches its personnel to far-flung places all over the world, sending them into situations where their lives may be at stake, and is an organization whose operations are often conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy. Studying the military is valuable because it uses collective resources such as the tax payers' money and hires employees that could have earned their salaries elsewhere in the economy, under less threatening circumstances. Additionally, the use of violence, the military's core business, is probably one of the most unpredictable and impactful forces in social dynamics. For all these reasons, voters have every right to know what is going on in that organization and its actions. It is difficult because it is a world of its own, an island within society-at-large. Getting access to it, particularly if one is not an regular inhabitant of that island, usually is no easy game to play.On the other hand, if one is a regular inhabitant, it may not be easy to do reseach either, because the organization will not always be interested in seeing the findings published, or seeing them published only on its own conditions in terms of timing and presentation. Taken all together, one can observe a societal and political push to know and an organizational tendency, however slight, to hide. Given this possible tension, the methodology of studying the military knows a number of idiosyncrasies, relating to its difficult accessibility and its very specific work. Therefore, there is ample reason to devote a volume to the methodologies of studying the military and, its main goal, conflict resolution. This handbook will be of much interest to students of military studies, civil-military relations, military sociology, political science and research methods in general.

Spis treści

Part I - Getting started and seeing the context  1. Introduction: what makes the military special? Editors 2. Getting access to the field: insider/outsider perspectives, Eyal Ben-Ari and Yagil Levy  3. Getting on the Same Net: How the Theory-driven Academic can Better Communicate with the Pragmatic Military Client, Nicholas Jans  4. Chapter 4: Reflexivity: Potentially "Dangerous Liaisons", Eyal Ben-Ari  5. Doing military research in conflict environments, Björn Müller-Wille  . Studying Host-Nationals in Operational Areas: The Challenge of Afghanistan, William Maley  Part II – Qualitative Methods  7. Historical research in the military domain, Floribert Baudet  and Eric Sibul  8. Retrieving what’s already there: archival data for research in defense acquisition, Rene Rendon and Keith Snider  9. Process tracing in case studies, Pascal Vennesson and Ina Wiesner  10. Being One of the Guys or the Fly on the Wall? Participant Observation of Veteran Bikers, Rene Moelker  11. In-depth interviewing, Brenda Moore  12. Qualitative data-analysis: seeing the patterns in the fog of Civil-Military Interaction, Sebastiaan Rietjens  13. Visual Communication Research and War, Michael Griffin  14. Researching ‘The most dangerous of all sources’: Egodocuments, Esmeralda Kleinreesink  15. Scrutinizing the Internet in search of "homegrown" terrorism, Risa Brooks  Part III - Quantitative Studies  16. Survey Research in Military Settings, James Griffith  17. Longitudinal Design in Using Surveys in Military Research: Common Challenges and Techniques, Jing Han and Manon Andres  18. Multilevel Analysis: The Examination of Hierarchical Data in Military Research, Irina Goldenberg and Joseph Soeters  19. Cross national research in the military: comparing operational styles, Chiara Ruffa and Joseph Soeters  20. Experimental Methods in Military and Veteran Studies, Jeremy Teigen  21. The empirical analysis of conflicts, using databases, Min Ye and Uk Heo  22. Computational modeling to study conflicts and terrorism, Joseph Young and Michael Findley  23. Evaluating Peace Operations: Challenges and Dimensions, Daniel Druckman and Paul Diehl  24. Business Analytics Research in Military Organizations, Jan-Bert Maas, Paul C. van Fenema and Jan-Kees Schakel  Part IV - The end  25. A New Approach to Doing Military Ethics, Celestino Perez  26. Theory Building in Research on the Military, Eyal Ben-Ari  27. Doing Practical Research and Publishing in Military Studies, Patricia Shields and Travis Whetsell