A Methodology of Neoclassical Realism
A Methodology of Neoclassical Realism
In Chapter 5, we provide a methodology for neoclassical realist research. The chapter begins with guidelines on theory building, specifying how to identify appropriate research questions or puzzles, the epistemology of soft positivism that undergirds our approach, and the process of theory construction. This includes the specification of appropriate dependent and intervening variables together with the appropriate independent variables and structural realist baseline, and the establishment of scope conditions for the theory. The chapter then shifts its focus to the process of theory testing, with discussions on how to identify key actors for testing purposes; selecting alternative explanations; and a primer on historiography, process tracing, and standards of evidence.
Keywords: neoclassical realism, methodology, research puzzles, research questions, soft positivism, standards of evidence, foreign policy executive, theory testing, historiography
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