Interpretation and Method Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn

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EVALUATIVE CRITERIA AND EPISTEMIC COMMUNITIES 113

a “truth” out in the world that is independent of researcher meaning-making processes. In contrast, because
interpretive meaning-making processes do not assume an objective (i.e., external) truth, they cannot be
evaluated on the basis of how well they capture “truth.”



  1. Adcock (see chapter 3, this volume) describes the history behind Campbell and Stanley’s confident
    exposition of their approach to causality and generalizability.

  2. New formulations of causality can be found in chaos theory and complexity theory, as well as in
    discussion of causal mechanisms. See Gerring (2000), Ragin (2000b), and Tilly (1995).

  3. For a listing of initiatives, see the first paragraph and associated notes from chapter 22, this vol-
    ume. Additionally, the editors of this volume offered a workshop on “Interpretive Research Methods in
    Empirical Political Science” at the 2003 Western Political Science Association Meetings and, in 2005, the
    International Institute for Qualitative Methodology (Canada) sponsored a weeklong workshop titled “Think-
    ing Qualitatively.”

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