THE NUMERATION OF EVENTS 199tion as external or detachable from forms of protest would give rise to the problem of “too many
variables and too few cases.” That is, a researcher using numerical tools would be unable to
determine the impacts of these many pieces of information on each other and on the protest. The
complexity of the events makes their detachment and treatment as independent variables infea-
sible. All that is achieved is the deletion of information that gives meaning to the protest events.
The simplification of such events to virtual meaninglessness through numeration is only part of
the problem faced by a researcher seeking to build knowledge. The information used to describe the
cases cited is documentary, that is, it is based on written records. Although those records supply a
much more complete description of events than do Banks’s indices, they are imperfect representa-
tions of protest events. In addition to reports of observations, there is conjecture on the part of
reporters, contradictions among sources, missing information, and many other imperfections. Given
these severe problems, is interpretivism a possible solution?
The contradictory meanings given to interpretivism by various writers are well summarized by
Gerring (2003a, 2–6) in his introduction to the symposium on interpretivism found in the second
issue of Qualitative Methods. Yet, there are some commonly accepted advantages: It does not
require “leaving out” significant information to arrive at conclusions; it implicitly values humility
in the development of knowledge, for it recognizes the immense complexity of the subjective,
objective, and intersubjective worlds that it seeks to fit together; and it facilitates studies of differ-
ent cultures by its concern with intersubjective meanings, avoiding the interpretation of “other
societies in the categories of our own” (C. Taylor 1979, 55).
Interpretivism’s application to building knowledge might involve a set of studies exploring
the dimensions found missing in this critique of Banks’s numeration of political protest events.
That is, one might seek knowledge of events’ magnitude, legal environment, objectives, forms,
instigators, participants, opposition, success, territorial distribution, and impact, as well as inter-
connection of events at various levels of analysis, chains and multiform events, threatened events,
and the time context in which they take place. The task would be similar to providing thick
description, though the set of issues addressed would not be unique to each case. Where informa-
tion was missing, it would be provided by scholars’ “guesses” or interpretations from available
data. Events could be compared, similarities noted, and clusters of characteristics related to out-
comes—many of the questions addressed with other methodologies might be addressed here. The
key differences are that judgment and reason would be the basis for interconnecting parts of the
multidimensional description. And, in addition, each interpretation would invite challenges by
other scholars, in contrast to the widespread and unquestioning acceptance of the accuracy of
numerically represented events.
NOTES
- The data set is described at http://www.databanks.sitehosting.net/www/main.htm, accessed April 4, 2006.
See also Banks (2002). - Ronald Francisco, for example, is employing machine-assisted coding of domestic conflict in most
European countries, for which he is getting information on more than twenty variables. A similar codebook
was used to collect data on Korea, Burma, and Latin America. See http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~ronfran/data/
index.html. - The term “national government” is used throughout this chapter to refer to the central government,
i.e., the government for the whole country, as distinct from the governments of India’s constituent states or
parts thereof. - The expression “anti-foreign” refers to those demonstrations that are directed at governments or
policies of countries other than India.