Substantive Dimensions of the Deliberations

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problems with assumption of APSR response

PostSun Apr 24, 2016 9:12 am

I am a senior faculty member participating as a result of the e mail sent by Libby Wood. While I signed the letter, I have not yet registered.

the response from the APSR cannot possibly fathom what is involved in the collection of qualitative research. The following sentence "the editors may ask authors to provide a general statement explaining why the preservation of confidentiality and/or anonymity is essential. Such a statement could explain the conditions under which the authors were granted interviews and the reasons why the information is sensitive. " clearly obviates the need for anonymity. So if I identify the location of an interview, then explain the conditions of the interview, in essence I am revealing information which violates the IRB. Further the notes one takes in the field will often have information that never make into a publication and have not yet been anonymized. In my opinion, DART punishes qualitative researchers since it will require after months of getting an IRB fans perhaps months of securing funding for the research), time spent in country, writing up and getting work published, ONE article. It is an unreasonable request to require (!) someone who spends years doing work the opportunity to get one publication from something that required years of work. I agree with Aisha Ahmad that it would disincentives people from conducting qualitative research altogether when they can sit in a cubicle and code variables or run one more regression/ or create hypothetical games divorced from how the real world operates. Without the qualitative research one would never be able to know whether a game theory model reflects reality. At MPSA I am often the only qualitative person in the room and it is only because i have done years of field research that I can help students refine their models or correct their errors. If we disincentives students from pursuing field work (because of DART and built in free riding possibilities and limited benefit to the scholar) we will do just that.

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Re: problems with assumption of APSR response

PostSun Apr 24, 2016 4:29 pm

Tenured prof here:

What I find particularly amusing in the APSR editor's note is the assumption that they'd publish qualitative research to begin with!

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