What role does argumentation play in the methodology of social science research?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32870/espiral.v24i70.6521

Keywords:

argumentation, research methodology, research question, hypothesis, test design

Abstract

The paper defends the thesis that argumentation theory can contribute to research methodology and the other way around, in spite of the fact that current methodological discourse is completely separated from contemporary argumentation studies. In support of this thesis it is argued that a well-written research report delivers a series of arguments purporting to justify the research question, the working hypothesis, any other hypothesis alternative to the working hypothesis and the procedure the author intends to follow or has actually followed in order to test the hypotheses. This argument is developed in detail by means of a relatively recent paper in which a question in political science is asked about the applicability of the median voter model to the state of Singapore.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Fernando Leal Carretero, Departamento de Estudios en Educación of the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1353-7387

Professor at the Departamento de Estudios en Educación of the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico.

References

Alon, U. (2009). “How to choose a good scientific problem”. Molecular Cell, 35, 726-728.

Bernard, C. (1865). Introduction à l’étude de la médécine expérimentale. París: Baillière et fils.

Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., y Williams, J. M. (2009). The craft of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Boudon, R. (1984). “Le phénomène idéologique: En marge d’une lecture de Pareto”. L’Année sociologique, Troisième série, 34, 87-125.

Brennan, G., y Lomasky, L. (1997). Democracy and decision: The pure theory of electoral preference. Nueva York: Cambridge University Press.

Caplan, B. (2001). “What makes people think like economists? Evidence on economic cognition from the Survey of American and Economists on the Economy”. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(2), 395-426.

Caplan, B. (2002a). “Sociotropes, systematic bias, and political failure: Reflections on the Survey of American and Economists on the Economy”. Social Science Quarterly, 83(2), 416-435.

Caplan, B. (2002b). “Systematically biased beliefs about economics: Robust evidence of judgmental anomalies from the Survey of American and Economists on the Economy”. The Economic Journal, 112, 433-458.

Caplan, B. (2006). “How do voters form positive economic beliefs: Evidence from the Survey of American and Economists on the Economy”. Public Choice, 128, 367-381.

Caplan, B. (2007). The myth of the rational voter: Why democracies choose bad policies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Caplan, B. (2009). “Singapore’s political economy: Two paradoxes”. Ethos, (6). Recuperado de: https://www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Ethos/Issue%206%20Jul%202009/Pages/Singapores-Political-Economy-Two-Paradoxes.aspx

Chamberlin, T. C. (1890). “The method of multiple working hypotheses”. Science, 15(366), 92-96.

Chaudhuri, A., y Christofides, T. C. (2013). Indirect questioning in sample surveys. Berlín: Springer.

Coleman, W. O. (2002). Economics and its enemies: Two centuries of anti-economics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Congleton, R. D. (2003). “The Median Voter Model”, en C. K. Rowley, y F. Schneider (coords.), The Encyclopedia of Public Choice (pp. 382-387). Nueva York: Kluwer.

Ferrero, M., y Wintrobe, R. (2009). The political economy of theocracy. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fowler, F. J. (1995). Improving survey questions: Design and evaluation. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Freedom House (2008). “Freedom in the world: Singapore”. Recuperado de: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp.

Ghesquiere, H. (2007). Singapore’s success: Engineering economic growth. Singapur: Thomson Learning.

Gilbert, M. A. (1997). Coalescent argumentation. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Juthe, A. (2016). Argumentation by analogy: A systematic analytical study of an argument scheme (tesis doctoral inédita). Universidad de Ámsterdam: Ámsterdam. Recuperado de: dare.uva.nl

Krippendorf, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Kuran, T. (1995). Private truths, public lies: The social consequences of preference falsification. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Leal Carretero, F., Ramírez González, C. F., y Favila Vega, V.M. (coords.) (2010). Introducción a la teoría de la argumentación. Guadalajara: Editorial Universitaria.

Lijphart, A. (2012). Patterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in thirty-six countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Mauzy, D. (2002). “Electoral Innovation and One-Party Dominance in Singapore”, en J. Hsieh, y D. Newman (coords.), How Asia votes (pp. 234-254). Nueva York: Chatham House.

Mauzy, D., y Milne, R. (2002). Singapore Politics under the People’s Action Party. Nueva York: Routledge.

McGarty, C., Yzerbyt, V. Y., y Spears, R. (2002). Stereotypes as explanations: The formation of meaningful beliefs about social groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Monk, P., y Van Gelder, T. (2009). “Enhancing our grasp of complex arguments”. Recuperado de: https://sites.google.com/site/timvangelder/publications-1/enhancing-our-grasp-of-complex-arguments.

Mutalib, H. (2004). Parties and politics: A study of opposition parties and the PAP in Singapore. Singapur: Marshall Cavendish Academic.

Pareto, V. (1916). Trattato di sociologia generale. Florencia: Barbèra.

Pasteur, L. (1854). “Discours prononcé à l’occasion de l’installation solennelle de la Faculté des Lettres de Douai et de la Faculté des Sciences de Lille”, en, Œuvres de Pasteur réunies par P. Vallery-Radot, vol. VII: Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires (pp. 129-132). París: Masson.

Platt, J. R. (1964). “Strong inferences”. Science, 146(3642), 347-353.

Poole, K., y Rosenthal, H. (1997). Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.

Saris, W. E., y Gallhofer, I. N. (2014). Design, evaluation, and analysis of questionnaires for survey research. Hoboken: John Wiley.

Siu-kai, L., y Hsin-chi, K. (1990). “Public Attitude toward Laissez Faire in Hong Kong”. Asian Survey, 30(8), 766-781.

Tan, E., y Wang, Z. (20-21 de junio de 2008). “The State of Democracy in Singapore: Rethinking Some Paradoxes” (ponencia presentada en el congreso The Asian Barometer Conference on The State of Democratic Governance in Asia). Taipei, Taiwán.

Tian, G. L., y Tang, M. L. (2014). Incomplete categorical data design: Non-randomized response techniques for sensitive questions in surveys. Boca Ratón: CRC Press.

Tullock, G. (1987). Autocracy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

Van Eemeren, F. H. (2015). “From ideal model of critical discussion to situated argumentative discourse: The step-by-step development of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation”, en, Reasonableness and effectiveness in argumentative discourse: Fifty contributions to the development of pragma-dialectics (pp. 127-147). Cham: Springer.

Van Gelder, T. (2005). “Teaching critical thinking: Some lessons from cognitive science”. College Teaching, 53(1), 41-46.

Weber, M. (1924). Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie und Sozialpolitik. Tubinga: Mohr-Siebeck.

Weiss, R. S. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. Nueva York: The Free Press.

Wintrobe, R. (1998). The political economy of dictatorship. Nueva York: Cambridge University Press.

Wisńiewski, A. (1995). The posing of questions: Logical foundations of erotetic inferences. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

World Bank (2017). “Worldwide governance indicators”. Recuperado de: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/#reports.

Zaid, G. (ed.) (1985). Daniel Cosío Villegas: Imprenta y vida pública. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Downloads

Published

2017-08-28

How to Cite

Leal Carretero, F. (2017). What role does argumentation play in the methodology of social science research?. Espiral Estudios Sobre Estado Y Sociedad (eISSN: 2594-021X), 24(70), 9-49. https://doi.org/10.32870/espiral.v24i70.6521

Issue

Vol. 24 No. 70: Espiral 70 (september-december 2017)

Section

Teoría y Debate

License

Open access policy

Authors who publish in this journal accept the following conditions:

In accordance with the legislation of copyright, Espiral Estudios sobre Estado y Sociedad recognizes and respects the moral rights of the authors, as well as their equity ownership, which will be given to the journal to for diffusion on open access. Espiral does not charge authors for sending and processing their articles for publication.

The authors are able to engage in independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the article’s version published in Espiral (for example, to include it in an institutional repository or publish it in a book) provided that they clearly indicate that the work was published for the first time in Espiral.

For all of the above, the authors (s) must send a format of a letter of transfer of property rights on the first publication duly completed and signed by the author (s). This format can be sent via email in PDF file to the email espiral.udeg@gmail.com. (Letter of transfer of author property rights)