Research methods for studying elites

Abstract

The introduction to Part II, Research Methods for Studying Elites, highlights principal methodological developments in the studies of political elites. They involve: (1) methods for explaining how institutions affect the behavior of elites (e.g., event-history analysis and Social Network Analysis), (2) methods for drawing inferences about political outcomes from the knowledge of elites’ behavior (e.g., surveys and experiments), and (3) methods for analyzing the interactions of various elite groups (e.g., observations and interviews of elite members). In addition, methods that have been rarely used in political elite research (e.g., fuzzy-set typologies and fuzzy cognitive maps) are discussed in terms of their merits for examining elite attitudes, structures, and interactions.