Interpretation and Its Others

Abstract

An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and practices that are interpretations of interpretations. We develop this argument using the idea of ‘situated agency’. There are many common criticisms of such an approach. This paper focuses on nine: that an interpretive approach is mere common sense; that it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices; that it ignores concepts of social structure; that it seeks to understand actions and practices, not to explain them; that it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data generation; that it must accept actors' own accounts of their beliefs; that it is insensitive to the ways in which power constitutes beliefs; that it is incapable of producing policy-relevant knowledge; and that it is incapable of producing objective knowledge. We show that the criticisms rest on both misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced beliefs in the false idols of hard data and rigorous methods.

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Title:
Interpretation and its Others (with R.A.W. Rhodes)
Author:
Bevir, Mark, University of California, Berkeley
Publication Date:
01-01-2005
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This is an electronic version of an article published in the Australian Journal of Political Science©
[2005] Copyright Taylor & Francis; Australian Journal of Political Science is available online at
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10361146.asp
Keywords:
Interpretation, meaning, situated agency, objective knowledge
Abstract:
An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and practices that are
interpretations of interpretations. We develop this argument using the idea of ‘situated agency’.
There are many common criticisms of such an approach. This paper focuses on nine: that an
interpretive approach is mere common sense; that it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions
or practices; that it ignores concepts of social structure; that it seeks to understand actions and
practices, not to explain them; that it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data
generation; that it must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs; that it is insensitive to the ways
in which power constitutes beliefs; that it is incapable of producing policy relevant knowledge;
and that it is incapable of producing objective knowledge. We show the criticisms rest on both
misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced beliefs in the false idols of hard
data and rigorous methods.

1
INTERPRETATION AND ITS OTHERS
by
Mark Bevir
Department of Political Science
University of California
Berkeley
CA 94720-1950
USA
E-mail: mbevir@socrates.berkeley.edu
and
R. A. W. Rhodes
Professor of Political Science
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
Canberra
ACT 0200
Australia
E-mail: Rhodes@coombs.anu.edu.au

2
INTERPRETATION AND ITS OTHERS
Abstract
An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and
practices that are interpretations of interpretations. We develop this argument using
the idea of ‘situated agency’. There are many common criticisms of such an approach.
This paper focuses on nine: that an interpretive approach is mere common sense; that
it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices; that it ignores concepts of
social structure; that it seeks to understand actions and practices, not to explain them;
that it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data generation; that it
must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs; that it is insensitive to the ways in
which power constitutes beliefs; that it is incapable of producing policy relevant
knowledge; and that it is incapable of producing objective knowledge. We show the
criticisms rest on both misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced
beliefs in the false idols of hard data and rigorous methods.
Keywords
Interpretation, meaning, situated agency, objective knowledge

3
Interpretation is perhaps ubiquitous. Even accounts of the physical world are, in a
sense, interpretations. But if accounts of the physical world are interpretations,
accounts of actions and practices can be interpretations of interpretations. Beliefs and
discourses are themselves ways of making sense of the world; they are interpretations.
So, when we explore actions or practices as informed by beliefs or discourses, we
interpret interpretations. An interpretive approach to political science does just this.
The details of an interpretive approach are, however, often misunderstood. It is these
details we want to explore. To begin, we will suggest an interpretive approach focuses
on meanings because its analysis of beliefs treats them as constitutive of actions and
as holistic in nature. Next we will try to resolve debates among proponents of an
interpretive approach by defending situated agency. However, our main concern is not
to provide an introduction to interpretation (see Bevir and Rhodes 2003) but to
respond to some of the more common criticisms. So, we concentrate on explaining
how an interpretive approach can avoid the problems ascribed to it by others.
1
Meaning in Action
All political scientists offer us interpretations. Interpretive approaches differ in
offering interpretations of interpretations.
2
They concentrate on meanings, beliefs, and
discourses, as opposed to laws and rules, correlations between social categories, or
deductive models. Of course, the distinction between interpretive approaches and
others is fuzzy. After all, laws, social categories, and models are, as proponents of an
interpretive approach would point out, matters of belief or language. Sensible
institutionalists, behaviouralists, and rational choice theorists recognise that
typologies, correlations, and models do explanatory work only when unpacked in
terms of the beliefs and desires of the actors. Nonetheless, there is a family of

4
interpretive approaches to political science that stand out in their focus on meanings.
This family includes at least decentered theory, poststructuralism, and social
constructivism (see for example Bevir and Rhodes 2003, Burchell et al 1991, Berger
and Luckman 1971). It overlaps with other approaches, including those strands of the
new institutionalism concerned with the impact of ideas (see for example Berman
2001, Hay 2000, Lieberman 2002, Finnemore and Sikkink 2001).
An interpretive approach is not alone in paying attention to meanings. It is distinctive
because of the extent to which it privileges meanings as ways to grasp actions. Its
proponents privilege meanings because they hold, first, beliefs have a constitutive
relationship to actions and, second, beliefs are inherently holistic (cf. Taylor 1971).
First, an interpretive approach holds that beliefs and practices are constitutive of each
other. When other political scientists study voting behaviour using attitude surveys or
models of rational action, they separate beliefs from actions to find a correlation or
deductive link between the two. In contrast, an interpretive approach suggests such
surveys and models cannot tell us why, say, raising one’s hand should amount to
voting, or why there would be uproar if someone forced someone else to raise their
hand against their will. We can explain such behaviour only if we appeal to the
intersubjective beliefs that underpin the practice. We need to know voting is
associated with free choice and so with a particular concept of the self. Practices
could not exist if people did not have the appropriate beliefs. Beliefs or meanings
would not make sense without the practices to which they refer.
Second, an interpretive approach argues that meanings or beliefs are holistic ( on
holism see Fodor and LePore 1992). We can make sense of someone’s beliefs only by
locating them in the wider web of other beliefs that provide the reasons for their

5
holding them. So, even if political scientists found a correlation between a positive
attitude to social justice and voting Labor, they could not properly explain people’s
voting Labor by reference to this attitude. After all, people who have a positive
attitude to social justice might vote Liberal if, say, they believe Labor will not
implement policies promoting social justice. To explain why someone with a positive
attitude to social justice votes Labor, we have to unpack the other relevant beliefs that
link the attitude to the vote. To explain an action, we cannot merely correlate it with
an isolated attitude. Rather, we must interpret it as part of a web of beliefs.
Many political scientists typically treat beliefs, meanings, ideas, and norms as if they
can be differentiated from actions and related individually to actions. In contrast, an
interpretive approach holds that meanings or beliefs form webs that are constitutive of
actions and practices. This philosophical analysis of meaning in action informs other
aspects of an interpretive approach, including bottom-up modes of inquiry and
critiques that expose unquestioned assumptions and inconsistencies.
Proponents of an interpretive approach incline to bottom-up forms of social inquiry.
They usually believe people in the same situation can hold different beliefs because
their experiences of that situation can be laden with different prior theories. No
abstract concept, such as a class or institution, can explain people’s beliefs, interests,
or actions. Such a concept can represent only an abstract proxy for the multiple,
complex beliefs and actions of all the individuals we classify under it. So, for these
reasons, practices need bottom-up studies of the actions and beliefs out of which they
emerge (see for example Bang and Sørensen 1999). An interpretive approach explores
the ways in which social practices are created, sustained, and transformed through the
interplay and contest of the beliefs embedded in human activity.

6
Another shared interpretive theme is an emphasis on the contingency of political life.
Typically an interpretive approach holds that people in any given situation can
interpret that situation and their interests in many ways. So, political scientists must
allow that no practice or norm can fix the ways its participants will act, let alone how
its participants will innovate in new circumstances. An interpretive approach thus
concludes our practices are radically contingent. Our practices lack a fixed essence or
given path of development. An emphasis on contingency explains why an interpretive
approach often questions alternative theories. Its proponents believe political
scientists efface the contingency of social life when they attempt to ground their
theories in apparently given facts about the nature of reasoning, the path-dependence
of institutions, or the inexorability of social developments. They thus try to expose the
contingency of those facets of political life that other political scientists mistakenly
represent as natural or inexorable (see for example Kass and Catron 1990). For
example, there is nothing inexorable about the rise of the Blair presidency. There has
been some centralisation of coordination on No. 10 and Blair dominates at election
time and seeks to manipulate the media. But the prime minister wins, loses and draws
as one might expect given the volatile nature of high politics (see Seldon 2004 for
examples). There is no simple phrase, no single theory, which captures this
contingency. The preoccupation of British political science with analysing institutions
and how they constrain political actors obscures the capacity of actors to define and
redefine their practices. Political life is volatile and prime ministerial practices vary
(and see Hennessy 2000 on their differences).
3

7
Situated Agency
Interpretivism consists of a diverse cluster of traditions. There are important
differences among its several proponents, in particular over aggregating practices.
Proponents of an interpretive approach can seem confused about the nature of the
meanings that inform practices. Poststructuralists sometimes imply meanings exist as
quasi-structures governed by a semiotic code or random fluctuations of power.
4
Others analyse meanings as the beliefs of individuals. They take ideology, discourse,
or language to refer only to a cluster of intersubjective beliefs.
When poststructuralists imply meanings stem from quasi-structures, they usually do
so because they want to stress how beliefs and subjectivity are constructed out of
social backgrounds. They want to reject a strong notion of autonomy. However, we
can distinguish between autonomy and agency. Autonomous individuals can, at least
in principle, have experiences, reason, adopt beliefs, and act, outside all contexts.
Agents can reason and act in novel ways but they can do so only in the context of a
discourse or tradition. Most poststructuralists reject autonomy because they believe all
experiences and reasoning embody theories. Thus people can adopt beliefs only
against the background of a prior set of theories, which at least initially must be made
available to them by a discourse or tradition. However, a rejection of autonomy does
not entail a rejection of agency. We can accept people always start with a discourse or
tradition and still see them as agents who can act and reason in novel ways to vary
this background. Proponents of an interpretive approach have no reason to throw
agency out with autonomy. When they defend a capacity for agency, however, they
might recognize it always occurs in a social context that influences it. Agency is not
autonomous - it is situated.

8
The notion of situated agency resolves confusion among proponents of an interpretive
approach about aggregating studies of practices.
5
At the moment, poststructuralists
sometimes rely on concepts such as discourse to aggregate their accounts of practices.
These concepts appear to treat meanings as if fixed by quasi-structures. The idea that
quasi-structures fix meanings surely falls foul, however, of the poststructuralists’
emphasis on contingency and particularity. The greater the stress we place on the
contingency and particularity of beliefs, actions, and practices, the harder it is to
explain them with aggregate concepts. Indeed, if an interpretive approach relies on
discourse to do explanatory work, this concept can suggest a worrying neglect of
agency. If a discourse claims to explain patterns of belief or speech, the implication is
that the discourse fixes the content of the beliefs or intentions people hold. What is
more, if poststructuralists use discourse as an explanatory concept, they adopt a
determinism that cannot account for change. If individuals arrive at beliefs by a fixed
and disembodied ideology, they lack the capacity to change that ideology. So any
such changes will seem inexplicable. Of course, poststructuralists often criticize
structuralism for displaying just such determinism, while arguing that they themselves
view such transformations as instabilities inherent in structures. Alas, however, this
claim merely elides the question of whether we are to understand instabilities,
contradictions, and transformations as necessary qualities of a disembodied discourse
or as contingent properties and products of individual subjects, their beliefs, and their
actions.
An interpretive approach often struggles to aggregate accounts of practices that have
explanatory power. The problem can be resolved by the idea of situated agency (Bevir
1999, chapters 5 and 6). To reject autonomy is to accept that traditions and discourses
influence individuals. Explanatory concepts must suggest, therefore, how social

9
influences permeate beliefs and actions even when actors do not recognize such
influence. To accept agency is, however, to imply people have the capacity to adopt
beliefs and actions, even novel ones, for reasons of their own. In so doing they can
transform the social background. The idea of tradition covers both inheriting beliefs
and transforming them as they are handed down from generation to generation. It is
evocative of a social structure in which individuals are born, which then acts as the
background to their beliefs and actions even while they might adapt, develop, and
reject much of this inheritance. Similarly, an interpretive approach could usefully
explore change by focusing on dilemmas. Change arises as situated agents respond to
novel ideas or problems. It is a result of people’s ability to adopt beliefs and perform
actions through a reasoning that is embedded in the tradition they inherit.
Interpretation and Common Sense
An interpretive approach rests, first, on a philosophical analysis of meaning in action.
An analysis of the constitutive relation of meanings to actions implies we can grasp
actions properly only by examining the beliefs embodied in them. It prompts us to
offer interpretations of interpretations. An interpretive approach rests, second, on a
philosophical analysis of the holistic nature of meanings. An analysis of meanings as
holistic, rather than tied individually to referents, implies we can grasp beliefs
properly only as part of the wider webs of which they are part. We have suggested
that it prompts us to explain beliefs by reference to webs of belief, traditions, and
dilemmas.
One criticism of an interpretive approach is to say it is mere common sense. Indeed,
in a sense, interpretivism is common sense. It derives from a philosophical analysis of
the theories that make up our everyday way of discussing actions. Wittgenstein (1972,

10
# 109) argued, ‘philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by
means of language’. Similarly, we use philosophical analysis to dispel the bewitching
effects of other ways of discussing actions. Such analysis returns us to our everyday
concepts to challenge positivist attempts to discuss actions as if they were akin to the
physical phenomena studied by natural scientists. It undermines claims there is a
superior scientific language.
The bewitching effects of allegedly scientific languages have led critics to reject an
interpretive approach by contrasting its others. Sometimes critics wrongly identify an
interpretive approach with a particular object of inquiry rather than a philosophical
analysis of meaning in action. They set up dichotomies between those objects
allegedly studied by proponents of an interpretive approach and those studied by other
political scientists. They contrast interpretation with several others. Thus, they suggest
interpretation focuses on meanings not practices, beliefs not rhetoric, or discourse not
power. Alternatively, critics wrongly equate an interpretive approach with a particular
mode of inquiry rather than a philosophical analysis of meaning in action. They set up
dichotomies between interpretive modes of inquiry and those adopted by other
political scientists. Once again, they contrast interpretation with spurious others;
interpretation is about understanding not explanation, elucidation not critique, or
empathy not rigour. We consider these several misconceptions in some detail.
Practices
One common misconception about an interpretive approach is that it concerns only
beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices. This misconception implies an
interpretive approach might be a reasonable way of recovering the froth of political
ideas but it does not help us to understand the real word lurking underneath such

11
froth. This misconception only makes sense, however, if we draw a false dichotomy
between beliefs and actions. If beliefs and actions were unrelated to each other, it
might make sense to suggest we could recover one without exploring the other. In
contrast, an interpretive approach rests on the claim that beliefs are constitutive of
actions. Interpretivism implies we cannot properly understand actions except by
recovering the beliefs that animate them. Far from neglecting practices, an
interpretive approach typically explores meanings or beliefs precisely to better grasp
the practices that embody them.
Critics might still suggest that ideas such as belief, tradition, and dilemma are too
abstract. They ignore the way meanings are always embedded in habits and social
interactions. But we introduced the notion of tradition precisely to capture the
embedded nature of individuals and their beliefs. For example, the Westminster
model or tradition of government underpins the actions of ministers and public
servants in Britain and Australia with public servants using such tenets as ministerial
responsibility as the rationale for their anonymity and neutrality. What is more,
although tradition refers mainly to beliefs, these beliefs need not be especially
conscious or rational.
6
An interpretive approach allows that beliefs and traditions do
not exist as disembodied but become concrete in actions and practices. It suggests we
can ascribe beliefs to people, including ourselves, only by interpreting actions,
including, of course, speech-acts.
Although an interpretive approach explores practices by unpacking the relevant
beliefs, it does perhaps conceive of practices in a different way from other political
scientists. The difference appears in the way other political scientists often prefer to
see practices as institutions (cf. March and J. Olsen 1989). One difference arises over

12
what it means to say practices or institutions are concrete social realities. Proponents
of an interpretive approach rarely see practices as natural or discrete chunks of social
reality. Practices do not have boundaries that make them discrete entities. They do not
have natural or given limits by which we might separate them out from the general
flux of human life. For example, the boundary of a political party does not clearly lie
with those who attend weekly committee meetings, those who attend once a year for
the annual general meeting, those who wander in to the MP’s surgery for help, those
who go to fund-raising events organized by the party, or those who participate in
direct action over a political grievance. For a researcher using an interpretive
approach, the limits of a practice are decided pragmatically, justified by the purposes
of their inquiry. Practices are concrete social realities, but they are not natural kinds.
So it is political scientists as observers who separate particular practices, and they do
so to suit their research purposes.
Perhaps proponents of an interpretive approach also differ from other political
scientists in their analysis of conventions, shared understandings, or interactions in
practices or institutions. Although practices display conventions, this does not mean
conventions constitute the practices. No doubt many participants often seek to
conform to the conventions of a practice. Even so, first, they do not always do so, and,
second, even when they do, they might misunderstand the conventions. So
conventions cannot be constitutive of practices. The situated agency of participants
constitutes practices, and such agency is creative, not fixed by rules. Individuals are
situated agents who necessarily interpret the conventions that characterise the
practices in which they are engaged, and who can vary the conventions. This appeal to
situated agency does not imply all people are heroic individuals who have great
impact on the historical direction of a practice. It implies only that they have the

13
capacity to adapt their inheritance and act in novel ways. When they do, they are
unlikely significantly to alter a practice unless others also adjust their beliefs and
actions in a related fashion. Even then, the changes in the practice are unlikely to
correspond to any they might have intended. Practices rarely, if ever, depend directly
on the actions of any given individual. They do consist of nothing but the changing
actions of various individuals.
Structures
For many political scientists, this analysis of practices contrasts sharply with
approaches that rely on concepts of social structure. At issue here is how political
scientists should think about the nature of social contexts and their impact on people.
We have emphasised situated agency, arguing traditions only influence but do not
define the beliefs individuals come to adopt and the actions they attempt to perform.
We have also emphasised that traditions are not natural, arguing observers construct
them out of an undifferentiated context to explain whatever interests them. Critical
realists worry that these emphases neglect the influence and the constraining effect
cultural schemes or structures exercise on people (see for example McAnulla 2004,
and Reckwitz 2002).
An interpretive approach might allow for the influence and the constraining effects of
social contexts. It just will refuse to reify practices or traditions by treating them as
structures or cultural schemes. To begin, although an interpretive approach might
defend the capacity of the individual for situated agency, commonly it rejects the idea
of autonomy. We have suggested people only ever come to hold beliefs or perform
actions against the background of a tradition that influences them. Appeals to
traditions go a long way to explaining why individuals hold the beliefs they do and act

14
in the ways they do. For example, UK permanent secretaries are socialised into the
idea of a profession. They will have sat across the desk from a mentor learning the
rules of the Whitehall village game and the skills of the generalist. They will have had
a patron to advise on career development. They will have worked the rites of passage
in the private office and at the Treasury or the Cabinet Office. This socialisation is the
glue that holds the service together. In addition, although proponents of an
interpretive approach argue tradition does not constrain beliefs, they recognise
practices can have a limiting effect on actions. Individuals are situated agents in that
they have a creative ability to adopt beliefs or attempt actions for reasons of their
own. However, they do not necessarily succeed in the actions they attempt. The
results of their actions typically depend on how others act. Practices thus constrain the
actions people can successfully make. For example, when ministers demanded public
sector reform in the guise of the New Public Management, the consequences
depended in no small part on the civil servants who had to manage change, and the
latter transformed the operation of the reforms by reinterpreting them within ‘a
tradition that is rooted in pragmatism and flexibility’ (Wilson 1998). An interpretive
approach can allow that traditions influence people, and practices constrain the
actions people can perform successfully. Where proponents of an interpretive
approach still might differ from critical realists is in the logical content they attribute
to such concepts. So, we might prefer the terms ‘tradition’ and ‘practice’ to ‘cultural
scheme’ and ‘structure’ precisely because we might worry the latter two neglect
situated agency and reify social contexts. The term ‘tradition’ captures an analysis of
individuals who inherit a set of beliefs that forms the background to their later
reasoning. It inevitably influences them even though they might transform it over time
through their local reasoning. On the other hand, the term ‘cultural scheme’ suggests a

15
disembodied structure of ideas that sets clear limits to the beliefs and agency of
individuals by fixing the ways they experience the world.
7
Similarly, the term
‘practice’ captures an analysis of how social contexts constrain actions. Practices
constrain the actions people attempt to perform if they enter the subjective reasoning
of the actors. A civil servant’s belief that he will be fired for whistle blowing might be
his or her reason for keeping silent. Practices also constrain the effectiveness of
actions because they consist of the actions of others. Politicians might try to lower
inflation only to find the actions of business organizations and citizens prevent them.
While an interpretive approach can allow practices act as constraints, it does so in
ways that make practices reducible to the contingent actions of other individuals. In
contrast, the term ‘structure’ invokes a physical object that constrains people in its
own right, rather as the Atlantic Ocean stops us driving back and forwards between
London and New York.
Explanation
Another related misconception is that interpretive approaches aim only to understand
actions and practices, not to explain them. The dichotomy between understanding and
explanation again makes sense only if we falsely separate actions from beliefs. An
interpretive approach rests on a philosophical analysis of actions as constituted by
beliefs. This analysis implies other political scientists go awry when they try to
explain actions in ways that do not appeal to beliefs. Any satisfactory explanation of
actions or practices must refer to the beliefs that animate them. To understand the
relevant beliefs is to explain the action or practice. What is more, when proponents of
an interpretive approach argue beliefs are inherently holistic, they imply we can
explain them by locating them as part of the web of meanings or beliefs that give

16
them their character. To locate beliefs in webs of belief, and to locate webs of belief
against the background of traditions and dilemmas is to explain those beliefs and the
actions and practices they inspire.
For example, there is no essentialist explanation of Thatcherism. This notion is
constructed in complex and contradictory ways in traditions that provide radically
different narratives of it. Rather, we might explain the innumerable, conflicting
practices and actions that constituted the Thatcher governments and reforms by
reference to different webs of belief inspired by Tory, Liberal, Whig and Socialist
traditions. The various political actors involved were acting in accord with beliefs or
narratives as different as preserving traditional authority, restoring markets,
gradualism, and resolving the crises of capitalism. They constructed the phenomenon
of Thatcherism in radically different ways. Thatcherism as statecraft, as economic
liberalism, as leadership, and as hegemonic project are different notions that inspired
diverse patterns of actions. Thatcherism, then, was not an objective, given social
phenomenon with a single clear identity, but rather several overlapping but different
entities constructed in overlapping but different traditions. An interpretive approach
explains actions and practices by beliefs, and it explains beliefs by traditions and
dilemmas. This version of explanation differs from that often found among political
scientists. The philosophical analysis of meaning in action that informs an interpretive
approach suggests human sciences rely on a distinctive form of explanation, which
we describe as narrative (see Bevir 1999, Roe 1994). When we explain actions by
beliefs and desires, we rely on a concept of choice and on criteria of reasonableness
that have no place in natural science (see Davidson 1980). So, the natural and human
sciences use different concepts of causation. This difference does not mean the
human sciences have no interest in causal analysis. To the contrary, the human

17
sciences explain actions and practices in narratives that point to the beliefs and
desires that cause the actions.
Narratives distinguish an interpretive approach from those approaches that treat
meanings or beliefs merely as ‘ideational variables’ alongside other factors (as in for
example Gerring 1999, Wendt 1999). An interpretive approach suggests other
variables do explanatory work only if they are unpacked as beliefs. Equally, its
proponents argue it is a mistake to ask how they would specify the precise links
between independent variables. Critics might say that actions and beliefs, or beliefs
and traditions, cannot be identified independently as they should be in explanations.
All proponents of an interpretive approach offer, they might conclude, are
redescriptions. However, an interpretive approach rests on a philosophical analysis of
meaning in action that invalidates the methodological rigour – the specification of
independent variables – that prompts the criticism. This philosophical analysis implies
actions are intentional, which means they are necessarily performed for reasons or
beliefs. Similarly, this philosophical analysis implies people are not autonomous, so
they necessarily reach beliefs against the background of tradition. These philosophical
arguments provide the causal mechanisms at work in a narrative. They indicate that
actions and beliefs, and beliefs and traditions, are entwined. Thus, when political
scientists try to specify them independently of one another, they are misled by a
spurious concept of scientific rigour into adopting a form of explanation that is
inappropriate for political science.
Method
Yet another misconception equates an interpretive approach with certain techniques of
data generation (and on the misleading distinction between ‘qualitative’ and

18
‘quantitative’ methods, see Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2002). An interpretive
approach is said to be limited to textual readings and small-scale observations,
excluding survey research and quantitative studies. However, a concern to offer
interpretations of interpretations does not necessarily favour particular methods. To
the contrary, proponents of an interpretive approach might construct their
interpretations using data generated by various techniques. They can draw on
participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, mass surveys, statistical analysis,
and formal models as well as reading memoirs, newspapers, and official and
unofficial documents. The philosophical analysis underpinning an interpretive
approach does not prescribe a particular methodological toolkit for producing data.
Instead, it prescribes a particular way of treating data of any type. Proponents of an
interpretive approach argue that political scientists should treat data in ways
consistent with the task of interpreting interpretations. They should treat data as
evidence of the meanings or beliefs embedded in actions. Political scientists should
not try to bypass meanings or beliefs by reducing them to principles of rationality,
fixed norms, or social categories.
The interpretive view of how we should treat data does, of course, have some
implications for methods of data collection. It leads, in particular, to greater emphasis
on qualitative methods than is usual among political scientists. Suppose the data
provided by models, formal constitutions, or large-scale surveys leads us to assign
certain beliefs to a group of people. Because such data typically abstracts from
individual circumstances to find patterns, it elides differences between people,
lumping together individuals who act in broadly similar ways for different reasons.
Therefore, an interpretive approach often favours more detailed studies of the beliefs
of the relevant people using textual analysis, participant observation, and interviews.

19
For example, Cris Shore’s (2000: 7-11) cultural analysis of how EU elites sought to
build Europe uses a battery of methods including participant observation, historical
archives, textual analysis, biographies, oral histories, recorded interviews, and
informal conversations as well as statistical and survey techniques. Much present-day
political science prefers the latter ‘scientific’ techniques and ignores, or even
denigrates the other methods. In contrast, an interpretive approach does not require an
exclusive use of any one method. However, it does redress the balance to the
qualitative analysis more often associated with anthropology and history than with
political science.
Rhetoric
The case for anthropological and historical studies should not be confused with the
claim that political scientists must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs.
Obviously people’s statements about what they believe offer significant evidence
about what they believe. Equally, however, people can be deliberately misleading.
Admittedly, people do act sometimes on political commitments they have agonised
over. However, they also act on habitual, unreflective beliefs about the nature of the
world and about what is right in a given context. So, we might explain an action using
beliefs other than the stated beliefs of the actors.
Another misconception is, therefore, that interpretive approaches cannot deal
adequately with rhetoric (see Dowding 2004). We can explore rhetoric using forms of
explanation based on the concepts of belief, tradition, and dilemma. When people use
a rhetorical pattern, they do so because they believe it will get a suitable response to
their ideas. So a political scientist can explain people’s choice of rhetoric by
identifying their relevant beliefs and preferences about different patterns of rhetoric,

20
their appropriateness, and their probable effectiveness. This analysis will involve
placing people’s beliefs about rhetoric in their wider webs of belief before relating
these wider webs of belief to traditions and dilemmas.
As Sanjek (2000: 281) argues, we can check the veracity of our findings by
comparing interviews with participant observation. Thus, interviews recorded at a
different time from the non-participant observation are a way of corroborating the
claims of a speaker. As Richards and Smith (2004: 785-7) show, loyalty to the
minister is a core civil service belief and it is borne out in the actions of senior civil
servants; for example, the refusal to admit errors even when shown to be wrong.
Critics worry that if we are to invoke beliefs other than those stated by the actors, we
need criteria for identifying beliefs (see Brown 2002). They worry that an interpretive
approach guesses people’s beliefs rather than finding hard evidence of them.
Proponents of an interpretive approach might reply that all experiences, not just
experiences of others’ beliefs, are guesses in that they are theory-laden. People always
construct the content of their experiences through the prior theories they bring to bear
on them. All too often, however, this insistence on the constructed nature of
experience leads critics of an interpretive approach to assimilate it to a postmodern
denial of any object outside the ‘text’. Most supporters of an interpretive approach
would deny entrapment in texts. For instance, we would propose using philosophical
reasoning to defend a commitment to the existence of general classes of objects,
including beliefs. We would then use inference to the best explanation to defend a
commitment to the existence of a particular case of such objects.
Whenever we act, we commit ourselves to certain concepts. For example, if we use a
pen to fill in our tax form, take it to the tax office, and pay by cheque, we commit

21
ourselves to beliefs about the existence of certain objects, such as forms and money.
We also commit ourselves to beliefs about the nature of these objects – for example,
that paying tax avoids interest and even fines for late or non-payment, and that others
accept authorized cheques as discharging our liabilities. Finally, we often commit
ourselves to beliefs about ourselves – for example, that we can attempt to pay, or not
to pay, taxes. Philosophy can go to work on the concepts we thus commit ourselves to
in our actions. It can analyse the implications of these concepts to provide an account
of the classes of objects with which we populate the world and the forms of reasoning
suitable for such objects. For example, our acceptance of tax forms and use of pens
suggests we populate the world with physical objects. Our convictions about the
utility of money suggest we populate the world with objects that gain significance
through intersubjective beliefs. Our convictions about our ability to act for reasons of
our own suggest we populate the world with beliefs.
While philosophical reflection on the ideas embedded in our actions provides us with
good reasons for proposing the existence of beliefs, it cannot justify ascribing
particular beliefs in any particular case. Nonetheless, an interpretive approach can
justify attributing particular beliefs to people by claiming that doing so best explains
facts on which we agree. Although political scientists do not have direct access to
people’s beliefs, they can justify ascribing beliefs to people by saying that doing so
best explains the evidence on which we agree.
Power
Poststructuralists sometimes imply that other interpretive approaches are insensitive
to the ways in which relations of power constitute individuals including their beliefs.
However, the concept of tradition can do much the same work as does the

22
poststructuralist one of power. Tradition asserts that individuals, far from being
autonomous, always come into being in a social context, which influences the beliefs
they come to hold. People inherit concepts, values, and practices from society. They
can reflect on this inheritance and even modify it, but they can do so only in the
context of other beliefs they adopt against the background of a social inheritance. So,
if ‘power’ is the influence society inevitably exerts on individuals, then a concept of
tradition similarly covers the effects of society. We prefer the concept of tradition for
two reasons.
First, if we use the term ‘power’ here, we deprive it of explanatory and critical force.
If power is everywhere, to point to its presence in any given case fails to provide any
critical or explanatory leverage. Second, the notion of tradition emphasises a
commitment to situated agency. Appeals to power as constitutive of subjectivity can
seem to deny the agency of the subject. We are unsure whether particular
poststructuralists oppose agency as well as autonomy. If they do, we would argue that
it is a mistake to conceive of traditions as reified quasi-structures that somehow
determine the beliefs people can come to hold.
Tradition need not be conceived of as uniform. Rather, we can disaggregate it into
conflicting strands. Nor need we think it is ever natural. Rather, we can seek to
question the unquestioned and show how any tradition arises as a contingent product
of struggles over different ways of conceiving of and responding to constructed
dilemmas. These political conflicts and contests are not confined to government.
Rather, we might use the word governance to stress that such contests take place
throughout society.

23
No doubt the most common governance narrative suggests that the state and its
operations have shifted from a bureaucratic hierarchy to governance in and by
networks because of apparently inexorable, impersonal forces such as the functional
differentiation of the modern state or the marketization of the public sector to explain
the shift from state to networks. Nonetheless, an interpretive approach insists there is
no process based on either the intrinsic rationality of markets or on the path
dependency of institutions producing governance. Rather it lead us to conclude that
patterns of governance arise as the contingent products of diverse actions and political
struggles informed by the beliefs of agents as they arise in the context of traditions.
These struggles often occur, moreover, at the boundary between state and civil society
– in, say, public education, hospitals, financial regulations, and the media.
If we so conceive of tradition, then our narratives often will be critiques. Our
narratives often will unmask the partiality of a political interpretation by showing how
it arose against the background of a particular tradition. And our narratives often will
unmask the contingency of traditions by showing them to be just one among several
historical possibilities. For example, whereas liberals define governance as the
inherent rationality of market reforms, whereas Whigs think it evolved out of existing
practices, and whereas socialists define it as joining-up, an interpretive approach
might narrate each of these varied perspectives as the contingent product of a
particular tradition (Bevir and Rhodes 2003). It might seek to reveal the contingency
and contestability of narratives that present themselves as natural and fixed.
Policy Advice
Yet another misconception about an interpretive approach is that it cannot produce
policy relevant knowledge. Critics suggest policy relevant knowledge comes from

24
prediction based on models or correlations between independent variables. Before
addressing this misconception directly, we need to confront the notion that scientific
expertise and prediction are the correct way of thinking about the advice political
scientists might offer practitioners. An interpretive approach typically rejects the
possibility of prediction – as opposed to the looser idea of informed conjecture – since
it is incompatible with the narrative form of explanation. Its proponents usually
portray change as a product of the ways in which people change inherited traditions
and practices, and the ways in which they adapt them are open-ended and so not
amenable to prediction.
Because traditions and practices do not fix the ways people might develop them when
confronted with new circumstances, we cannot know in advance how people will
develop their beliefs and actions in response to a dilemma. Therefore, political
scientists cannot predict how people will respond to a dilemma. Whatever limits they
built into their predictions, people always could arrive at new beliefs and actions
outside those limits. Political scientists cannot predict. However, they can offer
informed conjectures that seek to explain practices and actions by pointing to the
conditional connections between actions, beliefs, traditions, and dilemmas. Their
conjectures are stories, understood as provisional narratives about possible futures.
At this point we can directly address the issue of how an interpretive approach
contributes to policy advice. Most policy-oriented work on governance seeks to
improve the ability of the state to manage the markets, bureaucracies and networks
that have flourished since the 1980s. Typically this work treats hierarchies, markets,
and networks as fixed structures that governments can manipulate if they use the right
tools. An interpretive approach undercuts this idea of a set of tools that we can use to

25
manage governance. Because governance is constructed differently, contingently, and
continuously, we cannot have tool kits with which to manage it. So an interpretive
approach encourages us to foreswear management techniques and strategies.
Crucially, it replaces such tools with learning by telling stories and listening to them.
8
Other commentators have traced the rediscovery of storytelling in the subfield of
public administration (Van Eeten et al, 1996). They sometimes distinguish between
storytelling by administrators and storytelling by scholars to make the important point
that this intellectual fashion has its feet firmly on the ground. In both public and
private organizations managers use stories not only to gain and pass on information
and to inspire involvement but also as the repository of the organization’s institutional
memory. Rein (1973: 266), the central thread in a policy narrative is metaphor, which
makes the unfamiliar analogous to familiar situations: ‘The simplest stories are
proverbs and parables, used to justify policy relevant stories’.
While statistics, models, and claims to expertise all have a place in such stories, we
should not become too preoccupied with them. We should recognize that they too are
narratives about how people have acted or will react given their beliefs and desires.
No matter what rigour or expertise we bring to bear, all we can do is tell a story and
judge what the future might bring.
Objective Knowledge
Arguably the most prevalent misconception about an interpretive approach is that it is
inherently relativist (see for example Dowding 2004). This misconception is puzzling
since it ignores the many efforts of proponents of an interpretive approach to state
their epistemological position. Nonetheless, because it remains so prevalent, we want

26
to devote some space to outlining one possible epistemology and so dispelling it (and
this preferred position owes an obvious debt to Lakatos 1978, and Wittgenstein 1974).
All political scientists confront epistemological issues about how to evaluate
narratives, models, correlations, and typologies. An interpretive approach can address
these issues by drawing on its holistic analysis of meaning. Holism undermines the
idea that we can effectively vindicate or refute isolated claims to knowledge. Other
political scientists sometimes imply that we can justify claims to truth using logics of
vindication or refutation.
9
Logics of vindication would tell us how to decide whether a
statement is true. Logics of refutation would tell us how to decide whether a statement
is false. Advocates of verification argue that we can decode all reasonable theories
into a series of observational statements, and we can determine if these are true
because they refer to pure perceptions. They conclude that a theory is true if it
consists of observational statements that are true. Or, it is more or less probably true
according to the nature and number of observational statements in accord with it.
Advocates of falsification deny that positive observations can prove a theory to be
true no matter how many we obtain. They defend an ideal of refutation, arguing the
objective status of theories derives from our ability to make observations that show
other statements to be false. We do not need to worry about the differences between
verification and falsification. Both logics ground objectivity or truth in confrontations
with basic facts. All logics of vindication and refutation believe that we can confront
accounts of the world with basic facts in a test to prove them to be either true or false,
or not false or false. Their proponents typically defend the idea of basic facts by
arguing that we have pure experiences of the external world. They disagree about
whether the pure experiences that decide issues of truth are the particular experiences

27
of individuals or the inter-subjective experiences of a community. But they almost
always defend some version of pure experience as the grounds of their logics of
vindication or refutation.
Philosophical holism implies, in contrast, that we do not have pure experiences. The
nature of a perception depends on the prior web of beliefs of the perceiver. A
sensation becomes the object of a perception or an experience only when intelligence
identifies it as a particular sensation distinct from, yet related to, other sensations.
People become aware of a sensation only if they attend to it, and when they attend to
it, they locate it in the web of their current beliefs. Perceptions always incorporate
prior categories. Everyday experiences incorporate a wide range of realist
assumptions, including: objects exist independently of our seeing them, objects persist
over time, other people can see them, and they sometimes act causally on one another.
To insist on the role of prior categories in perception is not to argue that categories
determine experiences. No doubt objects can force sensations on people. It is to argue
only that categories influence how people experience sensations. People use prior
categories to make sense of the sensations objects force on them. Experiences cannot
be pure since they always embody prior categories. Also, because experience entails
prior categories, evaluation cannot rely on logics of vindication or refutation. If an
experience disproved a favourite statement, one could rescue the statement by
insisting that our understanding of that experience was based a false theory.
Holism leads many proponents of an interpretive approach to reject the idea of truth
as certainty. Because meanings are holistic, experiences always embody prior
theories, so we cannot determine finally whether an individual statement is true or
false since any such determination has to take for granted various theoretical

28
assumptions embodied in our experiences. An interpretive approach typically adopts a
holism that implies all knowledge might be mistaken. However, to reject the idea of
certainty is not necessarily to adopt a relativist position. Proponents of an interpretive
approach can repudiate relativism. They can define objectivity as evaluation by
comparing rival stories using reasonable criteria. Sometimes there might be no way of
deciding between two or more interpretations, but this will not always be the case.
Even when it is the case, we still will be able to decide between these two or more
interpretations and many inferior ones.
Objectivity arises from using agreed facts to criticise and compare rival
interpretations. A fact is a statement, typically about a piece of evidence, which nearly
everyone in the given community would accept as true. This definition of a fact
follows from recognition of the role of theory in observation. Because theory is
integral to observation, we cannot describe a fact as a statement of how things are.
Observation and description entail categorisation. For example, when an opposition
MP speaks to the prime minister in the chamber of the House of Commons we
categorise the event as question time. Such categorisation also entails decisions about
what other instances fall into that category. So, when any MP speaks to any minister
in the chamber, this event resembles question time. Facts always entail prior
categories, so they are not certain truths.
Narratives explain shared facts by postulating significant relationships, connections,
or similarities between them. A fact gains a particular character because of its
relationship to other facts. Narratives reveal the particular character of facts by
uncovering their relationships to one another. Indeed when narratives reveal the
particular character of a fact, they typically help to define the content of that fact. In

29
this sense, narratives not only reveal the character of facts, they also create their
character, and guide our decisions about what counts as a fact. Because there are no
pure observations, political scientists partly construct the character of a fact through
the theories they incorporate in their observations. Thus, we cannot say simply that
such and such a narrative either does or does not fit the facts. Instead, we must
compare bundles of narratives by assessing their success in relating facts to one
another, highlighting similarities and differences, and exploring continuities and
disjunctions.
Objectivity arises from using agreed facts to compare and criticise rival narratives.
Criticism plays a pivotal role in such an evaluation. Critics of a narrative can point to
facts that its proponents have not considered. They can highlight what they take to be
facts that contradict that narrative. In short, a narrative must meet tests set by its
critics. So, proponents of an interpretive approach defend objective knowledge as
comparison between rival stories.
This notion of objectivity raises the question of what criteria decide between rival
stories. We propose criteria or rules of thumb that treat objective behaviour as
intellectual honesty in responding to criticism. The first rule is that objective
behaviour requires taking criticism seriously. If people do not take criticism seriously,
we will consider them biased. Nonetheless, as we have seen, they could respond to a
fact or argument against their narrative by denying the fact or argument, or deploying
a speculative theory to reconcile the fact or argument with their view. Thus, the
second rule is that objective behaviour presupposes a preference for established
standards of evidence and reason. It also assumes that challenges to settled standards
should rest on impersonal and consistent criteria of evidence and reason. This rule

30
limits the occasions on which people can reject a fact or argument that contradicts
their narrative. And, the third rule is that objective behaviour implies a preference for
positive, speculative responses that produce exciting new stories, not ones that merely
block-off criticism of existing stories. This rule limits the occasions on which people
can have recourse to speculative theories to reconcile a narrative with seemingly
contrary evidence. We should try to adjust our narratives in ways that extend their
range and vigour.
This account of intellectual honesty results in criteria for comparing stories. Because
we should respect set standards of evidence and reason, we will prefer narratives that
are accurate, comprehensive, and consistent. Our standards of evidence require us to
try to support our narratives with as many clearly identified facts as we can. An
accurate narrative fits the facts supporting it closely. A comprehensive narrative fits
many facts with few outstanding exceptions. Similarly, our standards of reasoning
require us to endeavour to make our narratives clear and coherent. A consistent web
of narratives holds together without going against principles of logic. Because we
should favour positive speculative responses, we will prefer narratives that are
progressive, fruitful, and open. A progressive narrative is one characterised by
positive speculative responses that introduce new ideas not previously connected with
that interpretation. A fruitful narrative is one in which the new ideas contained in
speculative responses receive support from the facts. Because fruitful progress stems
largely from speculative responses to criticism, the more a narrative cuts itself off
from all possible criticism, the more it becomes a dead end, unable to sustain further
progress. An open narrative is one that encourages and engages criticism.

31
Proponents of an interpretive approach can defend accounts of objective knowledge
as a comparison of rival narratives. Positivist political scientists might reject such an
epistemology as relativist because it gives us no reason to assume the narratives that
we select as objective will correspond to truth. They might argue that, even if we
agree on the facts and we have criteria for comparing narratives, we still cannot
declare any narrative to be true. After all, facts might be widely accepted without
being true. We would agree that our epistemology does not allow us to ascribe truth,
understood as certainty, to objective knowledge. In our view, however, that is not a
problem. It merely restates what should be a commonplace – knowledge is
provisional. We would suggest that, although we cannot be certain of the truth of any
particular statement, our epistemology allows us to have some confidence in the
accuracy or truth of those narratives we select as objective. We would point out that
our perceptions must be more or less reliable because human practices occur in
natural and social environments. Our knowledge provides us with an understanding of
the world, our understanding of the world guides our actions in the world, and our
actions in the world work out more or less as we expect. Because we must act in the
world, the actions we perform successfully are limited by the nature of the world.
Because our narratives and perceptions inform our actions, our narratives and
perceptions too are constrained by the nature of the world. Thus, the successes we
have in acting in the world – chairing a committee, voting in an election, giving a
speech – all suggest that our perceptions are broadly reliable. Because we can rely on
the broad content of our perceptions, we have good reason to assume the facts on
which we agree are reliable, for facts are simply exemplary perceptions. Finally,
because we have good reason to assume that accepted facts are broadly reliable, the
best available narratives based on these facts are secure. In sum, we can relate

32
objective narratives to truth because our ability to find our way around in the world
vouches for the basic accuracy of our perceptions.
Conclusion
When critics contrast an interpretive approach with others, they are often groping for
a way of expressing their sense that an interpretive approach lacks rigour. They
invoke the same basic dichotomy. They want to dismiss interpretation as fuzzy,
subjective, and impressionistic. They want to defend a political science that relies on
hard data, experimental testing, and methodological rigour. In this paper, we
challenged this dichotomy by giving details of the data, methods, and epistemology
associated with an interpretive approach. More importantly, we gave reasons to
renounce the false idols of hard data, experimental tests, and rigorous methods.
Critics of interpretivism rarely avow positivism. Surely, though, their idols of hard
data, experimental tests, and methodological rigour lose all allure once one renounces
a positivist faith in pure experience? If we cannot have pure experiences, all data is
soft because it presupposes prior theories that are themselves contestable. If all data is
soft, we cannot evaluate particular narratives or theories using experiments. All
knowledge arises, rather, from comparisons between rival theories or narratives that
are based on at least partly constructed facts. Also, we can challenge the idol of
methodological rigour. Often methodological rigour is held up as a way of producing
secure facts that others can replicate and accept. In contrast, we have suggested
methods and the facts they construct should be evaluated together as parts of larger
narratives or theories. We will accept methods as ‘rigorous’ – or to use a more
accurate term, ‘appropriate’ – only if we adopt philosophical theories that imply the
relevant methods are suitable for the objects to which they are applied. Judgements

33
about methodological rigour or appropriateness always depend on logically prior
judgements about philosophical rigour or appropriateness.
The idol of methodological rigour typically acts to obscure prior philosophical issues
or even to prejudge such issues to support positivism. An interpretive approach, in
contrast, gives primary importance to philosophical rigour. It highlights the
importance of political science meeting the logical requirements of our concepts. It
rejects the stress on methodological rigour as a bewitching effect of the positivist
philosophy of the natural sciences.

34
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Biographical Note
Mark Bevir is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley. His recent publications include The Logic of the
History of Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 1999); and, with R.A.W. Rhodes,
Interpreting British Governance (Routledge, 2003).
Rod Rhodes is Professor of Political Science and Head of Program in the Research
School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, and Emeritus Professor of
Politics at the University of Newcastle, UK. He is the author or editor of 20 books. As
well as the book with Mark Bevir, his recent publications include Transforming
British Government Volume 1. Changing Institutions. Volume 2. Changing Roles and
Relationships (Macmillan, 2000), and (with Patrick Weller), The Changing World of
Top Officials. Mandarins or Valets? (Open University Press, 2001). He has been
editor of Public Administration since 1986. He is President of the Political Studies
Association of the United Kingdom. He is a fellow of both the Australian and the
British Academies of Social Sciences.

41
Notes
1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Political Science
Association Annual Conference, Chicago, 1-3 September 2004; and the Australasian
Political Studies Association, University of Adelaide, 29 September - 1 October 2004.
We would like to thank our conference colleagues and the journal’s referees for their
helpful comments.
2
Although this paper concentrates on political science, interpretive approaches are
widespread across the human sciences. Useful collections include Rabinow and
Sullivan 1979, Rabinow and Sullivan 1987, and Scott and Keates 2001. Much of the
movement charted by these collections derives from the philosophical repudiation of
positivism in the 1960s and 1970s. See Bernstein 1976, and Fay 1975.
3
Unless shown to the contrary, the several examples are taken from the fieldwork
reported in Bevir and Rhodes 2003 and 2005.
4
See Foucault 1972 and 1980. For varied assessments of the continuing impact of
structuralism upon poststructuralism see Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982, Gutting 1989,
and Harland 1988.
3
When we follow the logic of disaggregating concepts like voting or policy network,
we end up with micro-level stories of individual actions based on one person's set of
beliefs. Although such stories are interesting as cases, there are times when we want
to tell more general stories, for example about governance. To do so, we need
aggregate concepts like tradition and dilemma.

42
6
That said, we could make sense of someone’s beliefs only by postulating them as a
web that exhibits some kind of consistency and rationality. For discussion of various
principles of charity according to which we do thus ascribe some kind of conceptual
priority to rational beliefs see Bevir 1999, 158-171; Davidson 1984b; and
McGinn1977.
7
We would draw attention, more generally, to the difficulties that confront any
dualism of ‘scheme’ and ‘content’, or ‘paradigm’ and ‘experience’, given the
implausibility of an uninterpreted reality (see Davidson 1984a). Such difficulties
affect even those who emphasise meanings only to conceive of them as schemes,
paradigms, or frames, including, for example, Rein and Schon 1995.
8
There is an extensive literature that explicitly applies an interpretive approach to
policy analysis. Examples include Healy 1986, Hummel 1991, Jennings 1987, Van
Eeten et al. 1996, Weick 1995, and Yanow 1999.
9
For philosophical statements of such logics see Carnap 1937, and Popper 1959. For
their persistence in political science see Gerring 2003, and Saunders 1995. On the
early take-up of Popper by political scientists see Ricci 1984, 141-144.