research methodology in political economy of SAARC

[neelam]

Can anyone help me with my phd thesis? My topic is the political economy of SAARC which is to be proved negative, contributing to its slow progress. But the problem is, iam still not sure which method to use.I don’t have background in mathematics, so only qualitative method shall be used. the thing is, what i want to prove is already in the literature. How to go about it? any political scientist or economist pl. help. can literature review be used as a tool?

 

 

Thanks,

Neelam

[Dr Enda Dunican]

Hi

Your choice of research method should be dictated by the research question/focus and not by whether or not you have a background in mathematics. If you are starting off with a hypothesis then a quantitative/deductive approach may be appropriate. Alternatively, if you want to uncover the various phenomena at play in the political economy of SAARC then a qualitative inductive approach is the way to go. Luckily, you can start off with an area like the political economy of SAARC and decide whether you want to pursue a deductive or inductive approach.

[neelam]

Hi Dr. Enda,

Thanks for replying to my query. In fact, i have already given the hypotheses. When i submitted my phd proposal about two years back, i was under the impression that formulation of hypotheses is the core part of any phd proposal nor did i know much about qualitative research and hypotheses relation. Even otherwise, undirected efforts lead us nowhere. So it wasimportant to show what i wanted to prove. The hypotheses are:
1)The negative political economy of SAARC has been responsible for its slow progress.
2)Positive politico-eco factors have resulted in successful RTAs like EU, NAFTA etc.

So in the later part, it is also comparative analysis.In fact i got one book on grounded theory approach imported and took time to understand the method. But hypothese……. That approach shows hat everything is to be grounded in literature which is to be collected involving iterative process. I had already collected it. My only source of data is secondary (govt documents & research papers), and want to come out with a new understanding of political economy of SAARC after doing document analysis. My hypotheses have already been supported by the rich literature. So what will be my contribution? shall i conclude with ‘Given the negative political economy, what steps are required to revive it (by taking lessons from other groups ) …….
Thanks.

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