ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about elite and specialized interviewing, be alert to the ways in which effective use of the technique requires attention to a different set of concerns than survey interviewing or any other quantitative data collection method. Personal interviews with political elites such as presidents, prime ministers, or members of parliament are difficult to obtain. Even journalists, who depend on such interviews to do their jobs, struggle to get access to political leaders who often avoid the press or anybody asking critical questions. Elite interviews can provide crucial information about political events that is otherwise unavailable. Elite interviewing involves some very real scientific risks, however. Intensive interviews can be an enormously rich source of data for social scientists, but they require the development of almost artistic skills to be used effectively. Many important research questions in political science can be answered only if people can learn how certain individuals or types of individuals think and act.
