ABSTRACT
Talking about “context-sensitive policy methods” seems an awkward and unnecessarily cumbersome way to characterize policy research. Why not just refer to qualitative methods or even post-positive orientations to distinguish contextual policy approaches from conventional policy analysis strategies? Context-sensitive policy methods share some, but not all, of the assumptions of qualitative and post-positive approaches. Most importantly, context-sensitive methods highlight policy research tools and analytic strategies that allow more systematic and rigorous research in situations where variations in context and setting are important aspects of data observations. Where data is not obvious or not easily available, both data collection tools and analysis procedures must be sensitive to the contextual specifi city of the information and measurements in play.
