ABSTRACT
The role of retroduction in ensuring a close ‘fit’ between theory and method The questions of method are – or at least should be – closely related to the theoretical and metatheoretical choices that inform any given study. Methodological reflection includes more than mere technical information concerning data collection and analysis; it is part and parcel of the basic conceptual work related to doing social scientific research in general and should be seen as an integral part of theorizing and a conscious choice made in favour of one (or many) method(s) in the light of the ontological and epistemological assumptions and choices made (George and Bennett 2005: 127). An essential prerequisite for choosing a method is, therefore, that it is based on a sufficiently good ‘fit’ between the theory, on the one hand, and the empirical question on the other. As such, method is the bridge that binds the empirical with the conceptual and helps the researcher to derive the right conclusions and meanings out of the sea of raw data. In order to ensure a close fit between theory and method, a retroductive approach is chosen for the work at hand. Retroduction is closely related to (critical) scientific realism, the key tenets of which have already been discussed in Chapter 2. The reason for choosing retroduction as the logic of inquiry stems from the fact that one of its central features is the ability – and even necessity – to seek to combine different methods in a single work (see Downward and Mearman 2007). In the present context this will entail combining a version of frame method that will enable the probing of commonality with a case-study method that is helpful in assessing the actual salience of the potentially diverging worldviews in light of the actual institutionalized practices between the EU and Russia. Unlike deductive reasoning, retroduction is synthetic, as it makes claims that do not follow logically from the premises. According to Blaikie (1993: 165), ‘[R]etroduction proposes something that may not have been observed or could not be observed directly’; and ‘while involving a process of reasoning, [it] does not lead to certainty; it culminates in finding a solution to the research problem’ (emphasis in the original). The way of arriving at this solution is through what Peirce has called colligation: by drawing together isolated observations, one is,
in the end, ‘overwhelmed’ by an organizing principle or idea arising from the empirical data. According to Peirce, the sensation is so strong that it ‘cannot be resisted’ (see Blaikie 1993: 166; see also the discussion in Van Evera 1997: 21, n. 20). Admittedly there is something rather metaphysical about Peirce’s description of how one arrives at this organizing idea, but it cannot be denied that intuition does play a role in hypothesis formation. This is, in fact, in line with Popper’s (1959/1972: 32) suggestion that researchers should put forward unusual or even outrageous hypotheses. Waltz (1979: 5), too, has noted how theories ‘cannot be constructed through induction alone, for theoretical notions can only be invented, not discovered’. This intuition-based invention should, however, be as far as possible kept separate from the actual empirical work that seeks to test the validity of the hypothesis. One should, however, keep in mind the theory-laden nature of all observation when thinking about the role of colligation in hypothesis formation. Unlike induction, retroduction does not take place in a conceptual vacuum, but the process of ‘becoming overwhelmed’ by the organizing principle (the hypothesis) is in fact guided by the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the theoretical framework at hand (Blaikie 1993: 168). The resulting hypothesis must satisfy three criteria: (1) it must eliminate the puzzlement that arises from some surprising observations; (2) it must be able to answer the research question; and (3) it must be testable (ibid.: 165-166). In the present study the first criterion has been met by accepting and consequently putting to the test the notion in the extant literature of the divergent value systems being the main cause of problems between the parties. I hope, and indeed firmly believe, that the case for satisfying the second criterion has been made in the theoretical framework in the previous chapter. Finally, it is the task of this chapter to make a case for how, through retroduction, frame method and case-study analysis, the third criterion can be met. Retroduction is based on the idea of constructing hypothetical models that seek to uncover the unobservable and real structures and mechanisms that lie behind the observed empirical phenomena (Blaikie 1993: 168). According to Roy Bhaskar (1998: 13),
the construction of an explanation for . . . some identified phenomenon will involve the building of a model, utilizing such cognitive materials and operating under the control of something like a logic of analogy and metaphor, of a mechanism, which if it were to exist and act in the postulated way would account for the phenomenon in question (a movement of thought which may be styled ‘retroduction’). The reality of the postulated explanation must then, of course, be subjected to empirical scrutiny. . . . Once this is done, the explanation must then in principle itself be explained. And so one has in science a three-phase schema of development in which, in a continuing dialectic, science identifies a phenomenon (or range of phenomena), constructs explanations for it and empirically tests its explanations, leading to the identification of the generative mechanism at work, which now becomes the phenomenon to be explained, and so on.
