ABSTRACT
This chapter makes the case for developing a shared idiom for methods and methodology within the critical school of political economy. In using the word ‘idiom’, I mean to acknowledge that a ‘language’ of methods – a language largely confined to positivist methodology – already exists. One benefit of developing a new critical idiom about methods is that doing so allows us to recognise the well-established methodological differences between positivism and pluralism without having to develop a whole new vocabulary to speak or write about how we do research. It should be noted that the language of methods currently used in connection with positivism and methodological individualism has a specific contextual meaning that does not pertain to the actual meaning. In terms of empirical analyses, for instance, the language of positivism uses ‘empiricism’ to mean the quantitative analysis of large datasets. More broadly, however, the meaning of the term empirical is ‘evidence drawn from experience’. ‘Rigour’ is another word that can have different definitional inflections. In general terms, ‘rigour’ simply refers to how comprehensive and thorough the research process is; in academic practice, however, ‘rigour’ can mean anything from offering a comprehensive account of the entire scope of available knowledge on a topic to providing formal mathematical proofs.
