Potential for Inferences

These ways of collecting data are much debated. Using qualitative methods does not ensure an objective approach, and this might contribute to lowering the study’s potential for inferences. The goal of this thesis is to be able to say something about the democratic quality of the cooperation between Norway and EU on security and defence, and one could perhaps argue that this is a hypothesis-generating study as the results can be used as a basis for future studies of similar relationships. There are however of course several threats to a study’s potential for inferences.

3.4.1 Validity and Reliability

Validity refers to ‘measuring what we think we are measuring’ (King et al. 1994: 25), and can be divided into external and internal validity, where external refers to the representativeness of the sample, and internal refers to the correctness of a hypothesis with respect to the sample (Gerring 2007: 217). Because case studies only consist of one or few cases, they are often considered to suffer from a problem of low external validity. However, for the same reason case studies’ virtue is that they normally have a high degree of internal validity; ‘it is easier to establish the veracity of a causal relationship pertaining to a single case (or a small number of cases) than for a large set of cases’ (Gerring 2007: 43). The reasoning for choosing the triangulation approach in this thesis has been to maximize the potential for both kinds of validity. Reliability is chiefly concerned with making sure the method of data gathering leads to consistent results. It means that ‘applying the same procedure in the same way will always produce the same measure’ (King et al. 1994: 25). With regard to this thesis, the use of official documents and opinion polls will secure a high degree of reliability, while interviews conducted by other researchers, at other points in time, with different informants might lead to other conclusions.

Validity and reliability issues when conducting elite interviews are widely recognised, and there are several ways of minimising these problems. First of all, using multiple sources is always a good idea, especially in this thesis where they are asked about own experiences.

Elite interviewing is, however, very time consuming, and especially if one has to travel in order to conduct them there has to be a limitation that might reduce the study’s validity and reliability (Berry 2002: 679-682).

In this thesis the topic might be sensitive for people on both the military and the political side, and another problem that might arise is exaggeration. The interviewees might perceive of their role and their influence as much higher than it really is. Again, conducting multiple interviews with people in the same position, might contribute to a more balanced picture of the situation. In addition, the way the interview is structured may have an impact on the data reliability and validity (Leech 2002b: 665). Unstructured interviews can often take unexpected directions and is perhaps better as a source of insights that as a source of reliable data. Structured interviews can lead to high data reliability but low content validity if the researcher fails to ask relevant questions. Lastly, semi-structured interviews, the approach used in this thesis, can ‘provide detail, depth, and an insider’s perspective, while at the same time allowing hypothesis testing and the quantitative analysis of interview responses’ (Leech 2002a: 665).

3.4.2 Selection Bias

When generating inferences, one should always try to use data which are unbiased, meaning correct on average. One such bias is selection bias, ‘choosing observations in a manner that systematically distorts the population from which they were drawn’ (King et al. 1994: 27-28).

When random selection of in-depth studies is problematic, selection is done according to the researcher’s intentions and consistent with the research objectives. The decision as to which units to select is crucial for the degree to which the research can produce determinate and reliable results (King et al. 1994: 128). Fortunately, ‘in qualitative research selection bias will mean that the true causal effect is larger than the qualitative researcher is led to believe’ (King et al. 1994: 130). The results are also biased in a predictable way, and can be taken into account.

It is of course possible to argue that the interviews might be subject to selection bias. The informants were chosen both by suggestions from other informants as well as by conscious choice. However, there is reason to believe that the consequences of a potential bias would be more prominent in the military aspect because there are far more people involved in the actual operations than at the political aspect. With regard to the in-depth studies and the potential for selection bias, there is no reason to believe that participation in operation Atalanta would differ considerably from participation in other EU-led operations. In addition, the purpose of this thesis is to examine the cooperation today, and as this is the most recent operation with Norwegian participation, there is reason to believe that there is not serious selection bias

present. Participation in the Nordic Battle Group is the only one of its kind, which both is why it was selected in the first place as well as the reason for there being no selection bias.