Distinguishing Between Positivist and Non-Positivist Research Methods in Political Science: A Quest for a Meeting Point

Research encompasses a detailed inquiry into the social setting of a phenomenon. It is a deliberate exercise aimed at discovering the world of man. In all, the objective is to build a methodology that can help uncover the truth about phenomena and how they interact with the existing human reality. This paper sets out to broaden the polemics on two dominant paradigms that have long-defined research methodologies in social sciences: positivism and non-positivism. However, despite its assurance of a high degree of objectivity, its inability to explain and predict the inner processes of man and his actions explains the invention of non-positivist paradigms that have come with variants such as phenomenology and hermeneutics. The aptness of the non-positivist tradition in explaining the inner processes of man and the interpretation of his worldview through qualitative methods richly contrasts with the positivist tradition. However, just as an inaccurate interpretation of human mental processes is the major shortcoming of positivism, so also is subjectivity the bane of non-positivist tradition which has come to define the popular question in social sciences; can social science research be objective? Based on the unavoidable shortcomings embedded in both paradigms, this paper concludes that mixed methods which incorporate the use of positivist and non-positivist methodologies should be encouraged to enrich social inquiry and uncover truths which are seen as the end-products of any productive research venture.