NCJ Number
122354
Journal
Judicature Volume: 73 Issue: 4 Dated: (December-January 1990) Pages: 196-198
Date Published
1990
Length
3 pages
Annotation
While the interview format is often considered to elicit "soft" data, judicial researchers conclude that intensive, elite, unscheduled interviews with Supreme Court justices and interest group attorneys can yield exploratory and supplementary data and can function as a main research tool.
Abstract
Interviews often yield data enabling scholars to develop hypotheses for future analysis. Interviews can also elicit material that supplements, confirms, validates, or invalidates data obtained elsewhere. Intensive interviews can also be carefully structured to function as main tools for research, for sometimes the origins of significant political decisions are known to only a few people. Interviews can function as interactive observations similar to those espoused by Charles Fenno. When studying political decisions made by a small group of decisionmakers, interviewing those individuals can be an important element in discerning how the political process works and how political decisions are made. 19 footnotes.