Politics is an essential component of a culture because it impacts people's social and economic well-being. It is also necessary to research politics using both a qualitative and quantitative approach in order to compare and contrast data and thereby obtain accurate and well-informed data about the political picture. The two approaches to understanding politics balance one another. Where one cannot justify the political climate, the other would be able to provide an explanation. The two approaches are distinct, but they all aim to include information about the political standing of the population. Qualitative approach entails the political study of the facts about the society. It assumes a fixed and measurable variable in the statistics. This in politics is mostly exercised by the people during the electoral process of voting in the leaders of their choice. The fixed variable here is the number of registered voters and the data is collected as the votes are cast. The person with the highest votes cast is the winner of the process. According to this method and the data collect, the results are both factual and reliable as long as the system is termed free and fair. Hence no one can dispute the numbers as the data is based on the truths according to the system (Avissar, 2016).
The actual implications of quantitative results may not be the truth of the matter on the ground. The society is a complex structure and hence, methods are supposed to be in place to put considerations to most of the things quantitative approach of studying politics may not cater for. Quantitative approach is an over simplification of studying politics for it works on quantifiable type of data. It reduces the phenomena to essential numbers, losing the nuance of the process like, why people decide to vote for a specific candidate. As it generalises the findings, it is not always ideal for it doesn’t explain why the views of the losing candidate were not strong enough (Johnson, et al., 2016).
The qualitative approach of studying politics sorts to explain the aspects of politics that cannot be represented in numbers. It is concerned with understanding the reasons behind the people’s way of thinking, the ‘whys’ and on which criteria do people chose a leader for themselves. Qualitative approach of studying politics entails interviews, project test and open ended questionnaires with the subjects. The political data gathered is based on the informant’s way of thinking and assumes a dynamic and negotiated reality (Johnson, et al., 2016). The informant’s answers are invaluable as it portrays the emotional concepts of the political image. This gives the political data collected more credibility.
The qualitative analytical approach has its own short comings for it is not factual but based on the views of the subject. It is immeasurable and is prone to be biased based on either the informant’s way of thinking or based on the analysis and the summary made by the one collecting the political data (Johnson, et al., 2016). It is also time consuming for one ought to interview a large pool of informants to know their point of view to come up with the data. It is also broad for the subjects in question are motivated by different idealism, different aspects of perceiving life and different ways of thinking.
Conclusion
In the end it is important to analyse and study quantitative and qualitative political data as the former represents rational and factual data while the latter represents unconscious and emotional data of the subject. Analysing them separately and comparing them to one another should be done to get a wider scope of the political image. Studying of both gives a better informed political image and also helps in the accurate forecasting of political development in the society.
References
Avissar, N. (2016). Psychotherapy, society, and politics: From theory to practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2016.
Johnson, J. B., Reynolds, H. T., & Mycoff, J. D. (2016). Political science research methods. Los Angeles: SAGE Reference/CQ Press. 2016.
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