Guide to Qualitative Research in Parliaments

This is an open access book. This concise volume is a hands-on guide on doing qualitative research in parliaments that explores the practical achievements and drawbacks for academic researchers at various career stages. From early-career scholars looking for an 'in' to start their research, to senior academics interested in the methodological details of colleagues' work, the proposed book offers a novel approach to discussing qualitative methodologies and presents unique insights based on a large scale qualitative study in one parliament. Such a comprehensive yet accessible 'manual' is currently missing from extant literature and herein lies the distinctive contribution and usefulness of our volume for academia. Whilst several academic publications discuss the theoretical and methodological tenets of qualitative research at a general level and often in the format of handbooks (Curini and Franzese 2020; Leavy 2014), the proposed manuscript honestly accounts the step-by-step process of qualitative research in parliaments, offering a reflexive and analytical perspective that moves beyond a textbook or theory-only format. To this end, it uses the European Parliament as setting and context and builds its contribution on a significantly large interview and ethnographic dataset.