An Eclectic Methodological Approach in Analyzing Foreign Policy: Turkey’s Foreign Policy Roles and Events Dataset (TFPRED)

Year 2019, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 255 - 283, 01.07.2019

İsmail Erkam Sula

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.476890

Cited By: 2

Abstract

This article describes the steps in
developing an eclectic coding scheme that utilizes the Role theory framework. Role
theory proposes that foreign policy is conducted with an attempt to fulfill the
role conceptions that decision-makers formulate. Studies utilizing this
framework usually identify national role conceptions (NRCs) in the foreign
policy speeches of decision-makers with various research techniques. Following
the literature, this article first explains how to use content analysis in
identifying the most frequently referred NRCs in Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP).
Then, unlike the literature, it takes a step further and offers event data
analysis to look at the performance of these NRCs as well. With such an approach,
it develops the Turkish Foreign Policy Roles and Events Dataset (TFPRED). The TFPRED
is a dataset that is the product of a combination of ‘hand-coded content
analysis’ with ‘computer-assisted event data analysis’. The article presents a
detailed explanation of the steps in using content analysis and event data
analysis to build the TFPRED. It also explains the development of the eclectic
methodological approach and gives an assessment of the author’s experiences in
combining the two methods. 

Keywords

Content analysis, computational social science, event data, foreign policy analysis, multi-methods research

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