Abstract
We propose a methodology for comparative cross-national focus group research and illustrate how this methodology is useful for advancing our understanding of political protest. Focus group research allows researchers to study the collective process of meaning making and formation of intersubjective attitudes. This process has been shown to be relevant for how people discuss politics, and how in turn it could influence participation in politics. However, a systematic methodology for examining the influence of the historical, social, and political context in different countries has not been developed hitherto. In order to allow for comparisons between the formation of attitudes in different countries, we put forward several methodological decisions aimed at achieving standardization in cross-national focus group research design. Group composition, recruitment strategies, and moderation style are the key facets of focus group research that need to be standardized in order to make meaningful cross-national comparisons, but more practical considerations in implementing focus groups cross-nationally are also discussed. We illustrate and critically assess the proposed methodology based on data from an international comparative research project in which 80 focus groups were conducted in nine different countries in Europe and Latin America.
Highlights
Mass mobilization of citizens has influenced political decision-making in countries worldwide and on a wide range of topics
In a political arena where protest is becoming an increasingly conventional strategy to influence politics on a wide variety of topics, focus group discussions provide us with a better understanding of how citizens’ attitudes towards protest are being negotiated and shaped in social interactions, which in turn could influence their propensity to participate in protests
We proposed a methodology for cross-national focus group research, serving two related goals
Summary
Mass mobilization of citizens has influenced political decision-making in countries worldwide and on a wide range of topics. We develop a methodology for conducting focus groups cross-nationally and argue that this method improves our understanding of how attitudes are negotiated in group processes, and provides an insight into how these attitudes are shaped by a country’s social or historical trajectory. Schmitt-Beck and Lup (2013) demonstrate that the more people discuss politics within their social circles, the more they participate in politics. Conducting focus groups in a cross-national setting means finding a balance between wanting to make the data as comparable as possible across countries and maintaining the context-specificity which this method provides. We draw from data collected in the cross-national research project POLPART, which conducted 80 focus groups in nine different countries, to show how the research design can influence comparability between countries.
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