Investigating the military field: Qualitative research strategy and interviewing in the defence networks

Abstract

This article focuses on the methodological problems encountered in the qualitative study of the defence field. It is based on research on the European Defence and Security Policy, and more specifically the role of French and German officers and diplomats in its design and implementation. The article first addresses the qualitative research strategy and the questions it raises regarding the specificity of military discourse. This goes on to the question of how to interview defence agents (mostly military officers and diplomats), and encourage them to talk without leading them to breach their duty of confidentiality. The second issue addressed is how to construct a comparative research design. The last issue discussed by this article is reflexivity, and more precisely the position of the researcher in his or her dialogue with military officers. What does reflexivity mean, and how does it affect the research being conducted? This issue of reflexivity is twofold. The first aspect is the position of the researcher as a civilian academic: this raises the problem of the specific languages used by the military and the academicians. The second aspect is the impact of the gender of the researcher in what is a predominantly masculine sphere.