Table Of ContentInterviewing Experts
Research Methods Series
General Editors: Bernhard Kittel, Professor of Social Science Methodology,
Department of Social Sciences, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany
and Benoît Rihoux, Professor of Political Science, Université catholique de Louvain
(UCL), Belgium.
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tive methods.
Titles include:
Alexander Bogner, Beate Littig and Wolfgang Menz (editors)
INTERVIEWING EXPERTS
Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash (editors)
QUALITATIVE METHODS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
A Pluralist Guide
Lane Kenworthy and Alexander Hicks (editors)
METHOD AND SUBSTANCE IN MACROCOMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Research Methods Series
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Interviewing Experts
Edited by
Alexander Bogner
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
Beate Littig
Institute of Advanced Studies, Austria
and
Wolfgang Menz
Institute for Social Science Research, Germany
Selection and editorial matter © Alexander Bogner, Beate Littig and
Wolfgang Menz 2009
Chapters © their authors 2009
English Language Translation © respective authors 2009
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-22019-5
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ISBN 978-1-349-30575-9 ISBN 978-0-230-24427-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230244276
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Interviewing experts / edited by Alexander Bogner, Beate Littig, and
Wolfgang Menz.
p. cm.—(Research methods series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-30575-9(alk. paper)
1. Interviewing. 2. Specialists – Interviews – Methodology. I. Bogner,
Alexander. II. Littig, Beate. III. Menz, W. (Wolfgang)
BF637.I5I57 2009
001.4(cid:2)32—dc22 2009013661
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Notes on Contributors viii
Introduction: Expert Interviews – An Introduction
to a New Methodological Debate 1
Alexander Bogner, Beate Littig and Wolfgang Menz
Part I Theoretical Concepts:
Methodology of Expert Interviews
1 The Expert Interview and Changes in Knowledge Production 17
Michael Meuser and Ulrike Nagel
2 The Theory-Generating Expert Interview:
Epistemological Interest, Forms of Knowledge, Interaction 43
Alexander Bogner and Wolfgang Menz
3 At Eye Level: The Expert Interview – a Talk between
Expert and Quasi-expert 81
Michaela Pfadenhauer
4 Interviewing the Elite – Interviewing Experts:
Is There a Difference? 98
Beate Littig
Part II Methodological Practice: Generating Data
5 On Interviewing “Good” and “Bad” Experts 117
Jochen Gläser and Grit Laudel
6 Interviewing Experts in Political Science:
A Reflection on Gender and Policy Effects Based on
Secondary Analysis 138
Gabriele Abels and Maria Behrens
7 Expert Interviews on the Telephone: A Difficult Undertaking 157
Gabriela B. Christmann
8 Expert versus Researcher:
Ethical Considerations in the Process of Bargaining a Study 184
Vaida Obelene˙
v
vi Contents
Part III Fields of Application:
Applications of Expert Interviews in
Different Fields of Research
9 H ow to Interview Managers? Methodical and Methodological
Aspects of Expert Interviews as a Qualitative Method in
Empirical Social Research 203
Rainer Trinczek
10 Expert Interviews in Interpretive Organizational Research 217
Ulrike Froschauer and Manfred Lueger
11 B etween Scientific Standards and Claims to Efficiency:
Expert Interviews in Programme Evaluation 235
Angela Wroblewski and Andrea Leitner
12 The Delphi Method: Eliciting Experts’ Knowledge in
Technology Foresight 252
Georg Aichholzer
Index 275
Illustrations
Tables
2.1 Typology of interaction situations and interview strategies 68
5.1 Quality-dependent communication situations in
interviews with researchers 122
5.2 Differentiation of experimental physicists in
Australia and Germany according to their research
performance and acquisition of external funds 133
6.1 Typical effects in conversational interaction 144
12.1 The Austrian Technology Delphi:
organization, roles and tasks 257
12.2 Size of the two main Expert Delphi rounds 262
Figures
4.1 Differentiating between experts and the elite 108
5.1 Area of overlap of the two definitions of expert interviews 119
5.2 Relationship between performance levels and
the adaptation of the research content 134
7.1 The research design in the context of the extended project 158
vii
Contributors
Gabriele Abels is a professor for comparative politics and European
integration at the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen.
Her research interests are European integration, political participation,
biotechnology policy, gender studies. She is the co-editior of “femina
politica: Zeitschrift für feministische Politik-Wissenschaft.”
Her most recent publications include: Abels, G. and Lepperhoff, J. (forth-
coming 2009) “Frauen-, Geschlechter- und Intersektionalitätsforschung.
Methodologische Entwicklungen und offene Fragen” in Barbara
Friebertshäuser et al. (eds) Handbuch Qualitative Forschungsmethoden in der
Erziehungswissenschaft, 2nd edn (Weinheim, München: Juventa) and Abels, G.
(2007) “Trade and Human Rights: Inter- and Supranational Regulation of
GMOs and ART” in Montpetit, E. et al. (eds) The Politics of Biotechnology in
North America and Europe: Policy Networks, Institutions and Internationalization
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books), pp. 35–59.
Georg Aichholzer is project director and senior researcher at the Institute
of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
and senior lecturer at Vienna University of Economics and Business
Administration. Trained in Social Sciences (PhD in Sociology) his research
interests focus on technology assessment, interrelations of information
technology and society, and related policies. A major field of study are
technological innovations in government and governance (electronic pub-
lic services, electronic participation).
Among his publications are: Aichholzer, G. and Burkert, H. (eds) (2004)
Public Sector Information in the Digital Age. Between Markets, Public Management
and Citizens? (Rights, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward
Elgar Publishing) and Aichholzer, G. (2007) “Opening the Black Box:
Economic and Organisational Effects of e-Government” in Remenyi, D.
(ed.) Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on e-Government, University
of Quebec at Montreal, Canada, 26–28 September 2007 (Dublin: Academic
Conferences International), pp. 1–10.
Maria Behrens is professor at the Department of Political Science at the
University Wuppertal (Germany). Research Areas: political coordination
and regulation of conflicts in international politics (global governance);
the relationship of intergovernmental and transnational forms of political
decision-making (private governance).
Publications: Behrens, M. (forthcoming 2009) “Beyond the competi-
tive race: US and EU foreign trade policy” in Wynn, N. (ed.) Conflict and
viii
Contributors ix
Consensus: Transatlantic Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press); Behrens, M. (2007) “Global Governance” in Benz, A. et al. (eds)
Handbuch Governance (Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag), pp. 311–24 and Behrens, M.
(2005) Globalisierung als politische Herausforderung, Global Governance
zwischen Utopie und Realität (Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag).
Alexander Bogner is a sociologist by training and researcher at the Institute
for Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
His main research interests are science and technology studies, sociology of
expertise and methods of empirical research.
His publications include: Bogner, A. (2005) “How Experts Draw
Boundaries. Dealing with non-knowledge and uncertainty in prenatal
testing” in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies 1, 17–37 and Bogner, A.
and Menz, W. (2006) “Science crime. The Korean cloning scandal and the
role of ethics” in Science and Public Policy 33, 601–12.
Gabriela B. Christmann is head of the research department “Dynamics
of Communication, Knowledge and Spatial Development” at the Leibniz
Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS) in Erkner
(near Berlin). Her main research interests include the sociology of know-
ledge and culture, urban sociology, communication analysis, and methods
of qualitative research.
Recent publication: Christmann, G. (2008) “The Power of Photographs
of Buildings in the Dresden Urban Discourse. Towards a Visual Discourse
Analysis” in Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social
Research 9(3), Art. 11, http://nbnresolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0803115
(accessed on 16 May 2009).
Ulrike Froschauer is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology,
University of Vienna, Austria. Her main research interests are in the field
of the sociology of organisations, sociology of organisational consulting,
methodology and methods of qualitative research and evaluation.
Among her publications are: Froschauer, U. (2006) “Veränderungsdynamik
in Organisationen” in Tänzler, D., Knoblauch, H., Soeffner, H.-G. (eds) Zur
Kritik der Wissensgesellschaft (Konstanz: UVK), pp. 157–83 and Froschauer, U.,
Lueger, M. (2003) Das qualitative Interview. Zur Praxis Interpretativer Analyse
sozialer Systeme (Wien: WUV-UTB).
Jochen Gläser, PD (Free University Berlin) Dr (Humboldt-University Berlin)
is a senior researcher at the Technical University of Berlin’s Center for
Technology and Society. His major research interests are in the sociology of
science, sociological theory and qualitative methods.
Recent publications include: Gläser, J. and Whitley, R. (eds) (2007)
The Changing Governance of the Sciences: The Advent of Research Evaluation
Systems (Berlin: Springer); Gläser, J. and Laudel, G. (2007) “Interviewing
Scientists” in STI-Studies 3/2 and Gläser, J. and Laudel, G. (2008) “Creating
