The Value of Q Methodology By Iris Anne Hutchinson A thesis submitted to the Victo

225 Pages·2012·2.63 MB·English

Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts:
The Value of Q Methodology

By

Iris Anne Hutchinson

A thesis
submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington
in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Victoria University of Wellington
2012
ii
Abstract
Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and
hence necessitate analysts‟ having the capability to address them.
Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose
constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense
out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work.
Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric
of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role
for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten
among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which
had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that
there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis
examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in
policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an
established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from
a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to
public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion
- and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology
is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient
explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive
difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind.
The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q
methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy
need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence
knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while
remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology.
Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind.
It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the
power to create substantial policy-analytic change.
To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the
linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in
so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in
iii
policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make
an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature
of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from
knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce‟s
pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice
ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined,
which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van
Eeten‟s work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context,
and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall
epistemological choices made in policy analysis.
Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a
fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive
logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of
science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint
under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to
open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice
described as “reading complexity” in a real-world policy application possible.

iv
Acknowledgements
The course of my research and writing this dissertation has been a long and
surprising intellectual journey. That this dissertation has been completed has a lot
to do with the significant help, support, understanding, and encouragement I have
received from supervisors, colleagues, university staff, providers of financial
support, friends and family.
I extend my deepest thanks to my primary supervisor Dr Amanda Wolf for her
invaluable support, superb mentoring, sustained critical feedback, and kindness
over many years. I pay special tribute to Professor Steven R Brown, Kent State
University, Ohio, United States (now retired), co-supervisor, and I thank him for
his patience and for allowing me to work in my own way while never losing
interest in the study. I am also deeply indebted to Associate Professor Robin
Peace at Massey University, Wellington, for her numerous demonstrations of
faith in my capacities, her unflagging support and active encouragement, and for
her critical engagement with the thesis in its many drafts. I thank too Professor
Dan Durning, Dr Jeff Foote, and Dr Michael McGinnis for their consideration of
the thesis and the comments that they made.
The Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) has been a supportive place of
study and goodwill at the different levels of the institution. I would particularly
like to thank Dawn Yeabsley, Co-ordinator, School of Government and Janet
Keilar, Librarian, Faculty of Commerce and Administration who each in their
friendly way helped me through required procedures and assisted in accessing
the resources of the School of Government. I owe, too, particular thanks to
Frances Austin for help with proofreading and the checking of references
involving more than one draft. I would like to thank Professor Rowena Cullen,
Associate Dean, Research, in the Faculty of Commerce and Administration for
her advice and guidance when I needed help along the journey.
Social Policy Evaluation and Research (SPEaR) provided me with a three year
scholarship. This funding from SPEaR gave me the opportunity in 2004 to attend
a course in Q methodology at the University of Essex, United Kingdom, 37th
Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis and Collection and financed my
v
travel and participation in the 2004 and 2006 annual conferences of the
International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS). In this
regard, I am very grateful to a highly supportive Q community for their
encouragement and recognition of this thesis in its early stages. I feel honoured
to have received a scholarship as part of the ISSSS conference in Trondheim,
Norway in 2006. I particularly wish to thank Dr Arlene Thorsen and Casey
Brown for sharing with me their insights into Q methodology and for their
collegial support and friendship. I am also very grateful to Building Research
Capacity in the Social Sciences (BRCSS) for a completion scholarship which
made it possible for me to continue with writing and supplied further impetus to
reach my goal. A special thanks to the staff at SPEaR and BRCSS.
Last, but not least, my final acknowledgements are reserved for my extended
family and friends for their love and understanding for which I am very grateful.
Most of all, I thank Nic for her unconditional and sustained support and for
deciding to carry on with life with a PhD student in tow. It is to: Nic, Lois (my
dearly loved twin sister), Tanya, Amanda, and Robin that I dedicate this thesis.

vi
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: The research project ............................................................................. 7
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 7
Conception of opinion ........................................................................................ 8
Aim of this research and research questions.......................................................10
Background and context........................................................................................12
Epistemology of policy analysis practices..........................................................12
Epistemology: the complexity aspect .................................................................14
Motivation for the inquiry .................................................................................17
Q methodology and its record ............................................................................19
Policy analysis in New Zealand: the epistemology.............................................21
Areas of investigation ........................................................................................24
Methodological approach of this study ..............................................................26
Thesis outline .......................................................................................................29
Contribution of the research ..................................................................................30
Chapter 2: Methodology ........................................................................................31
Introduction ..........................................................................................................31
My three steps.......................................................................................................31
Step 1: Something is observed ...........................................................................31
Step 2: Development of propositions based on a hunch .....................................37
Step 3: Elaboration of the meaning of the propositions ......................................38
1
Peirce‟s pragmatism and abductive logic ...............................................................39
Logic of the pragmatic method of inquiry ..........................................................41
Understanding abduction ...................................................................................41
Pragmatic maxim ..............................................................................................47
Logic of discovery and epistemic debates ..........................................................48
Summary ..............................................................................................................54
Chapter 3: Policy thinking .....................................................................................55
Introduction ..........................................................................................................55
Evidence-based policy movement: a critical examination ......................................56
United States legacy: rationality project.............................................................57
Forces of change and the need for science/evidence...........................................62
The best means of meeting the challenge ...........................................................64
Focus on “the best” ...........................................................................................65
Use of the conception of evidence .....................................................................67
A repudiation of opinion ...................................................................................68
Hierarchy of evidence .......................................................................................73
“Wicked” or complex social policy problems ........................................................74
The basic argument ...........................................................................................75
Plurality ............................................................................................................76
Ethics ................................................................................................................77
Complexity capability .......................................................................................79
2
New thinking.....................................................................................................83
Systems thinking ...............................................................................................83
Modelling and prediction in a complex world ....................................................87
On a continuum ....................................................................................................89
Case description – a fifth runway for Schiphol Airport ..........................................92
Reanalysis .........................................................................................................95
Applied systems science ....................................................................................96
Narrative policy analysis ................................................................................. 101
Summary ............................................................................................................ 108
Chapter 4: Complexity thinking .......................................................................... 111
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 111
20th century scientific revolution ........................................................................ 114
Paradigm shift ................................................................................................. 114
Towards a paradigm of complexity .................................................................. 115
A transdisciplinary effort ................................................................................. 118
Away from a paradigm of complexity? ............................................................ 120
Epistemological shifts ..................................................................................... 123
Pragmatism: a classical expression of complexity thinking ................................. 125
Radical empiricism .......................................................................................... 127
Synechistic pluralism ...................................................................................... 131
The relevance of abduction .............................................................................. 133
3
Reading complexity in an everyday sense ........................................................ 134
Reading complexity: opinion-based policy analysis ......................................... 141
Classical pragmatism and new science ................................................................ 145
Summary ............................................................................................................ 147
Chapter 5: Q thinking .......................................................................................... 148
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 148
Subjective science ............................................................................................... 150
Much like quantum science ............................................................................. 153
Origins…………………………………………………………………………158
Q methodology and discourse analysis ............................................................ 162
Pragmatism, abduction, Q methodology link reaffirmed .................................. 165
Conscire theory of knowledge ............................................................................. 166
The concept ..................................................................................................... 166
Common knowledge ....................................................................................... 168
Q method ............................................................................................................ 171
Basic procedure ............................................................................................... 173
Epistemological status ........................................................................................ 186
Summary ............................................................................................................ 188
Chapter 6: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 189
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 189
Summary ............................................................................................................ 189
4