I reflect on my field experience with far-right leaders and functionaries to examine in detail how interviews help study far right parties and organizations. I analyse challenges related to interview access, rapport, analysis and ethics, and offer remedies. I suggest that researchers using interviews need to address these challenges by explicating and reflecting on the process through which they collect interview data rather than solely focusing on the data itself.
Antonis A. Ellinas is Professor of Comparative Politics and Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Education at the University of Cyprus. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and his B.A. from Hamilton College. He is the author of Organizing against Democracy (Cambridge University Press 2020), The European Commission and Bureaucratic Autonomy (Cambridge University Press 2012; with Ezra Suleiman) and The Media and the Far Right (Cambridge University Press 2010).
Methods and ethics webinar series
This webinar is part of the series 'Researching the far right: methods and ethics', co-organized by C-REX and PERIL (American University).
This webinar series aims to initiate and facilitate a much needed discussion about the methodological, ethical, political, personal, practical and professional issues and challenges that arise when researching far right parties, protest movements, and violent actions.
The webinars last one hour and take place every second Thursday of the month. The webinar will have one or two (short) presentations followed by a Q&A session.
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