In conducting a research, qualitative research method is one of the essential approach used for data collection and data analysis. Qualitative research is commonly associated to ‘social science research’ (Sjoberg and Horowitz 2013: 104), which involves a specific set of methods to achieve critical outcomes such as archival research, content analysis and in-depth interviews. In qualitative research, a broad and holistic approach is required to study and understand the social phenomena (King and Horrocks 2010: 7). Qualitative research can be conducted for a wide range of studies including, among others, to understand social interactions among people; to understand behaviour, beliefs or opinions of the study participants; and to study complex issues such as human trafficking (Hennink et al. 2011: 10). Qualitative research allows the researcher to identify issues and understand a phenomenon from the perspective of participants, which is through their experience or interpretations. In other ways, qualitative research concerns how the social, cultural or economic context could shape and influence people’s behaviour. This is referred to as the interpretive approach. In order to understand people’s behaviour or subject of the study, the researcher needs to be flexible and open-minded settings to allow for neutral, equitable and unbiased judgments towards the participants information (Hennink et al. 2011: 9). Interpretive research does not intend to prove how accurate the defined concept or framework are, rather it focuses on how the framework can be used in a certain study (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012: 40). For instance, this research used qualitative/interpretive research methods, as this study attempts to trace a connection between the security community framework and maritime security
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practices through the implementation of maritime security initiatives. In short, qualitative research is a way to provide in-depth understanding of the contextual influences on the research issues, provide depth and nuance to the research issues, as well as making sense of the research studies.
This thesis adopted a qualitative research approach in order to understand the process of security community building in order to achieve better understanding of a maritime security phenomenon. In determining the spread of the security community framework in the Mediterranean Sea, it is necessary to study the spectrum of threats in the basin and examine the processes involved through the employment of maritime security practices. In order to answer the research objectives and to provide answers to the research questions, a qualitative study based on in-depth content analysis was conducted. The thesis used textual analysis and interviews as the main methods for data collection. Supplementary sources featuring statistics, such as the number of migrants’ arrival to the European countries and number of migrants’ death at sea were also used to support the qualitative data derived from textual analysis and interview. These statistics were useful in providing additional information in relation to irregular migration issues, explaining how the issue has worsened. In line with the methodology and selection of methods to collect the data, it therefore seemed relevant that this thesis adopted a qualitative research approach throughout the research.
Previous research on the security community framework were also widely constructed within qualitative research approach. For instance, Niklas Bremberg (2016) used qualitative research to study the security community building in the Western Mediterranean. Bremberg studied the role that the EU plays as a security community building institution by using Spain and Morocco as case studies in order to explain how the security community expanded between Spain and Morocco to tackle non-military threats and transboundary risks through the practices of diplomacy and cooperative security. Similarly, in this thesis I explore how the practices within counter-terrorism and counter-migration connect the concept of security community practices with the community-building process in
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the Mediterranean Sea. In order to collect empirical data for the analysis, Bremberg made use of government policies, legislative documents and semi- structured elite interviews18 to collect information of Spanish-Moroccan cooperation. In my own study, I conducted a smaller number of interviews with five interviewees including the EU and NATO officials due to the in-depth nature of my research. The purpose of interviews in my research is to complement existing data from textual analysis and provide additional useful information, which I could not retrieve from the documents. Also, the interviews were intended to achieve depth of information (rather than breadth), therefore only few participants are needed in my research. Furthermore, Bremberg also collected secondary sources such as policy reports and made use of statistical data to explain EU’s external trade relations (Bremberg 2016: 19). Likewise,making use of secondary sources was useful in my own study too as it aided to provide additional information and allows producing the detailed narratives of the issues. Statistical data assists to describe the research issue accurately particularly capturing essential aspects such as the number of migrants’ arrival to Europe and total fatality from the boats casualty in the Mediterranean Sea. Ultimately, the statistical data enables to describe the real pressing situation of migration crisis in the Mediterranean. This thesis took a similar approach to the study of security community expansion in the Mediterranean Sea.19
Fotios Moustakis (2003) has also used qualitative research to study security community expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean. He studied Greece and Turkey as principal case studies and analyses the application of pluralistic security communities in the Mediterranean within the context of cooperation between Greece and Turkey. His study examines the extent to which both Greece and Turkey have achieved or fulfilled the conditions required for a pluralistic security community through their cooperative mechanism (Moustakis 2003: 89).
18 Bremberg conducted around seventy interviews with various European and national government
officials, diplomats, military officials and civil protection experts (Bremberg 2016: 20).
19 Likewise, Bremberg made use of secondary sources such as policy reports, newspaper articles
and academic works to acquire further information about the cooperation between Spain and Morocco. He also used statistical data including trade volume and military spending between EU and Morocco, in order to establish the connection between their cooperation and security community building in crisis management (Bremberg 2016: 19).
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The study is similar to my own in a way that it adopted case study research to concentrate on specific case studies in relations to security community expansion, only that in my case I focus on cooperation in counter-terrorism and counter- migration to study the spread of security community in the Mediterranean Sea. The key point here is that his study adopted similar model to what this thesis employs, in that we aimed to scrutinise the extent of security community expansion through the repertoire of practices of security community framework.
In sum, qualitative research is the most prevalent approach to be used in conducting a research of security community framework. While previous research on the security community framework has generally preferred the qualitative approach, I applied the similar approach to study and understand security community expansion through counter-terrorism and counter-migration policies in the Mediterranean Sea. Qualitative research, particularly textual analysis and interview, allow me to understand how the process of security community building takes place through the employment of maritime practices. This is achieved from the useful information obtained from the interviews and extensive literature explaining the forms of maritime practices that exist in the Mediterranean Sea. It also assists to establish understanding about the terrorism and irregular migration as a security threats in the Mediterranean Sea with detailed information and substantial data acquired from various sources of documents and interviews. This is dicussed in further detail in the latter section of the methods of data collection. Therefore, to reiterate, qualitative research is required in this thesis not only to study maritime security in the basin, but more importantly allow to understand security community mechanism in the Mediterranean Sea.