PRODUCTOS Y PREPARACIONES REPRESENTATIVOS DE LA COMUNIDAD DE MADRID

The design of the research was outlined in Section 1.2 but that Section did not cover the approach to analysing data collected. This Section will outline the three approaches used to analyse the data collected by this thesis: a classical approach to International Relations; a mixed methods approach to data collection; and a case study approach.

4.2.1 Classical Approach to International Relations

Approaches to research in International Relations, like that of social science more broadly, tend to fall somewhere in a spectrum between two general lines of inquiry: a scientific/rationalist approach (see Kaplan, 1966) and a classical/normative approach (see Bull, 1966). In the context of the study of International Relations, the suitability of these two lines of inquiry formed the basis of a debate between Hedley Bull (see 1966) and Morton Kaplan (see 1966). In defining these positions, Bull described the classical approach as referring to “theorizing that derives from philosophy, history, and law, and that is characterised above all by explicit reliance upon the exercise of judgment and… that general propositions… must therefore derive from a scientifically imperfect process of perception or intuition” (1966: 361); an interpretivist position (see Neuman, 2014: 103-109). In contrast, Kaplan (see 1966) defended a positivist (see Neuman, 2014: 97-102) approach to analysing International Relations that attempted to replicate some of the demands of proof and verification associated with scientific methods of analysis.

For this thesis, the classical/normative approach was most suited to analysing the ICC. Evaluating the performance of an international organisation like the ICC is not a matter of

133 science because, as argued by Bull, general claims regarding International Relations are at best “tentative and inconclusive” insofar as they emerge not from replicable and verifiable results but instead from logical arguments grounded in a particular context and theoretical paradigm (Bull, 1966: 361). In the context of the ICC, its claims to do justice or pursue justice are philosophical and ethical considerations, not scientific, and thus, in the words of Bull, pose questions that “cannot by their very nature be given any sort of objective answer” and instead can only be “tentatively answered from some arbitrary standpoint” (Bull, 1966: 366). Now, it is important to note that the study of International Relations has evolved since Bull developed the Classical Approach, not least with the emergence of constructivist (see Checkel, 1998; Hopf, 1998; Wendt, 1995; 1992) and post-structuralist approaches (see Søndergaard, 2002; Østerud, 1997; 1996; Patomäkii, 1997; Smith, 1997; Rosenau, 1992), but this thesis would argue that the main premises of the classical approach, that analysing matters in International Relations is best achieved through qualitative/interpretivist studies, remains relevant.

Nonetheless, despite its apparent suitability for this thesis, there are limitations to the classical approach with Richard Shapcott and Robert Jackson and Georg Sörenson suggesting that much of its defining literature (see George, 1976; Bull, 1972; 1966) does not actually provide a framework for data collection or analysis (see Jackson and Sörenson, 2010: 281; Shapcott, 2004: 274). Instead, the classical approach provides an overarching framework for analysis and allows the study of abstract concepts related to philosophy, law and ethics, free from the rigour of verification, proof and replicability associated with the scientific approach. This said, it was necessary to supplement this classical approach to the study of International Relations with a mix of qualitative data, which sought to gauge individual opinions on the ICC’s design and practice, and quantitative data, which aimed to measure the materialistic

134 elements of the Court’s workings and performance; this mixed-methods approach will be outlined further below.

4.2.2 Mixed Method Approach

The primary data collected for this thesis was qualitative and, as will be outlined in Section 4.4, was gathered through interviews, speeches and official reports. However, as Gary King, Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba argued, analysing and attempting to understand an increasingly complex, “rapidly changing social world” is best achieved by using both quantitative and qualitative methods and data (see 1994: 5). This is because different approaches and methods reveal and study separate elements of world politics, all of which combine to give a vision of international reality and support the production of knowledge. Now, this thesis cannot claim to have collected quantitative and statistical data from primary sources, such as surveys, but it did use quantitative data, in the form of statistics, from secondary sources. Such an approach was defended by Gordon Clark who suggested that the use of secondary data from official sources can provide an overview of your topic and serve as “a context for primary data you will subsequently collect” (Clark, 2005: 59). Thus, although this thesis did not use a mixed methods approach for primary data collection it did use a mixed methods approach in terms of the data used to evidence the arguments.

In this study, the main evidence for the arguments is supported and drawn from data gathered from a qualitative approach. Qualitative approaches and data allowed the researcher to gather personal opinions relating to the ICC’s structure and practice that may not have been possible using a quantitative approach. These opinions were then recorded and helped in the design of the analytical element of the research as they were used to identify and focus the areas on which would be analysed. This data, whether supportive or

135 critical of the ICC, was then taken and analysed to ascertain the compatibility of the Court’s purposes, procedures and stakeholder practices with the theoretical notions of justice identified in Chapter Three.

With regards to the quantitative element of the study, this thesis uses quantitative data but does not apply a quantitative approach to the analysis or data collection. This means that the quantitative data used within this study is collected from secondary sources and does not have an impact on the design or content of the analysis. Instead, quantitative data is used to evidence, add meaning to and contextualise the arguments drawn from the opinion based qualitative data. This is particularly relevant in Chapter Seven on stakeholder practice where many of the concerns raised by interview respondents and other qualitative data sources are supported with quantitative, statistical data gathered from secondary sources.

In sum, this thesis has employed a mixed-methods approach because it enables a broader understanding and coverage of the topic being researched. However, the manner in which the study was structured requires further explanation. As will be shown below, this thesis applied a variation on the case study approach which has been commonly employed in relation to the study of the ICC.

4.2.3 A Case Study Approach

Case study approaches are common in International Relations and Political Science (see Crasnow, 2012; Eckstein, 2009; Bennett and Elman, 2007), as well as the social sciences more generally (see Neuman, 2014: 42-43; Gomm, Hammersley and Foster, 2009; Yin, 2003), primarily because it allows the researcher to breakdown a large topic into smaller, more focussed and manageable sections to the extent that it aids the broader analytical process (see Yin, 2003: 13). Moreover, Lawrence Neuman defended the use of case studies on the

136 basis that they serve as a useful tool for connecting the micro-level, defined as the actions of individual actors, to the macro-level, identified as processes or structures (Neuman, 2014: 42). Neuman’s observation posits the idea that a case study approach is a useful tool for undertaking Gary Goertz’s third stage of concept analysis, which he termed the “indicator/data level”, where examples are chosen to ascertain whether or not a real world event or group of events meet the demand of a predetermined concept or concepts (Goertz, 2006: 6). In other words, case studies are selected and used on the basis that they are meaningful, enable the development of a logical argument and add context and empirical evidence to analysis conducted (see Goertz, 2006: 6).

In this study, the case studies are multi-faceted and exist across many levels. At the general level, the thesis focuses on one large case study of the ICC in the sense that this is the broad referent of study. But, studying a large organisation, such as the ICC, in general would be a difficult proposition and as such in order to make the study manageable this thesis breaks down its discussion on the Court into smaller, more focussed elements or case studies. In existing studies on the ICC, it is common for specific geographic case studies of where the Court is active, or in some cases inactive, to be used. However, as alluded to in Section 1.2, the aim of this thesis is to analyse the ICC as a whole by assessing the extent to which its purposes, procedures and stakeholder practices had been compatible with the theoretical framework of justice outlined in Chapter Three. This means that the intention of the thesis is to provide a general discussion on the ICC’s design and workings as a whole, rather than any specific commentary on the Court’s actions and/or performance within a particular situation under investigation. Moreover, given that an initial observation of the thesis was that the ICC has perhaps performed poorly in general, exploring the extent to which this observation is valid requires data to be collected from all the situations under consideration and/or

137 investigation by the Court as well as some of those that are not, rather than just a small number. This is because all of the situations being considered by the ICC, as well as some of those where its jurisdiction is not yet active, pose their own individual challenges and obstacles to the Court’s functioning and broader legitimacy, and as such it was decided that limiting the situations from where data can be gathered would be detrimental to the thesis’ overall analysis. Thus, although the ICC’s performance is going to be closely related it how it performs in individual situations, in order to make generalisations regarding the Court’s design and workings it was decided that geographic case studies would not be used. Instead, three broad thematic case studies of purpose, procedure and stakeholder practice were chosen to form the focus of Chapters Five, Six and Seven. Furthermore, within these Chapters additional mini-case study discussions on what this thesis considers to be the most important purposes, for Chapter Five, procedures, for Chapter Six, and stakeholders, for Chapter Seven, were also chosen.

In sum, this thesis does use a case study approach but not perhaps in the manner usually found in relation to studies of the ICC or International Relations more generally, where geographic case studies, either state or regional specific, appear to be the norm. Having outlined the three approaches used by this thesis, now attention is turned to the methodology and philosophy of research in the form of the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the study. The focus of the following section will be on critical realism.