Analyzing ethnographic interviews: Three studies on terrorism and nonviolent resistance
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512119884091 |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119884091
International Political Science Review
2021, Vol. 42(2) 149 –163
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512119884091
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Analyzing ethnographic interviews:
Three studies on terrorism and
nonviolent resistance
Stephanie Dornschneider
University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
This article describes three analyses of ethnographic interviews conducted with violent and nonviolent
political activists. The findings show that the deliberations of violent and nonviolent activists focus on state
violence and rational choice calculations (Studies I and II), while nonviolent activists moreover consider
perceptions of themselves and state actors, among other factors (Study II). In a highly repressive setting,
nonviolent activists choose individual over collective resistance (Study III). By revealing how violent and
nonviolent activists reason about their behaviour, the findings complement statistical analyses of datasets on
external factors, such as economic conditions, political institutions, social networks or political events. Such
datasets are typically readily available or can be constructed from publicly available data, while interview
transcripts are more time-consuming to assemble. Furthermore, replicable quantitative methods are not
straightforwardly applied to qualitative interviews. This article instead applies Spradley’s ethnographic analysis
(Study I) and Corbin and Strauss’s grounded theory (Studies II and III) to examine interview transcripts. In
addition to the substantive findings, the analyses make a methodological contribution to qualitative studies
of interviews by systematically identifying each factor addressed by an interview transcript.
Keywords
Terrorism, nonviolent resistance, ethnographic interview, Spradley, ethnographic analysis, domain analysis,
taxonomic analysis, componential analysis, grounded theory, open coding, axial coding, coding scheme
Introduction
This article uses ethnographic interviews to extend our understanding of the psychology underly-
ing terrorism and nonviolent resistance. It describes three studies of ethnographic interviews with
violent and nonviolent political activists. The article also makes a methodological contribution by
providing a detailed description of qualitative coding procedures to examine ethnographic inter-
view transcripts in a systematic and transparent manner.
Corresponding author:
Stephanie Dornschneider, School of Politics & International Relations, University College Dublin, Newman Building,
Dublin 4, Ireland.
Email: stephanie.dornschneider@ucd.ie
884091IPS0010.1177/0192512119884091International Political Science ReviewDornschneider
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