How to Get Information Out of Members of Parliament (Without Being Told Off by the Speaker)
| DOI | 10.1177/14789299211042167 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Author | Philip Cowley |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Experiments with Politicians: Ethics, Power, and the Boundaries of Political Science |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211042167
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(2) 236 –242
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299211042167
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How to Get Information Out
of Members of Parliament
(Without Being Told Off by the
Speaker)
Philip Cowley
Abstract
Based on experience of over 1000 interviews with British members of parliament, this article
explains why members of parliament are difficult to get access to; offers tips to gain access to
them, as well as ideas for how to get the most of out of them once they have agreed. It sets out
one Golden Rule of dealing with political elites and also discusses the problems of attempting
surveys.
Keywords
political elites, interviews, avoiding trouble
Accepted: 9 August 2021
For all the good advice contained in this symposium, and for all that it is perfectly pos-
sible to defend the practice (Cowley, 2021a), it would be a brave researcher who went into
the field with another audit study of Westminster members of parliament (MPs) any time
soon. So is it possible to get information out of MPs in other ways without getting into
trouble? The answer, thankfully, is yes. Indeed, there is a long-standing tradition of
research drawing on interviews with, or surveys of, MPs. Even a very brief indicative list
of research on the British Parliament would include work by Donald Searing, Emma
Crewe, Sarah Childs, Meg Russell, Philip Norton, Marc Geddes and many others. In my
own work, I have used interviews with MPs extensively, either when writing about
Parliament or British politics more generally.
That said, interviewing MPs – or other political elites – can be very different activity
from other types of research interviews (Dexter, 2006). To misquote that line from
Casablanca: politicians are like normal people, only more so. They pose special problems
for the researcher. Interviewing them requires doggedness, flexibility, an understanding
Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Philip Cowley, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK.
Email: p.cowley@qmul.ac.uk
1042167PSW0010.1177/14789299211042167Political Studies ReviewCowley
research-article2021
Symposia and New Ideas
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