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Institutions are useful for advancing methodologies within disciplines. Through required coursework, doctoral students are indoctrinated into basic guidelines and frameworks that provide a common foundation for scholars to interact with one another. Lacking such forums in many of our doctoral granting institutions (Stout 2013), the field of public management continues to struggle with an ambivalence toward qualitative approaches. Lack of shared understanding concerning basic tenets of qualitative methodology abounds. This article is intended for qualitative consumers, those not formally trained in qualitative methods but who serve as peer reviewers, content experts, and advisors in arenas where qualitative methods are encountered. Adopting a postpositivistic stance dominant in the field, we seek to offer a pragmatic perspective on qualitative methods with regards to some basic tenets of rigor appropriate (and inappropriate) for assessing the contribution of qualitative research. We argue that the first step in this effort is to stop conflating data type (qualitative versus quantitative) with inductive versus deductive modes of inquiry. Using deductive modes as the basis for comparison, we discuss both common, as well as, diverging criteria of quality and rigor for inductive modes of inquiry. We conclude with a discussion of rigor in emerging methods which utilize qualitative data but from within a deductive, mixed, or hybrid mode of inquiry.

2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Applied Probability Trust (APT), an event celebrated by the present volume. This article sketches the APT's history from its beginnings in 1964 to the present.

Over the last decades, the use of mixed methods (MMs) has been burgeoning across social sciences. MMs have also been recommended as a viable research strategy for conducting studies in Public Administration. Through a systematic review conducted on seven journals, the article explores the extent to which the field has seized this opportunity and how it has done so. The review is organized around a framework that offers guidance on the analysis and design of MMs and is based on three pillars: selecting, sequencing, and connecting methods. The findings show that the field has been increasingly receptive to the adoption of designs combining at least a quantitative and a qualitative component. They indicate awareness of the repertoire of sequences available, ranging from parallel to sequential. They show signs of transparent reporting of unexpected results. However, they also show critical elements that may weaken the execution, hence the contribution yielded by the design. Drawing on the analysis of these limitations, the article points to the need to engage systematically in combining the results obtained through the separate research processes and to fully employ the evidence collected, especially through interviews, as a connecting point.

Scholars emphasize the need for additional rigor in qualitative research. This inadvertently encourages formulaic and standardized approaches that undermine the benefits of theorizing from rich data. Our study extends debate by emphasizing the importance of sound qualitative public administration research that blends rigor with richness and thereby facilitates effective theorization. Evidence from a narrative review of 31 qualitative studies published within six leading public administration journals demonstrates that effective theorizing is linked to transparency in research design, analytic approach, and theoretical contribution. In-depth interrogation of four studies that illustrate “inductive theorizing” and “abductive theorizing” identifies plurality in the balance struck between rigor and richness. We derive a broad set of principles that enable researchers to make a convincing “conceptual leap” between data, analysis, and contribution. We also emphasize the need to accommodate pluralistic approaches to theorizing by nuancing requirements for essential aspects of qualitative reporting, versus those amenable to variation.

This article undertakes a critical assessment of the local turn in critical peacebuilding scholarship. It comes to the conclusion that the local turn is hampered by a binary and essentialist understanding of the local and the international, which are presented as the only relevant locations of power or resistance. This leads to an ignorance of local elites, provides a romanticised interpretation of hybrid peace governance structures, overstates local resistance and presents an ambivalent relationship to practice. The article recommends a more nuanced understanding of the actors involved in peace- and statebuilding, based on more empirical scholarship and a multidisciplinary approach.

This paper is an edited version of a talk given in Sheffield as part of the celebration of fifty years of the Applied Probability Trust and its journals. I sought to sketch the background to the Trust's formation in the development of different applications of probability during the previous century, and to draw lessons for the future of the discipline and therefore of its journals.

Although Spanish chroniclers referred frequently to coerced migration in the Inca Empire, these migrations have been difficult to document archaeologically. One approach to migration studies, strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis, has emerged as an effective technique. Until now, however, this method has not been applied to the Inca heartland region of Cuzco, Peru. In this study, we use strontium isotope analysis to examine patterns of prehistoric migration in the Cuzco Valley. Human dental enamel samples from the Cuzco Valley site of Chokepukio are analyzed and compared to the local 87Sr/86Sr signature established through faunal specimens. Though tentative due to a small sample size, the isotope results do not provide evidence for migration at this site from the time periods preceding the rise of the Inca Empire (200 B.C. to A.D. 1400). In contrast, there is substantial evidence for migration during the time of Inca imperialism (A.D. 1400–1532). Among these migrants, variation in 87Sr/86Sr values suggests that individuals emigrated from geologically diverse locations, while sex differences in the migrant group include a higher percentage of females and a greater diversity in female 87Sr/86Sr values. These data, along with ethnohistoric evidence, reveal how Inca labor policies reconfigured the composition of populations in the imperial heartland.

ArtScience is emerging as one approach for creating novel ways of seeing and new ways of knowing. The authors propose a role for ArtScience research and creative work in contributing to the necessary shifts to go beyond the current crisis of representation. DataRemix, a recombination and reappropriation practice intended to trigger novel subjective experiences and associations, is described.

This article is a literature review of the current local turn in peacebuilding. After a short introduction on the origins of 'the local' in peacebuilding, it gives an overview of current research and policy debates on the issue along two different lines. First, it emphasises the local in peacebuilding as a measure to increase peacebuilding effectiveness, as explored in the literature on the benefits of decentralisation and local governments for peace, as well as in the debates on local capacity and ownership as essential parts of peacebuilding policy. Second, it focuses on the local in peacebuilding as a means of emancipation and inclusion of local agency, expressed partly through the emphasis on voices from below and partly within the critical approaches to how the local has been interpreted in peacebuilding so far, arguing for a peacebuilding that is essentially local.

This article is primarily a piece of conceptual scoping and considers the concept of 'the local' in relation to peacebuilding. It notes how the local is simultaneously held to blame for conflicts (as unenlightened, dangerous, uncivilised) and is also regarded as a saviour for international peace support operations. Local legitimacy, partnership and ownership of international peace interventions are seen as a fast track to success, sustainability and exit. The article navigates its way around this confused understanding of the local and argues that the local is a (not always helpful) construction. It further argues that, by applying a critical lens towards the concept of the local, we can seek to separate the concept of the local from territory and see it in terms of activity, networks and relationships. This has implications for practice and 'field' work.