Quantitative and qualitative research methods

This review is drawn from (Hasan, Sacha. 2012, Civil Society Participation in Urban Development in Syria)

Since the Enlightenment, deductive quantitative research has been the foundation of the advancement of natural science. This basically relies on objectivity in observations, statistical analysis tools and on the numerical measurement of indicators (Smith, 1999).  This was criticized by the constructive view of knowledge especially in relation to social research where “perception, memory, emotion and understanding are human constructs, not objective things. Yet, this construction is not a chaotic process because it takes place within cultural and sub-cultural settings that provide a strong framework for extracting meaning” (McClelland, 2006 p. 8). Therefore, qualitative research methods were introduced in 1920s and 1930s in the areas of sociology and anthropology (Mark, 1996).

Qualitative methods are understood to produce accounts of human thoughts, feelings and actions, recognizing that those accounts do not apply to all people and that they do not allow predictions to be made in the way that they are in the positivist natural sciences. This argument was emphasised by Rubin & Rubin (1995) who characterised qualitative research to be “not looking for principles that are true all the time and in all conditions, like laws of physics; rather the goal is understanding of specific circumstances, how and why things actually happen in a complex world” (Rubin, et al., 1995 p. 38).

Qualitative research methods are understood to overcome the shortcomings of the quantitative ones in relation to social science. This is due to the difficulty of measuring the outcomes of qualitative objectives and outcomes of, for example, the social development projects and programmes funded by international agencies, where neither quantitative nor qualitative measurements are sufficient to give accurate evaluation (Smith, 1999 pp. 69-70). For example, Family Health International (fhi, 2010) introduced an overview of the differences between quantitative and qualitative research approaches. This was an attempt to provide basic knowledge for those involved in proceeding with its development programmes towards the design of proper research methods that can respond to their objectives. Table ‎bellow illustrates the difference between the two approaches in relation to their general framework, analytical objectives, question format, data format and flexibility in study design. It is clear that each approach has several benefits, yet also shortcomings, when considered abstractly, at least in relation to the purpose of this research.

Source: Family Health International (fhi, 2010 p3)

Therefore, it is acceptable to say that both quantitative and qualitative research methods, when considered solely (when confusing data as ends where the emphasis is on data format rather than its outcome and contribution to understanding) have shortcomings in relation to understanding research questions. This raised the consideration of the dichotomy of these two approaches to be false (Smith, 1999). Consequently, there has been “a marked shift away from the dominance of quantitative and experimental methods toward a paradigm of choices emphasising multiple methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and matching evaluation methods to specific evaluation situations and stakeholder questions” (Patton, 1987 p. 18, in Smith, 1999 p. 70). In this, Oakley (1990) suggests that the results of social research can be considered quantitative while the processes are qualitative. In other words, a combination of two types of data collection and analysis methods can be considered when studying a social phenomenon.

Participation and sustainable development

This review is drawn from (Hasan, Sacha. 2012, Civil Society Participation in Urban Development in Syria)

Sustainable development has become a ‘must present’ concept in contemporary planning theory, development studies and international development policy and practice. Development literature has viewed sustainable development to have three dimensions - social, environmental and economic (Campbell, 2003). The social dimension of the concept looks at social justice, economic opportunity, income equality and the provision of services among different social groups. It further concerns levels of social inclusion and exclusion as indicators of sustainable development. The economic dimension looks at issues of production, consumption distribution and innovation with the competitive market. Moreover, this dimension relates to access to adequate income and issues of poverty, while the environmental dimension focuses on natural resources, waste management and possible threats to nature in general (Campbell, 2003 pp. 437-438).

Another dimension has been added to the concept and this concerns the political area in society. This includes issues of administration and institutional capacity, “arguing that sustainability is reflected by the levels an organization is capable to function over the long term, providing services or assuming tasks that lie within its responsibility” (Weber, 2007 p. 37, drawing from Romaya, et al., 2002 p. 4 and Edén, et al., 2000 pp. 260-261). The political dimension further includes issues of procedural equity, participation and public engagement in decision-making processes, arguing that participatory development leads to more sustainable outcomes (Weber, 2007, drawing from Kothari, 2001 and Rydin, 2003 p. 263). In this, and according to Folger et al (1995), “for a society to function effectively, it must keep its membership, engage in efficient and effective production, and sustain the well-being of its members”.

In agreement with this, it is recognised by the international development policies that “good urban governance is characterized by the interdependent principles of sustainability, equity, efficiency, transparency and accountability, security, civic engagement and citizenship” (UN-HABITAT, 2008). Thus, the UN emphasises that “participation is a fundamental prerequisite of sustainable development” (UN, 2011c). Furthermore, UN development experts agree that a non-transparent, closed style of policy making “could threaten the consolidation of the new democracies of the developing world”. In contrast, “a more inclusionary approach involving, at a minimum, consultation with affected groups was thought to affect the sustainability of policies and improve the prospects for their design and implementation” (Bräutigam, 2004 p. 4).

Institutional analysis of urban development governance context: a conceptual framework

This review is drawn from (Hasan, Sacha. 2012, Civil Society Participation in Urban Development in Syria)

Institutional issues are present in every urban development debate, as it concerns the planning and management of resources in order to potentially achieve the aspects of sustainable development. However, to achieve this, it is important to define who is the planner and the manager, their capacities, the legal framework within which they function. Furthermore, it is important to define areas for possible improvement within this framework and its resulting organisational structure, in order to increase the efficiency of the planning system within any given governance context (Devas & Rakodi, 1993; Haddad, 2009).

Institutions can be defined as ‘organizations or sets of conventions, policies or legislation which regularize social behaviour. Institutions operate at all levels from the household to the international arena and in all spheres from the most private to the most public’ (Matsaert, 2002, 2). In social sciences, institutional analysis  ‘responds to the question of which organizations carry out policy reforms, and what are their characteristics. It can be conceived as the stakeholder analysis of the government agencies, non-government organizations and firms that implement or support the public action choices that underlie a policy reform studies’ (WB, 2009, 1).

In this context, institutional analysis is used to ‘assess the capacity and behaviour of organizations that carry out reforms. This helps identify constraints within an organization that may undermine policy implementation. Such constraints may exist at the level of internal processes, relationships among organizations, or system-wide’ (WB, 2009, 1). Furthermore, this analysis ‘evaluates formal institutions, such as rules, resource allocation, and authorization procedures. It also evaluates soft institutions, such as informal rules of the game, power relations and incentive structures, that underlie current practices. In the latter sense, it identifies organizational stakeholders that are likely to support or obstruct a given reform’ (WB, 2009, 1).

In the context of urban planning, literature has emphasised the linkage between a comprehensive institutional approach and good planning governance, for more sustainable outcomes. For example, Healey (1997) acknowledged the emergence of a paradigm shift in understanding planning from the 1970s rational comprehensive model using political economy analysis, to an institutional and communicative approach in the late 1990s. In this, Healey (2007) emphasised the importance of examining the spheres of relations and institutional sites that link different groups in society together as they interact through a diffused urban governance context. Governance, in this sense, was defined by Healey (2007) to be the landscape that ‘focuses on strategies that treat the territory of the urban not just as a container in which things happen, but as a complex mixture of nodes and networks, places and flows, in which multiple relations, activities and values co-exist, interact, combine, conflict, oppress and generate creative synergy’ (Healey, 2007, 18).

To analyse urban planning governance, Healey (2007) provided a three-level analytical framework. The first level examines the interactions which occurred in a specific event of spatial strategy-making. The second level is an institutional approach which looks at the routines of practices and discourses of the formal government, established agencies and the informal groups and networks (Healey, 2007). These two levels provide an analysis of the society actors and their spheres of relations. The third level of Healey’s analytical framework is concerned more with the ‘cultural assumptions’ of those involved in ‘doing governance’ and their prioritising achieve a more suitable governance module (Healey, 2007). In other words, the third level examines the urban mental models/frameworks (formal or informal) that shape the structure of the given governance context.

Another example of institutional analysis of urban development governance was introduced by Jenkins and Smith (Carley et al, 2001), who proposed three paradigms to label the stages of planning evolution during the 20th century, to shift from a rational to a relative perspective of viewing planning. The first is the command and control paradigm which is of a fixed vision of urban development translated in ‘master plans’ or ‘blue-prints’. In this, planning was of a central nature where the government was in full power over decision-making. This model of planning, however, was widely criticised in the 1960s leading planning to shift to the second paradigm of planning as ‘a process of conflict mediation’. In this, a range of interest started to find their opportunity for a voice within the system reducing the government control over decision-making. This challenged the political-administrative nexus to keep control of both processes and agendas during the 1980s (Healey, 1994, 253). This new model of interaction led planning to further shift to the third paradigm of  ‘inter discursive policy formation’ – which is based on embedding planning practice within its social context, where planning policies are based upon the wide range of interests of society actors via a collaborative consensus building rather than competitive interest bargaining.

In the paradigm shift described above, Jenkins and Smith (Carley et al, 2001) used an institutionalist analytical framework to describe the evolution of the planning process. This consists of three themes. The first examines the key actors, the state, the market and the civil society, who affect the process and their interest and spheres of relations. The second theme – and this is very much dependent on the results of the first one – is an institutional analysis which concerns with the mental models – and this includes the formal legal frameworks and the informal socially accepted frameworks – which shape the relations of the actors into an organisational structure of interaction in relevance to the given urban context. The third theme focuses on the local/global relationship, ‘how local action can act within global context and how global forces adjust to local needs’ (Haddad, 2009).