Gaining Access

The route between identifying a potential respondent and actually beginning an interview establishes the initial power relationship between the researcher and the responding Ministers and MPs. As Odendahl and Shaw (2002: 306) have noted, access to elites can be difficult to obtain and “typically requires extensive preparation, homework, creativity on the part of the researcher, as well as the right credentials and contacts”, not to mention a little luck). The researcher began the search for interviews through contacts by faxing a letter of introduction and request for interviews to all Ministries in Bahrain. He received no response from any of them. E-mails addressed to their secretary with the set of questions and POGAR summary attached were similarly ignored, as none of the Ministers processed their e-mail. The researcher managed to make some tentative appointments over the telephone with the Ministers’ secretaries. However, most Ministers’ secretaries did not respond to subsequent emails.

The researcher, therefore, used personal networks to generate access for the initial interviews, while some subsequent interviews were obtained through social occasions, during which certain Ministers and MPs were met. In order to be accepted into the political elite, the researcher had to show himself to be trustworthy. Ministers and officials needed to be reassured that they were talking to a fellow insider (the researcher), who would understand what was being said. Trust and confidence in the researcher’s experience and knowledge carried weight with elite interviewees. With experience of more than 25 years working for the public sector in Bahrain in different managerial posts, the researcher was able to show that he shared the knowledge base of

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policy-making and the theory of policy formulation, as he had been engaged in these processes frequently.

3.3.5.3 Conducting the Interviews

The Ministers (interviewees) asserted authority through the context that they established for the interview. The researcher was always called to interview the Ministers in their offices and they generally sat behind their desks (the exception being one Minister who welcomed the researcher and his supervisor to an adjacent sitting area.

At the beginning of a meeting, the researcher started by explaining the objectives of his research and its importance and, if required, letters were obtained from the university. Permission to use a tape recorder was sought before the start of the interview, but all interviewees refused. The researcher understands and appreciates the reasons behind this as a cultural norm embedded in the political context, as well as individual preference and personal self-confidence. Moreover, the research topic was highly sensitive. In addition, MPs in particular may have lacked experience and confidence in an awareness of research ethics. Indeed, the lack of a research culture is an obstacle in the GCC countries and most of the Arab world.

The interviews started with question one, an introductory question (as outlined above). The researcher acted here as a listener to what the respondent was saying and soon the interview moved away from surface talk to rich discussions of thoughts, feelings and observations.

The issue of limited time offered for interviews was a recurring problem. Lack of time was dominant during most Ministers and MPs’ interviews, and some were kept far shorter than the researcher had planned (which had been 45-60 minutes).

The interviews were often interrupted or suspended as other issues and events competed for the Minister and/or MP’s attention. In total, 23 interviews were conducted during July to October 2008. Most of these interviews were completed in one sitting and notes were transcribed directly while still fresh. Two Ministers’ interviews took more than one meeting.

102 3.3.5.4 Insider and Outsider Issues

The researcher benefited from having worked for government in different managerial posts: for example, Chief of public revenues, liquidity and debits; Deputy Director of the Treasury and HR; and Finance Director and Deputy in certain managerial posts, which provided him with wide-ranging official relationships and networks. He was thus involved in this study research setting as an insider, which would have significant implications for the quality of knowledge gained from the research (Bartunek and Louis, 1996).

Merton characterises the basic thrust of the insider doctrine argument as follows:

The doctrine holds that one has monopolistic or privileged access to knowledge, or is wholly excluded from it, by virtue of one’s group membership or social position . . . the Outsider, no matter how careful and talented, is excluded in principle from gaining access to the social and cultural truth (1972: 15).

According to Bartunek and Louis insiders “generally have a long-term membership within a study setting, while outsiders have formal research education and are more detached from the study setting” (1996: 3). The differences stem from their interests in gaining knowledge about the setting. An insider needs to understand his setting in order to be an effective actor (Bartunek and Louis 1996; Clingerman, 2007). Insider research (by internal members on their organisation or own institutions) has its own dynamics, as the researcher is already immersed in the organisation and has built up knowledge, “strengths and limits of pre-understanding” and access from being an actor in the processes being studied (Coghlan and Brannick, 2005: 5). Insider access to one level may lead to access at other levels of a hierarchy. Conversely, being a researcher in a high hierarchical position may exclude access to many informal and grapevine networks. Generally, however, this status helps more than hinders, as the common knowledge shared allows for facilitating a successful interview (Roland and Wicks, 2009).

For Kvale (1996: 65), “insider research is an approach that allows initial understanding through a rational discourse and reciprocal critique among those identifying and interpreting a phenomenon”. Thus, “the interpretivist approach, with its emphasis on capturing social life as experienced and understood by its participants, requires those

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who would research that social life to gain access to insider feelings, motivations and meanings” (Hodkinson, 2005: 140).

However, insider research, in whatever research tradition it is undertaken, is valid, useful and “provides important knowledge about what organisations are really” like in a study project, as the researcher also becomes an outsider (Brannick and Coghlan, 2007: 4). Together, “insiders and outsiders construct knowledge and contribute to the public understanding of phenomena and events within settings. Being an insider or an outsider indicates the positions of team members relative to one another and to the community studied” (Clingerman, 2007: S77-S78). It is noteworthy that boundaries shift between the outsider and the insider (Collins, 1986 cited in Clingerman, 2007: S83).

In the present case, the researcher’s long service for the public sector in Bahrain gave him knowledge of the research field that built and developed a unique and confident ability to contribute to the research process and the fieldwork interpretations. This long- term relationship within the study setting provided him to some extent with a way to access the knowledge of the organisational hierarchy. At the same time, as a formal academic researcher, he was in a sense detached from the study setting and speaking to interviewees as an outsider.