Sampling of Interviewees

In process tracing, it is more important to draw a sample of interviewees that includes the most important actors in the specific process to be studied, rather than drawing a representative sample of a large population of actors for generalization purposes.

Random sampling runs against the logic of process tracing, according to Tansey, since one runs the risk of excluding key respondents from one’s study. Rather, in a process tracing study, interviewees are sampled with a view to reducing randomness, which makes non-probability sampling the most appropriate approach.

The sampling of interviewees in my own process tracing study followed the non-probability approach suggested by Tansey. For studying a process of international norm emergence and diffusion at the strategic level of an organization like the UN, ‘elite actors’ appear to be particularly interesting sources of information.

They can provide information that does not appear in formal documents, such as divergent views that are not expressed in final outcomes. Thus, already early on in the process of drawing up the research design for my study, I found that it was more

40 relevant to identify and interview a smaller group of individuals known to have played key roles in the particular process in which I was interested, rather than conducting a large-n interview study. Also, both time and resources put constrains on how many individuals I could interview. Therefore, I found it particularly important to draw a sample that was representative of the wider population of various actors (UN staff, UN member state diplomats and NGO/civil society representatives), without doing this according to principles of random selection.

In 2005/2006, when I was beginning to plan the research design for my study of the WPS norm, the available secondary literature on WPS suggested that certain individuals within three different but distinct categories of actors in global governance – UN member states, entities within the UN system and NGOs – had been more central than others in, first, setting WPS on the UN agenda and, then, advancing its diffusion. Drawing on this literature, the first step for me in sampling interviewees was to identify who these individuals were. Two main approaches were applied in deciding which criteria to follow in this identification and selection process: the positional criteria approach and the reputational criteria approach (Tansey 2007:

770).

The first group of interviewees were identified according to their formal positions in relation to the issue area under study, and partly by their names being explicitly referred to in the literature. Largely they were elite actors, such as high-level diplomats within the UN Secretariat and in UN member states, high-high-level politicians in member states, and leaders/key personnel in NGOs (primarily women’s rights organizations). These individuals were influential, first-hand witnesses to the process I wanted to study.

After the first round of sampling, I applied the snowball method of sampling additional interviewees.²² This is a method that can be very useful in research on political processes, since the most influential actors in such processes are not always those that are the most well known to the public (Tansey 2007: 770). Many of the interviewees in my first sample came up with new suggestions for other people that might be useful for me to interview. This kind of peer recommendation as a criterion for selecting interviewees is what Tansey refers to as the reputational criteria approach. In my study, these new suggestions were often highly influential lower-level diplomats serving as advisers to ambassadors or gender experts within UN entities and NGOs. The new suggestions were cross-checked. If a name appeared several times, that served as an indication that this was a key person to interview.

Sampling of new interviewees was also done with an eye to their formal position in relation to the process under study. This was particularly important in my research on the UN Peacebuilding Commission (see Articles II and III in this dissertation). The Peacebuilding Commission research was a ‘real time’ case-within-the-case study. Many of those who had been central to the process of integrating WPS concerns in the setup and formative resolutions of the Commission were still holding the same positions they had held in that early, formative phase. Their first-hand witness accounts were particularly valuable, since these shed valuable light on the key role of individuals (among member states, in the UN system and in NGOs) in promoting the normative framework of WPS. This is a type of information that is not found in formal UN documents.

22 Snowball sampling is a non-probability sampling technique most often used in sociological studies.

It is a sampling technique in which a small pool of informants nominates, through their social networks, other participants who meet the eligibility criteria and could potentially contribute to a specific study. The term ‘snowball sampling’ reflects an analogy to a snowball increasing in size as it rolls downhill (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_sampling, last accessed 12 April 2014).

42 Although the ‘WPS community’ in New York is fairly small, I took care to make my group of informants as diverse and representative as possible, including not just UN staff, member-state representatives and NGOs known to be very active in promoting the WPS agenda, but also individuals representing member states regarded as more critical. Having informants representing different groups of actors and interests allowed me to check and double-check the information gathered, thus strengthening both the reliability and the validity of my data.

Altogether 35 individuals were interviewed as part of the data-gathering for the three articles included in this dissertation. In addition, my analysis builds on a number of informal conversations with people professionally related either to those interviewed or to the process itself.