Corruption, method choice, and constraints—exploring methodological pluralism in corruption research

How do social scientists generate knowledge about phenomena (such as corruption) which are self-concealing and difficult to access and which repel research inquiry? This article takes a first step in empirically researching the choice of research methods in corruption studies in economics and political sciences. We investigate the pluralism of research methods employed in empirical corruption studies in two major academic disciplines and critically discuss the current state of constrained pluralism in corruption research. Ideal-typically, methodological pluralists would claim that combining different data sources and analytical methods at various stages of the research process is requisite to developing adequate and valid knowledge. Using data from a quantitative content analysis of a random selection of internationally-published research articles in SSCI journals, we underline assumptions about the hegemony of quantitative analysis in economics and a more pluralistic use of methods in political science, note the increasing importance of aggregate data sets as data sources since the mid-1990s, and discuss the difficulty of directly measuring self-concealing phenomena like corruption. Our findings suggest (i) a hegemony of quantitative analysis in economics and a greater pluralism of methods in political science, (ii) the increasing importance of aggregate data sets as data sources since the mid-1990s, and (iii) the difficulty of measuring corruption directly. We conclude by arguing that the current state of constrained pluralism in corruption studies leaves ample room for exploring both direct and indirect measures to research corruption.