methods of political research

The article is devoted to the analysis of methodological problems of domestic political science. In particular, the analysis of contradictions faced by political scientist in choosing a method of conducting his scientific research, and which induce him to be guided in the use of this method by the «cloud» notion of itis carried out. The subject of criticism in the article is the situation with the use of the «structural-functional method».

Positive and negative aspects of using the simplified formula of the “institutional method” within political research are the object of this article. The goals that are achieved through applying of this formula are analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that expressions like “an institutional method was applied” do not act as an attribute of research principles, procedures, and instruments. They play a role of а conventional marker denoting both the general angle through which a political scholar intends to explore politics and the main focus of their research.

The article is about analysis of problems connected to applying “historical” and “retrospective” methods used in political science research. Levels of such problems are indicated. On the first level, these problems appear in the wake of political scientists’ attempts to use intuition while using those methods. The second level problems imply using definitions of “historical” and “retrospective” methods which are the most comprehensible for young scholars and relate to ambiguity and inaccuracy of the terms.