Positioning Actors Centered Approach Within and Vis-à-Vis Paradigms, Methodological Frameworks and Methods of Social Sciences

In this paper the author propose a map of research traditions (or paradigms), methodological frameworks (or approaches) and methods (techniques) that are used in social sciences. The goal of such mapping is to show the possibilities of using different methods in the research design to tackle the research problem. The author points out that chosen method depend not only on the research goal but also on the research tradition and methodological framework which researcher uses. These research traditions and approaches constrained researcher to follow certain assumptions and use concrete methods, which have both advantages and disadvantages. In the paper author explores correlation and interaction between research traditions, methodological frameworks and methods; “path dependency” of chosen research tradition that follow by framing research design in certain approaches and using concrete methods; how chosen methodological optics leads researcher to the biased research results. The author pays special attention to positioning actors–centered approach within and vis-à-vis paradigms, methodological frameworks and methods of social sciences. Actors–centered approach now is intensively developing within political science sub-discipline - Public Policy – and gives multidimensional and interdisciplinary tools to study political and policy changes. This interdisciplinary approach was an initial point to position not only different methods but also research traditions and approaches vis-à-vis each other and challenged researcher to use mixture of traditions, methods and approaches to reach not biased research findings.