Interviewing Elites

A good introduction to interviewing elites is provided by Richards (1996) who elaborates on the advantages and problems that one might encounter when interviewing elites. One of the advantages of interviewing elites is that the data can assist with the interpretation of documents. Furthermore, the data might also generate information that is not recorded elsewhere, contributing to the uniqueness of the study. However, the author also emphasises that the researcher should be conscious of possible methodological, operational and interpretational problems involved in elite interviewing which he explains accordingly. Lilleker’s (2003) article, on the other hand, provides observations obtained from the author’s fieldwork while interviewing a wide range of political actors. These observations are intended to support the novice researcher in preparing interviews. The article guides the reader through the interview process starting with locating and contacting potential elites, handling the actual interview, to interpreting and referencing the interview data. For validity reasons, interview data is best reinforced by other forms of data. This process is called triangulation and is covered in Davies’ (2001) article entitled ‘Spies as Informants: Triangulation and the Interpretation of Elite Interview Data in the Study of the Intelligence and Security Services.’ The notion of validity brings us to the question of truth which is discussed in Morris’ (2009) article on ‘The Truth about Interviewing Elites.’ This article is particularly useful as the author elaborates on three assumptions embedded in the literature on elite interviewing: the nature of truth and how it can be discovered; duplicity on the part of the interviewee; and the superiority of the interviewer.  These assumptions are especially relevant for researchers conducting interviews in divided societies. McEvoy (2006), for instance, emphasises the identity of the interviewer and how it might have an impact on the respondents as well as the gathered data. This consideration feeds well into the positionality of the researcher discussed by Richardson (2014), who highlights the importance of the timing of the fieldwork and the political context in which data is collected. Once the data is collected, analysed and processed, findings are disseminated. The dissemination of research findings, though, is often limited to the academic world. Reed (2012) criticises this phenomena, calling it the ‘parachute culture of academia.’ He argues that failing to feed back research findings to the respondents might cause interviewees to refuse to partake in any future research projects.

We think that the above mentioned articles are well suited to prepare the (novice) researcher for interviewing as a data collection technique. As fellow interviewers might acknowledge, there is one golden rule that should be emphasised:  be well prepared before entering the field. It is key to have considerable foreknowledge about the subject under investigation as well as the interviewees. Every interviewer should be flexible as one never knows what to expect when talking to elites.