2.4 Pulse 3
69
easily followed in the academia and in practice. I need to qualify this by saying that
empiricism does have a role to play in research, especially when investigating the
biophysical quality of water resources, as it is expressed in their pH, conductivity
and turbidity, as well as the impact of low quality water on human and ecosystem
health.
However, when we deal with the social aspects of water resources, empiricism has
severe limitations with respect to being able to adequately explain what is happening.
Mearsheimer and Walt (2013: 427) went so far as to say that simplistic hypothesis
testing is bad, because it emphasises the discovery of empirical regularities which, in
their view, emphasises that simplistic hypothesis testing over theory creation, testing
and utilisation ‘is a mistake’. Their reasoning is that ‘…insufficient attention to theory
leads to mis specified models or misleading measures of concepts’. Consequently,
simplistic hypothesis testing, over theory creation, testing and utilisation, is widening
the chasm between the ivory tower of scholarship and the real world (Mearsheimer
and Walt 2013). A situation like this does not bode well for the dialogue that was
mentioned earlier and the service that scientists are supposed to render to practitioners
and the public.
In support of my repertoire of theories, it is necessary that scholars must have a
good and solid grasp of theory and, just as importantly, they must use theories to guide
their research (Mearsheimer and Walt 2013) and influence debates. Regarding my
selection of theories, Mearsheimer and Walt (2013: 430) argued that: ‘…many kinds
of theory…can be useful for helping us understand how [society] works. In our view,
a diverse theoretical ecosystem is preferable to an intellectual monoculture’. They
went further by saying that ‘…we believe progress in the field depends primarily on
developing and using theory in sophisticated ways’ (Mearsheimer and Walt 2013:
430).
With that being said, researchers need to consider that it is not only about the
presentation of a collection, but also about the utilisation of theories. In my opinion,
using analytic eclecticism will be a good starting point in the sophisticated use of
the theory repertoire. The purpose of the collection is not merely to club together a
few theories, but to identify as many concepts and assumptions as possible, which
one theory may omit and another theory may highlight (Meissner 2017).
There is another reason for presenting this list, namely, to prevent PULSE
3 from
becoming a panacea. Employing these theories to policies, programmes and practices produces ‘messy analyses’. What I mean by this is that by utilising different
theories all at once in one case study, or in a set of cases, different interpretations
of the context will come to light. Such an analysis will come across as unstructured, because jumping from one theoretical explanation to another can place high
demands on the reader. What is more, in order to provide a better explanation of
events or a situation, we must abandon single ontological factors (ideas, material
concerns, agents and structures) that may have an influence on the processes. Causal
factors are not independent. By incorporating more than one theoretical explanation
and understanding, we can ask more open and multi-causal questions, which requires
that we move away from theoretical reductionist explanations (Meissner 2017).
69
easily followed in the academia and in practice. I need to qualify this by saying that
empiricism does have a role to play in research, especially when investigating the
biophysical quality of water resources, as it is expressed in their pH, conductivity
and turbidity, as well as the impact of low quality water on human and ecosystem
health.
However, when we deal with the social aspects of water resources, empiricism has
severe limitations with respect to being able to adequately explain what is happening.
Mearsheimer and Walt (2013: 427) went so far as to say that simplistic hypothesis
testing is bad, because it emphasises the discovery of empirical regularities which, in
their view, emphasises that simplistic hypothesis testing over theory creation, testing
and utilisation ‘is a mistake’. Their reasoning is that ‘…insufficient attention to theory
leads to mis specified models or misleading measures of concepts’. Consequently,
simplistic hypothesis testing, over theory creation, testing and utilisation, is widening
the chasm between the ivory tower of scholarship and the real world (Mearsheimer
and Walt 2013). A situation like this does not bode well for the dialogue that was
mentioned earlier and the service that scientists are supposed to render to practitioners
and the public.
In support of my repertoire of theories, it is necessary that scholars must have a
good and solid grasp of theory and, just as importantly, they must use theories to guide
their research (Mearsheimer and Walt 2013) and influence debates. Regarding my
selection of theories, Mearsheimer and Walt (2013: 430) argued that: ‘…many kinds
of theory…can be useful for helping us understand how [society] works. In our view,
a diverse theoretical ecosystem is preferable to an intellectual monoculture’. They
went further by saying that ‘…we believe progress in the field depends primarily on
developing and using theory in sophisticated ways’ (Mearsheimer and Walt 2013:
430).
With that being said, researchers need to consider that it is not only about the
presentation of a collection, but also about the utilisation of theories. In my opinion,
using analytic eclecticism will be a good starting point in the sophisticated use of
the theory repertoire. The purpose of the collection is not merely to club together a
few theories, but to identify as many concepts and assumptions as possible, which
one theory may omit and another theory may highlight (Meissner 2017).
There is another reason for presenting this list, namely, to prevent PULSE
3 from
becoming a panacea. Employing these theories to policies, programmes and practices produces ‘messy analyses’. What I mean by this is that by utilising different
theories all at once in one case study, or in a set of cases, different interpretations
of the context will come to light. Such an analysis will come across as unstructured, because jumping from one theoretical explanation to another can place high
demands on the reader. What is more, in order to provide a better explanation of
events or a situation, we must abandon single ontological factors (ideas, material
concerns, agents and structures) that may have an influence on the processes. Causal
factors are not independent. By incorporating more than one theoretical explanation
and understanding, we can ask more open and multi-causal questions, which requires
that we move away from theoretical reductionist explanations (Meissner 2017).