Changing political circumstances of direct relevance to the project led to a small change in focus. From the start, the project followed two strands: A methodological strand; and an empirical strand. Both strands, although the primary questions are not yet answered, were successful and I obtained significant funding to continue both lines of work.
First, following the proposal, I took several methodological steps. I worked to integrate narrative analysis with process tracing. This was necessary because of the project’s focus on national collective narratives and the ways in which narratives shape state foreign policy making. Process Tracing (PT) and narrative analysis exist as independent methods, it was their integration that posed a challenge. This initial focus led to a stand-alone publication, “Process Tracing: An Analyticist Approach” (van Meegdenburg, 2023). This chapter was received very positively in the field. Its reception, and the request that followed from it, ended up taking quite some—well spend—research time. As a direct outcome, I am now co-authoring a book manuscript on combining PT with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). This book will soon go out for review with a major academic press. Moreover, based on the original book chapter, I got invited to write a paper for a special issue on Interpretivist Process Tracing for the journal Policy & Politics, and I am no co-organizing another special issue on Narratives and Foreign Policy Analysis. As such, if all goes well, the methodological work for SoDiIR will have resulted in a book chapter, two papers in renowned journals, and an academic press book.
Second, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022 meant the project as originally envisioned became outdated. Originally not the empirical focus, many people in Global North countries took to the streets to express their solidarity and political leaders quickly promised and sent significant humanitarian and military support to Ukraine. This stands in stark contrast to the international reactions to earlier conflicts in, e.g. Syria, and Yemen. More recently still, Israel’s war on Gaza—provoked by the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023—proved the point again. These different and suddenly very contemporary cases necessitated an expansion of the project. Amongst the most concrete results are the three follow-up research grants that I obtained to make that expansion possible. Following immediately on my Marie Curie Fellowship, I was awarded: 1) an NWO (Dutch Research Council) XS Grant; 2) a research grant by the Leiden University Fund (LUF); 3) and a so-called “Startersbeurs” from the Dutch government. The first two will provide funding for extensive fieldwork and the fielding of a large-scale survey-based experiment. The latter allows me to hire a PhD-candidate for four years to expand and continue SoDiIR’s work and focus.
Besides obtaining follow-up funding, I presented substantive papers at different conferences and workshops in Tilburg (NL), Bielefeld (DE), Montreal (CA), Amsterdam (NL), and Potsdam (DE). Later this year, I will still present and discuss my work in Oxford (GB-ENG), Lile (France), and Louvain (BE). I am also working on a Special Issue that would contain an empirical paper. Besides this, I offered two PhD-level workshops on Process Tracing for MethodsNET schools at Radboud University Nijmegen (NL), and one for KOMEX at the University of Konstanz (DE). As soon as the substantively focussed publications start coming out, I will ensure these publications are accompanied by publicly oriented and easily accessible blogposts, and, likely, a podcast.
