Measuring European Diplomacy Centralization

Abstract

Following the influential works of King, Keohane, and Verba, I subscribe to the view that the most appropriate way to conduct social sciences research is according to a clear, Positivist, research design (see King et al., 1994, pp.12–27; Smith, 2008, p. 12; Popper, 2002b, p. 48). The relevant elements thereof, most of all an unambiguous research question and testable hypotheses, have been developed over the first four chapters of this book. The next step to take is to perform fair tests of the four hypotheses that were developed in the previous chapter. In this chapter, I will explain how to perform these tests.