A real life example of research design

TWO PROJECTS, BOTH INTERDISCIPLINARY:

1. BIO-PESTICIDES AND THEIR REGULATION (350K)

2. PRODUCING BIODEGRADABLE SURFBOARDS FROM CAULIFLOWERS (NETWORKING GRANT)

1. How the projects emerged

2. The research problem

3. Theoretical perspectives

4. Methodological issues

HORTICULTURE RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL, WELLESBOURNE

A GOVT. RESEARCH STATION

DEFRA WANTS TO DISPOSE OF IT AND WARWICK WANTS TO ACQUIRE IT

I WAS SENT THERE TO LOOK FOR RESEARCH PARTNERS

QUICKLY BECAME AWARE OF ISSUE OF SCALE – MACRO APPROACH OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

PART OF MY TASK WAS TO NETWORK OUTSIDE WARWICK – Plastics project involves economists from Exeter, Eden Project

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

RETAILERS AND CONSUMERS DO NOT LIKE PESTICIDE RESIDUES ON FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

ALSO SET OF ISSUES RELATING TO POSSIBLE BIODIVERSITY LOSS (FLORA AND FAUNA)

EVIDENCE DOES NOT SUGGEST ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS ON HUMAN OR ANIMAL HEALTH FROM RESIDUES

MEDIA FRAMING IS QUITE HOSTILE – ISSUES SUCH AS MYCOTOXINS IN ORGANIC FOOD OVERLOOKED

IMPACT ON RURAL ECOSYSTEMS: NOT A DIRECT LINK, MORE FROM INTENSIVE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

NEVERTHELESS, THERE IS A PERCEPTION PROBLEM

PEOPLE ARE PREPARED IN QUESTIONNAIRES TO PAY A LOT MORE FOR PESTICIDE FREE FOOD

THIS RAISES A GENERAL ISSUE ABOUT THE LINK BETWEEN ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOUR – QUESTIONNAIRE RELIABILITY:Experience of Tesco

PROJECT #1

KEY RESEARCH PROBLEM:

Consumers want fewer chemical pesticide residues on food

Residues may deter them from consuming fruit and vegetables – a health policy objective

Bio-pesticides, making use of naturally occurring substances, have been around for 20+ years

There are very few commercial products on the market

Yet they are environmentally friendly – host specific, safe to humans and wildlife, and produce little or no toxic residue

PROJECT #2

Surfboards are a fashion item, often disposed of quickly

Significant landfill problem in S.W. England

Biodegradable plastics can be produced (small-scale experiment)

Cauliflower farmers in difficulty Problem of scaling up product Also landscape effects

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL SCIENCE SIDE

PARALLEL PROJECT AT ROTHAMSTEAD/IMPERIAL AT WYE LED BY ECONOMISTS SUGGESTS THAT MARKET FAILURE IS KEY PROBLEM: MARKET TOO SMALL TO PROVIDE RETURNS

POLITICAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE EMPHASISES GOVERNMENT FAILURE: ENTRY COSTS TO MARKET RAISED BY ONEROUS REGISTRATION PROCESS DESIGNED FOR CHEMICAL PESTICIDES

THEORIES OF REGULATIONAND OF REGULATORY STATE

SYSTEMS OF REGULATION CAN HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:

Bureaucratic theory suggests that there is a tendency for mechanisms to displace goals, for process to become more important than outcomes

Policy instruments are considered in isolation from their wider effects

Possible budget maximisation effects (Niskanen)

Need to take broad look at costs and benefits of bio-pesticides: not advocacy

Research questions: How onerous is regulatory

system? Does retail led governance

provide an alternative? Does more govt. intervention

using taxation instruments on the Danish model provide an alternative?

POLICY COMMUNITY/NETWORK MODELS

Would suggest:

Agro-chemicals policy community is highly developed whereas bio-pesticides has a weak network

Policy networks are good at managing incremental change, but only innovate in conditions of major crisis or exogenous shock

Research task: identify and explore interactions of major actors

Many different methods of biological control:

1. Providing more homes for insects which feed on pests – habitat management to enhance natural enemy survival and performance – beetle banks

2. Semiochemical technologies: using chemically mediated interlocutors between organisms and their environment – depletion problem

3. Inundation of a naturally occurring pathogen into a crop – our approach, but persistence issues.

LONG TRADITION IN POLITICAL SCIENCE OF INTEREST IN SOCIAL BIOLOGY

METHODOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POLITICAL SCIENCE AND MICROBIOLOGY

1. THE ABILITY TO REPLICATE

Going out to woods in area from Shropshire to Wiltshire and taking soil samples in December, isolate fungi on agar by February

Testing hypothesis from Ontario study that there is different microbial diversity on farmland and woodland

Some sampling issues:1. Geographical spread of farmland

and woodland in Ontario2. Insect baiting technique used

could bias results – although a consistent bias

3. Possible influence of soil type4. Issues arising from proximity

comparisons

2. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE INDIVIDUALISTIC AND ECOLOGICAL FALLACIES

Ecological fallacy – identify statistical relationships at the aggregate level which do not accurately reflect the corresponding relationship at the individual data level

Can be used to stigmatise ethnic minority groups

Correlation between % illiterate and % African-American in US

Individual data: 0.20State level 0.77Nine regions 0.95

THE INDIVIDUALISTIC FALLACY IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE ECOLOGICAL FALLACY

Generalising from individual behaviour to aggregate relationships

USE OF THE MODEL PLANT IN BIOLOGY: Arabidopis thalania(Non-commercial member of the mustard family)

Instead of studying many different plants

Easy and inexpensive to grow Produces many seeds Responds to stress and disease in

same way as most crop plants Has a small genome (genetic

complement) facilitating genetic analysis

Use of the model plant is possible because all flowering plants are closely related. Complete sequencing of all the genes of a single, representative plant will yield knowledge about all higher plants (also applies to protein function)

Plastics project: earlier work was on B napus (rape oil). B oleracea has a simpler structure and is also related to Arabidopsis allowing use to be made of the genetic information for that species

Human behaviour much more diverse

IN OUR PROJECT WE ARE TAKING A PARTICULAR APHID THAT BREEDS ON POPLAR TREES AND ATTACKS LETTUCE ROOTS

BUT WE CAN GENERALISE TO ALL SALAD CROPS

GENERAL ISSUE OF SCALING UP IN BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

FROM PLANT POT TO FIELD TO FARM TO COUNTY

POLITICAL SCIENCE APPROACH IS MORE TOP DOWN, HENCE MORE VULNERABLE TO ECOLOGICAL FALLACY