This article explores the particular challenges facing researchers interviewing political elites in a divided society. With evidence from interviews with former ministers in the Northern Ireland power-sharing government from 1999 to 2002, I demonstrate that researchers must consider a number of concerns relating to identity, bias and the polarised positions of politicians in a divided society. The researcher needs to consider how their identity may have an impact on the respondents, whether the researcher brings bias to the interviews and how they might seek to probe beyond ethnic party positions based on mistrust of the other side.
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