What if the Case is ‘Elusive’? Methodological Challenges for Qualitative Research in International Relations and Global Governance

Abstract

Case study research plays an important role for social and political scientists working within the qualitative tradition, with the field of international relations (IR) being no exception. This article provides methodological reflections on the challenges of investigating ‘elusive’ cases within the global governance domain of IR. Taking stock of my experience of studying global multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs), I discuss the advantages and drawbacks of conducting online elite interviews and online event observation. I show that the practical benefits of carrying out online fieldwork come with the downside of possibly obtaining only a superficial understanding of individual cases. Arguing that challenges stem not only from logistical constraints but also from ‘inevitable’ methodological limitations, I reflect on the potential impact of these dynamics on interpretive research. Ultimately, I call for deeper epistemological debates on the role of qualitative case study research in the IR field. In addition to providing insights into methodological challenges arising from studying ‘elusive’ case studies, the article offers three potential counterstrategies: I argue that a combination of careful case selection, enhanced triangulation and transparent reporting can help mitigate these methodological challenges. In the conclusion of the article, I also suggest potential avenues for future case-study based global governance research as far as type of actor and policy field are concerned.

1. Introduction

Case studies, including small-N comparative case studies, are a privileged methodological approach for social and political scientists working within the qualitative tradition. Not only are case studies compatible with a broad spectrum of epistemological orientations (Yazan, 2015), but they also cater to a substantial variety of study purposes (Yin, 2003).

Within the political science field, albeit met in the past with some skepticism (King et al., 1994), the reputation of case study research has progressively improved, as several scholars came to recognize their value and potential. Among other aspects, case studies are especially appreciated for their capacity to generate in-depth descriptive insights, yield high internal and conceptual validity, identify causal mechanisms and disentangle causal complexity, and generate new hypotheses (George & Bennett, 2005; Gerring, 2004, 2007).

Among social and political scientists, international relations (IR) scholars also have a long tradition of conducting case study research. In the framework of such case studies – or small-N comparative studies – elite interviews and event observation (or event ethnography) often constitute key methods to gather primary empirical data. At first glance, the methodological choices of IR scholars do not seem to differ substantially from those of political scientists and sociologists who focus their research on the national and local scales. In principle, one may argue that the main differences are to be found in the role and physical location of the study subjects and objects: while political scientists focusing on the national scale may decide to interview parliamentarians or observe parliamentary debates in the capital of country X, IR scholars may want to interview international organizations’ (IOs) staff based in city Y or follow intergovernmental negotiations taking place in country Z. In this regard, both categories of scholars are likely to be confronted with similar challenges: for instance, issues of access are not uncommon for those who ‘research up’ (Desmond, 2004; Smith, 2006).

However, a distinctive challenge confronting IR scholars who engage in case study research is that some of their cases may be ‘elusive’. With this overarching term, I indicate cases that may be difficult to study due to a set of aspects that are often intertwined. In particular, such cases are not only ‘distant’ or ‘out of reach’ in a physical sense. In other words, challenges in studying them do not only stem from logistical or financial constraints in reaching the field and its study subjects. ‘Elusiveness’ also derives from objective difficulties in studying cases whose physical location and boundaries may be ill-defined, fluid and scattered. Such circumstances are increasingly frequent in the domain of global governance, as the days in which states and IOs were the only actors on the scene are long gone. As new ‘global’ actors emerge and proliferate (Betsill, 2014; Biermann & Pattberg, 2012; Lake, 2021; Pattberg & Widerberg, 2015), IR and global governance scholars endeavour to study and critically analyze them, whether they be advisory panels, coalitions, alliances, or partnerships. By aspiring to be ‘global’, these actors often give the intended or unintended impression of ‘being nowhere’. They may have a secretariat, but it is not always known where such a secretariat is located and who works in it. They may hold physical or virtual meetings and events, but these may be less open or less accessible than those organized by IOs.

In other words, as agency in global governance becomes more fluid and dispersed, so it gets less easily and less directly observable. In this paper, I claim that the ensuing ‘elusive’ status of many global governance actors poses challenges for their scrutiny from an in-depth case study approach. By focusing on the specific instance of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs), this article addresses the methodological challenges of studying ‘elusive’ global governance entities in addition to the typical limitations related to resource and time constraints. While all IR scholars are prone to struggle with issues related to limited data availability and quality, I show that these predicaments can be particularly acute in the domain of global governance. In the conclusion of the article, I also suggest three possible strategies to counter the above mentioned methodological challenges.

2. Experience of Case Study Research Within the Transformative Partnerships 2030 Project

In the social sciences, ‘cases’ can be understood as analytical units extracted from the empirical world with a view to analyzing a phenomenon of interest in detail. In political science more specifically, a ‘case’ is commonly understood as a particular instance of a broader class of comparable events or phenomena of theoretical or policy interest (George & Bennett, 2005). By selecting and studying one or more cases from a broader population, political scientists and IR scholars seek to make inferences – and, in some cases, generalizations – about political phenomena occurring or emerging in the framework of those cases.

Within the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project – whose overarching goal was to scrutinize the legitimacy, accountability and effectiveness of MSPs aiming to contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – the population was the universe of MSPs that conformed to a widely cited definition of global public-private partnerships. This definition, proposed by Andonova (2017, p. 2), reads as follows: “voluntary agreements between public actors (IOs, states, or substate public authorities) and nonstate actors (nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], companies, foundations, etc.) on a set of governance objectives and norms, rules, practices, or implementation procedures and their attainment across multiple jurisdictions and levels of governance”. In the framework of the research project, four MSPs were finally selected from the Transformative Partnerships 2030 dataset for in-depth case study analysis. Regarding the policy field of MSPs, two case studies related to global health and two to the environment. In addition to the analysis of policy documents issued by the MSPs in focus, elite interviews and event observation were the two main methods used to gather empirical data. In the following subsections, I describe the methodological challenges I faced with both methods in the framework of all four case studies.

2.1. Elite Interviews

In total, I conducted 26 elite interviews with people involved or familiar with the activities of the selected MSPs. Interviewees included individuals working in a wide range of capacities, such as IO staff, MSP staff, NGO representatives, scientists, and communication officers.

Due to the relatively small number of individuals meeting the inclusion criteria (i.e. participation in or familiarity with the activities of one of the studied MSPs), the recruitment of interview participants was mainly guided by purposive sampling. At the same time, this approach was complemented by other non-probability sampling strategies: while snowball sampling was instrumental in the recruitment of additional participants, the logic of quota sampling was helpful to avoid an overrepresentation of certain categories of respondents.

Potential interviewees were identified from a mix of sources: information available on the webpages of relevant organizations, lists of participants from MSPs’ events, potential informants’ direct participation in specific online events. In most cases, the contact details of prospective interview participants were retrieved from the same sources.

More than a hundred individuals were invited for an interview. The large majority of potential interviewees were contacted via email. When email addresses were not available, LinkedIn was used as an alternative channel to approach potential interview respondents. In a few other instances, I reached out to relevant organizations via the contact forms available on their websites. The overall response rate did not exceed 30%. In about 10 instances, interview invitations were either declined or redirected to colleagues within the same organization. Factors such as partnership composition or policy field did not appear to influence the likelihood of a response. Nevertheless, I noticed that – compared to other categories of individuals – a somewhat higher response rate was received from academics and scientific experts. This could be due to the possibility that experts may perceive an academic interviewer not only as a ‘colleague’ but also as a credible or competent interlocutor with whom to exchange specialist knowledge, notwithstanding disciplinary or epistemological barriers (Bogner et al., 2009). In sum, access proved to be challenging for the in-depth study of MSPs through elite interviews. I was an ‘outsider’ in all case studies and could rely on my network contacts only on a single occasion. Moreover, it should not be ruled out that challenges in access may have been compounded by logistical and contingent obstacles, including spam filters and ‘bad timing’.

To maximize flexibility while ensuring comparability, interviews were conducted following a semi-structured format. This allowed, for example, to adapt interviews to the time at disposal of each interviewee or to direct certain questions to specific categories of respondents. In line with recent evidence from the literature, the online format turned out be advantageous in terms of leveling power relations (Howlett, 2022; Vaagland, 2024). The possibility of meeting in a neutral cyberspace contributed to making conversations more informal and may have reduced the risks of bias and unforthcomingness stemming from meeting in a professional setting. This was further facilitated by the fact that several informants took part in the interview from home instead of their office (Vaagland, 2024).

Concerning other aspects of rapport, my experience with online elite interviews was less favorable. Short time slots in busy schedules also meant less to no time for small talk and off-the-record conversations. This often resulted in more focused but less spontaneous exchanges. The well-known sudden severance occurring at the end of Zoom meetings contributed to amplify this sense of ‘distance’. While all of these circumstances did not completely eliminate snowballing opportunities, they substantially limited their scope. These insights are in contrast with previous research suggesting that the online format does not significantly impact rapport and may even be preferable to in-person interviews (Jenner & Myers, 2018; Weller, 2017). Clearly, these considerations need to be gauged against the particular dynamics that occur when ‘researching up’, as elite interviews may not engender rapport in the same way as interviews with non-elite participants. Moreover, the online format is not immune from the compounding factor of time constraints, as elites notoriously display a tendency to be (or to appear to be) very busy or not particularly flexible with time (Harvey, 2011; Liu, 2018). When the clock is ticking and time is running out, one usually has to make a pragmatic choice between fostering rapport (for instance, through an adept combination of probes and prompts) or diligently (yet aloofly) exhausting the list of questions in one’s interview guide. There are no easy ways to escape this trade-off between depth and breadth: while good rapport is often crucial to obtaining richer and more insightful answers, the semi-structured interview format is significantly compromised when several questions remain unasked. Hence, in situations of severe time constraint, I usually prioritized covering as many topics as possible instead of engaging in rapport-building techniques.

Importantly, considerations related to time constraints and rapport-building should not be limited to the duration of the interview but rather extended beyond it, as they can encompass a much broader scope. In this regard, I could mention a personal invitation I received to participate in an event organized by an MSP, whose leader I interviewed some months earlier. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend, since the event was scheduled significantly after the conclusion of the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project. Clearly, participating in such an event would have represented a unique opportunity to conduct fieldwork on that particular MSP, enabling a significantly richer engagement with the subjects of my study. As this episode demonstrates, methodological challenges can hardly be separated from critical reflections on the short-term and project-oriented nature characterizing much social science research today: the need to meet deadlines and adhere to predefined time-horizons can pose serious hurdles to the conduct of in-depth case studies, especially if the case is ‘elusive’ or ‘distant’.

Another potentially challenging aspect of interviewing ‘distant’ elites and experts pertains to the specificity of the topics dealt with in interviews, as global MSPs operate in a wide range of policy fields characterized by specific stakes and implications. As a result, conducting interview-based research on global MSPs requires not only a basic understanding of each policy field’s ‘problem structure’, but also some familiarity with jargon and technical details. To address this challenge and to maintain credibility in the eyes of my interlocutors, I made sure to arrive well-prepared at interviews. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to believe that novice-expert knowledge gaps could be easily closed.

Overall, my experience in the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project suggests that specific dynamics and variables apply to online elite interviews. A key lesson learned is that the benefits of the online format come with trade-offs. Notably, the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of online elite interviews can come at the expense of limited rapport and reduced informal talk. In other words, whereas online interviews with elites may increase accessibility (Vaagland, 2024), they do not necessarily increase access.

2.2. Event Observation

Event observation was carried out by observing virtual events organized by the MSPs in focus in the project. The formats and channels of these events varied substantially, ranging from large conferences livestreamed on YouTube to targeted technical meetings held on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Since most of the events were simply designed to convey information, opportunities for online interaction among event participants were limited or absent. In some events, participants were allowed to use the chat function to direct questions to the organizers. Nevertheless, Q&A sessions were usually very short, leaving no time for meaningful engagement and discussion. All of these elements contributed to orient my participation in these events toward a complete observer role (Gold, 1958). In many ways, this made me a ‘lurker’. Mine was not necessarily a deliberate choice. In this regard, it has been argued that viewing naturalistic lurking and active involvement as alternatives represents a “false choice” for online ethnographers (De Seta, 2020, p. 88). To a certain extent, my experience corroborates this perspective insofar as my position as a lurker was not dictated by a choice stricto sensu. It resulted instead from what I would describe as the ‘rules of the field’ established by the organizers. Ultimately, my unobtrusive role enabled me to observe these events like a “fly in the wall” (Reunamäki, 2025, p. 190), with minimal to no interference with the field.

More specifically, online event observation had three main benefits: a) it allowed me to identify the main actors and stakeholders within each MSP (as many were subsequently invited for online interviews); b) it provided rare and unique opportunities to see these actors ‘in action’; c) by enabling the identification of patterns and repetitions, it provided a sense of the ‘hot topics’ in each MSP’s agenda.

Nevertheless, if compared to traditional in-person observation, this approach had a number of drawbacks. Not unlike online interviews, online observation of these ‘elite events’ conveyed a strong sense of physical separation from the study subjects and objects. The “comfortably detached” feeling (Gold, 1958, p. 222) typical of the complete observer rapidly turned into ‘discomfortable detachment’ because, as outlined above, such a status was not deliberately chosen by the researcher but rather imposed by the circumstances. Being that ‘far’ and physically detached from the field also meant not having any chance to rely on gatekeepers. Yet, the main limitation was the impossibility to immerse oneself in the events to garner deeper meaning from them. In this respect, whether remote fieldwork can produce descriptions as ‘thick’ as those obtained through on-the-ground fieldwork is a subject of scholarly debate, with some arguing that the divide between the two approaches may be overstated (Postill, 2017). However, relying just on fixed-camera streams and superficial glimpses, I was only able to obtain ‘thin’ – rather than ‘thick’ – descriptions. This contributed to making the interpretation of actions and happenings more challenging.

As I could not capture the events’ atmosphere, I could neither, for example, appreciate the possible reactions, emotions and tensions occurring not only during but also before and after the events. In this regard, global governance researchers conducting collaborative event ethnography (CEE) at mega-events, such as large United Nations conferences, have particularly stressed the importance of ‘being there’ (O’Neill & Haas, 2019). Without ‘being there’, one misses not only the performative and symbolic dimensions characterizing these transnational events but also the “situated globality” emerging from them (Aykut et al., 2024). However, as my experience shows, ‘being there’ is not always possible in global governance research. This impossibility has very little to do with accessibility (this was not an issue, although participating in some events was subject to accreditation and some degree of selectivity), but rather with the fact that a physical ‘field’ did not exist at all in many of these meetings. Recognizing this aspect encourages a deeper reflection on the epistemological dimensions of digital fieldwork. With regard to the latter, ethnographers in the anthropological tradition have highlighted how the notion of a bounded field site is increasingly challenged in favour of constructed and fluid conceptualizations (Burrell, 2009; Seligmann & Estes, 2019). In this socially constructed demarcation of the field site, the researcher obviously plays a crucial role. However, my experience in the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project suggests that the field site is not necessarily constructed by the researcher, as its boundaries may actually be imposed by the case study itself. This leads to an important consideration regarding the difference between the ‘case’ and the ‘field’, as their meaning and mutual relationship may be viewed differently both across and within social science traditions. In political science and IR, the ‘field’ is just one gateway – and only one of the possible ones – to study the ‘case’. Moreover, for mainstream political scientists, the case is unlikely to be constructed throughout the fieldwork process. Instead, it is more likely to be understood as something ‘out there’, waiting to be examined and then compared with other cases within the same population. All of this places constraints on the freedom to construct not only one’s field site but also one’s case.

Last but not least, there are important ethical considerations to be made, in particular with regard to my nearly ‘lurker’ status in the field. Although ‘lurking’ is a widespread practice among online ethnographers and other social science researchers, the ethical boundaries of this practice are still object of debate (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, p. 193; Aykut et al., 2024, p. 33). Even though my research did not involve deception, all types of covert observation may raise ethical questions. Whereas not invisible, I was nearly indistinguishable from other event participants. As a result, my researcher status could easily go unnoticed. While it would have been unrealistic to obtain informed consent from all event attendees, a careful, considerate and attentive use of the gathered data was imperative to avoid misrepresenting the role and views of the active participants. Although nothing particularly sensitive or confidential was discussed during these meetings, the atmosphere could vary depending on the type of event and did not always convey the impression of an ‘open-door’ experience. In this respect, it may be debated to which extent awareness of the participation of a social scientist may have been perceived as troubling or problematic by the other participants. To adequately reflect on this aspect, it is important to note that the composition of participants in these meetings was not uniform. Besides the more active actors – usually organizers and invited speakers – several other passive ‘stakeholders’ populated the virtual meeting rooms. In such a scenario, I reckon that ethical concerns carry more weight for the former type of participants than for the latter. In fact, it seems of little consequence to assess the impact of my online presence on individuals who may simply have been other ‘lurkers’ in the room and who may themselves have been participating in these events for the sole purpose of gathering information. From my own viewpoint, it was similarly difficult to determine the motivation behind other participants’ involvement, as my interpretations could only be based on attendees’ observable behavior during the meetings.

In sum, observation of online events can be a valuable resource for studying subjects and objects that are ‘distant’ or unreachable otherwise. In the framework of the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project, it turned out to be a focused and cost-effective strategy for investigating MSPs and identifying their key stakeholders. However, as a low-hanging fruit, it was not devoid of limitations. Besides some lingering ethical dilemmas, limitations include obstacles in overcoming the complete observer status, an overall detached experience, and a shallow appreciation of social and contextual dynamics. While researchers in the positivist tradition may claim that some distance and separation from the study objects are not so undesirable, interpretivists accustomed to in-depth case study research are likely to see the glass half empty in these circumstances. For global governance research, an important takeaway is that a physical ‘field’ may be unavailable or inexistent for the study of particular actors and institutions, including MSPs. This, I argue, may amplify this perception of ‘distance’. It adds another layer of complexity to the previously recognized constraints that may compel ethnographers across various social science disciplines to opt for remote fieldwork, such as logistical challenges, illness, disability, or the sheer unsafety of being physically ‘on site’ (Postill, 2017). Even though many global governance scholars have embraced the perspective of conducting multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995), it is clear that the challenges deriving from this ambition are not merely influenced by financial and cost-benefit considerations but also involve significant methodological and epistemological dimensions.

3. Discussion and Conclusion

In this article, I offered methodological reflections on conducting qualitative case study research in the field of international relations (IR), specifically in the domain of global governance. I focused on the methodological challenges of studying ‘distant’, intangible and inherently ‘elusive’ cases of global governance entities, such as multi-stakeholder partnership (MSPs). I showed that studying these global governance cases ‘from a distance’ can be an efficient and cost-effective option. Nevertheless, as my experience demonstrates, this may actually be an ‘inevitable’ option.

Overall, my experience in the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project corroborates some, albeit not all, of the positive assessments of online interviews offered in the literature. Whereas conducting elite interviews online enabled accessibility to relevant informants and was beneficial in mitigating the potentially negative effects of power relations, it also made establishing rapport challenging. Concerning event observation, aside from problems related to a general inexistence of physical field sites, a fundamental challenge was the researcher’s almost unavoidable relegation to a ‘complete observer’ or ‘lurker’ status. The ensuing detachment from the study subjects and objects implied that virtual event observation could not conduce to in-depth interpretive accounts but mainly to descriptive insights. For both methods, access was not an issue per se. Instead, the main methodological shortcoming was the mediated and inevitably partial kind of access that online fieldwork could yield. Generally speaking, this could be a matter of concern for interpretivist case study researchers, since the practical advantages of online fieldwork and methods – including the possibility to cover several case studies in the framework of a single project – do not offset the risks of obtaining a potentially superficial understanding of each individual case. Another important consideration stemming from my experience of remote fieldwork is that establishing what the ‘case’ and the ‘field’ are, as well as their mutual relationship, may raise deep epistemological – and to some extent ontological – questions that cannot be easily resolved through purely methodological debates. Hence, discussing and articulating the philosophical implications of ‘elusiveness’ within case study research would be a highly valuable undertaking, especially in the framework of an increasingly interdisciplinary scholarly landscape.

Based on my experience in conducting case study research in the Transformative Partnerships 2030 project, I propose here three practical strategies which could be adopted by researchers faced with the methodological challenges outlined in this article:

- The first strategy is to think about the challenge of ‘elusive’ case studies from the very early stages of a research project (even ahead of the case selection phase, if possible) by mapping the degree of intangibility or ‘distance’ of each potential case study. While enabling a researcher to assess the feasibility of a case study in a relatively short time frame (e.g., without the need to conduct fully-fledged pilot studies), this strategy would also permit to rule out cases that are deemed completely inaccessible. Early assessments may include, for example, ensuring the possibility of remotely observing multiple events pertinent to a single case. This is essential for detecting behavioral patterns, including identifying individuals who consistently attend meetings or regularly contribute in specific ways. Not only would such an approach reinforce the validity of one’s empirical claims, but it may also foster familiarity with the study subjects, thus reducing the perceived ‘distance’ from the field.

- The second proposed strategy is to strengthen triangulation efforts: as issues of access and other methodological constraints may limit the use and efficacy of certain methods, it is vital to maximize the value of the empirical data obtained and analysed with each method. This is especially important for researchers choosing to confine their analysis to qualitative research. Implementing this strategy also requires adopting a flexible research design that allows for rapidly switching between suitable methods and accessing the most readily available empirical material. Throughout my research process, a synergistic combination of event observation and elite interviews was particularly beneficial, reducing some of challenges associated with studying ‘elusive’ cases. It was by accessing the remote field in which events and meetings were taking place that I could identify several of my interview informants. Although the latter did not know me, explaining that I approached them after observing their contributions in meetings proved to be an effective way to establish a contact on multiple occasions. Conversely, interviews proved to be an important channel for garnering insider perspectives on the underlying processes and practices of the remote or inaccessible field.

- Finally, the third strategic suggestion is to embrace transparency and openly acknowledge the specific limitations of studying an ‘elusive’ case. While the acknowledgment of methodological limitations is a standard and consolidated practice in many social science traditions, accounts of these limitations are rarely exhaustive. By thoroughly detailing their methodological challenges and disclosing the strategies they implemented to counter them, researchers of ‘elusive’ cases could provide valuable guidance to others undertaking similar research. A fruitful way to approach this task is to endeavor to tease out the nature of one’s case ‘elusiveness’: as shown by my experience, behind methodological challenges may also lie more profound epistemological implications.

While the three suggestions presented here are not silver bullets, their implementation can enhance the validity and success of case study-based qualitative research, particularly as far as the methodological challenges outlined in this article are concerned.

The methodological insights presented in this article have the potential to stimulate deeper epistemological debates on the role of qualitative case study research in the IR field (and, possibly, beyond). Although case study research can be optimized to satisfy the needs of a time-constrained research project, it is also important not to lose sight of the features and advantages – including empirical richness and conceptual depth – that contribute to making case study approaches unique in the first place.

While this article has discussed methodological challenges related to case study research in the IR and global governance fields, generalizations about such challenges within (and, even more, beyond) these fields should be approached with care. First of all, not all global actors are as ‘elusive’ or ‘distant’ as MSPs: this implies that, albeit not negligible, the methodological challenges of conducting case study research in IR should not be exaggerated. Notably, some of these challenges may be much more acute in global governance research rather than in IR research more broadly. Future research should consider investigating whether the methodological challenges outlined in this article apply to other global governance actors as well. In particular, it could explore whether, and to what extent, other global governance actors beyond MSPs exhibit analogous characteristics of elusiveness, as discussed here. Second, since global governance research addresses very different (and at times very technical) policy fields, the methodological challenges discussed here may intensify or diminish depending on a researcher’s level of expertise in a specific policy field. Prospective research in global governance could address this aspect by systematically assessing the methodological challenges arising when investigating policy fields with varying ‘problem structures’. Such an assessment could lead to the development of more nuanced theoretical and methodological frameworks that are sensitive to the specific features of diverse global governance settings. Finally, as most IR research is concerned with the study of elite actors and institutions, it is important to consider that ‘special rules’ may apply to methods such as elite interviews. Notably, the influence of the online format on these types of interviews may follow dynamics that are not always predictable.

In times of shrinking research funding and more thoughtful considerations of the environmental impacts of fieldwork, it is undeniable that conducting qualitative case study-based research in IR and global governance has become more challenging. However, it is crucial for researchers to recognize that challenges are not only logistical, but also of a methodological and epistemological nature.