ABSTRACT
This multidisciplinary volume demonstrates how Freedom of Information (FOI) law and processes can contribute to social science research design across sociology, criminology, political science, anthropology, journalism and education. Comparing the use of FOI in research design across the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa, it provides readers with resources to carry out FOI requests and considers the influence such requests can have on debates within multiple disciplines. In addition to exploring how scholars can use FOI disclosures in conjunction with interview data, archival data and other datasets, this collection explains how researchers can systematically analyse FOI disclosures. Considering the challenges and dilemmas in using FOI processes in research, it examines the reasons why many scholars continue to rely on more easily accessible data, when much of the real work of governance, the more clandestine but consequential decisions and policy moves made by government officials, can only be accessed using FOI requests.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |10 pages
Introduction
part 1|2 pages
Freedom of Information and research design
part 2|2 pages
Freedom of Information and research design
chapter 6|16 pages
Accessing information in a nascent technology industry
chapter 7|19 pages
Using Continual FOI requests to uncover the live archive
part 3|2 pages
Freedom of Information
chapter 8|15 pages
Piecing it together, studying public–private partnerships
chapter 9|17 pages
Researching the complexities of knowledge contestations and occupational disease recognition
chapter 10|16 pages
Repertoires of empirical social science and freedom of information requests
part 4|2 pages
Freedom of Information and research design