Conducting Interview Projects in the US Congress: Analyzing the Methods of Experts in the Field

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Daniel Steiman,Elizabeth Suhay
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12436

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 48, 4, November 2023

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12436

DANIEL STEIMAN

American University

ELIZABETH SUHAY

American University

Conducting Interview Projects in the

US Congress: Analyzing the Methods

of Experts in the Field

The field of political science is seeing renewed interest in studying the US

Congress via one- on- one interviews. Yet, the qualitative research methods litera-

ture on this topic has lagged behind, with few recent treatments available. The

result is uncertainty regarding how best to access and interview Congress. In this

study, we implement a novel study design, interviewing over 20 authors— who

collectively represent nearly all Congressional qualitative interview studies from

the past several decades— about their research practices. Whereas the existing lit-

erature focuses on lessons learned from one or two authors’ research experiences,

this approach allows us to synthesize a wide range of researchers’ practices and

perspectives, identifying areas of consensus and dispute and ultimately providing

comprehensive advice to qualitative researchers. As interviewing Congress be-

comes increasingly difficult amidst growing political polarization and distrust of

academics, this methodological advice comes at an opportune time for research-

ers studying the US Congress and beyond.

The US Congress is arguably the most powerful political body

on earth. Thus, it represents an important focus of academic re-

searchers’ attention. While the study of Congress has in recent

decades been dominated by studies of publicly available data,

there has been a recent growth in studying Congress up close, in-

cluding via in- person interviews (e.g., Crosson et al.2021; Curry

and Lee2020; Henderson et al.2021). Surprisingly, this increasing

interest in qualitative interview projects has not been met with up-

to- date, comprehensive methodological advice, leaving scholars

who are new to the enterprise without adequate guidance.

© 2023 Washington University in St. Louis.

Both authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

700 Daniel Steiman and Elizabeth Suhay

A number of high- quality publications on the topic of

Congressional interviewing do exist, including a few relatively

recent treatments (e.g., Baker 2011; Beckmann and Hall 2013;

Peters Jr. 2016). These authors, all Congressional interviewers

themselves, provide practical advice with respect to designing and

implementing Congressional research studies. Yet, this literature

has three limitations. First, nearly all such publications focus on

an individual author’s— or author team’s— point of view. Thus, it

is difficult for a reader to know whether any given work represents

the best approach for their study. One can synthesize across the

literature; however, authors clearly disagree on some topics, and

these disagreements go unadjudicated. Further disagreements may

lurk beneath the surface, as not all authors address the same set

of topics. Second, most of the published advice on interviewing

Congress specifically is at least two decades old. This means that

existing scholarship misses numerous real- world developments,

ranging from technological changes to rising polarization. Third,

researchers have devoted little attention to certain important top-

ics, such as how researchers’ social identities influence the inter-

view process or IRB oversight.

In this article, we seek to address these limitations by pro-

viding a systematic update of the methodological literature on

interviewing Congress. We do so by studying the practices of aca-

demic Congressional interviewers, as one can expect that social

scientists’ methods have been “developed and selected for their

success” (Kuhn (1962)1996, 208). Borrowing from Congressional

researchers’ own toolkit, we interview at least one author of nearly

every contemporary interview- based study of Congress. In prac-

tice, this means interviewing authors of studies published as far

back as 1975, as well as authors whose work was forthcoming at

the time of the interview. After an initial review of the literature,

we constructed a questionnaire that reflected important topics in

interview methodology, with a focus on topics that had been sub-

ject to debate, had been given insufficient attention, or for which

methodological advice may have changed in recent years. Our in-

terviews suggest the field has coalesced around a number of “rec-

ommended practices” in sampling, recruiting, and structuring the

interview. This said, interviewees did not always agree with one an-

other. For example, we discovered differences of opinion regard-

ing questionnaire design and rapport building. Scholars also had

many different approaches to working with, and perspectives on,

the IRB. And scholars used their interview data in a wide variety

701Conducting Interview Projects in the US Congress

of ways. Despite some disagreements, the perspectives of study

participants provide a useful roadmap to researchers embark-

ing on Congressional interviews. Although we focus on the US

Congress, much of the advice distilled herein will be relevant to

researchers interested in interviewing members of legislatures and

parliaments in other nations as well as other classes of political

“hyper- elites”— in the United States and around the world.

Our article proceeds as follows. We first provide a succinct

synthesis of the existing literature on conducting interviews in

Congress, noting agreements and disagreements among authors as

well as limitations. We then describe our study sample and ques-

tions. In the empirical section, we mainly analyze the data quali-

tatively, grouping responses by theme. In the Discussion section,

we compare our participants’ perspectives to one another and to

those in the existing methodological literature. We also evaluate in-

terviewees’ practices and recommendations, offering concrete ad-

vice. In the final section, we consider future directions for research.

Theoretical Framework

We define elite interviewing as interviewing members of “a

group of individuals, who hold, or have held, a privileged posi-

tion in society” (Richards 1996, 199). There is a large litera-

ture that advises researchers on how to conduct elite interviews

(Aberbach et al. 1975; Berry 2002; Tansey 2007; Woliver2002;

Zuckerman1972). As this diverse literature shows, different types

of elites possess unique characteristics. Congressional elites, as a

specific class of “hyper- elites” (Baker 2011, 101), present unique

challenges for scholars seeking to interview them.

Recognizing the difficulties that Congress as an institution

poses to specialists in the field, a literature has emerged that gives

advice on how to best conduct interview projects within Congress.

While some of this literature focuses on Congress exclusively (e.g.,

Baker2011; Jones1959; Matthews1960), most of it spreads its at-

tention across many types of political elites— such as lobbyists, fed-

eral bureaucrats, members of the federal judiciary, and the White

House (e.g., Aberbach et al.1975; Aberbach and Rockman2002;

Beckmann and Hall2013; Berry2002; Peabody et al.1990; Peters

Jr. 2016; Robinson1960).1 In most cases, evidence is drawn from

the authors’ research experiences— usually the design and execu-

tion of a past project or projects. Some articles provide an overview