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This paper assesses the current state of qualitative research methods in political science and political communication, through a review of textbooks, conference papers, key earlier works, and recent controversies. Despite advances during the past quarter century, qualitative methods of research, analysis, and writing remain at the margins due to the positive philosophical orientation of political science. Although they have provided a staging ground for complaints against that orientation in recent debates, qualitative approaches to knowledge serve principally as a tool for exploratory work and as a foil to police the boundaries of mainstream political science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]