What methods have been used in the area of Iran's political sociology whose most important goal is to study the relationship between the state and society? This article seeks to study and critique responses to the said question in Amir Mohammad Haji-Yousefi's paper entitled Typology of Methods for the Study of Iran's Political Sociology, published in the first issue of this quarterly, though this writing goes beyond just critiquing that paper. In his paper, Haji-Yousefi suggested that generally four methods have been used in study of Iran's political sociology including political culture and elitism, class analysis, political economy, and discourse analysis. Offering an overview of Haji-Yousefi's paper, the authors of this paper have stressed on the necessity of expanding the sphere of his four-item typology to other works on Iran's political sociology. Consequently, this effort needs three other approaches be added to the current typology: descriptive-historical approach, analytical-explanatory approach, and social movements approach. Moreover, this paper has reexamined such concepts as ontology and epistemology and has formulated the contours of some concepts including method and approach.
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