Case Study and Com-parative Method

Professor: Lee Kyu YoungPresenters: Thongmala SAYAVONG , Jin –Se LeeDec 2nd 2013

Articles:

Lijphart, Arend. “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method.” American Political Science Review. 65:3 (August 1971), pp. 682-693

Collier, David. “The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change.” Rustow, Dankwart A./Erick-son, Kenneth P. (eds.). Comparative Political Dy-namics: Global Perspectives. New York: Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 7-31

Little, Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduc-tion to the Philosophy of Social Science. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991, Chapt. 2. pp. 13-38

Contents:

Experimental Method Statistical Method Comparative Method Case Study Method Innovention Relevant to Comparative

Method Casual Analysis

Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method

The article covers:

Contribution to “conscious thinking” in comparative politics by

Focusing on comparison as a method of political inquiry

Analyzing weakness & great strengths of comparative method

“conscious thinking” – “conscious thinker”??

be awared of and guided by the logic and methods of empirical sci-ence in quantitative research tech-nique.

Four Scientific Methods/ Methods of analyzing:

1 : experimental method 3 : nonexperimential method:

Statistical, Comparative, Case Study Method.

Experimental & Statistical Method

Experimental Method

Merit: Eliminates ri-val explanations through experimen-tal control

Problem: Experi-mental control is im-possible for many most topics of rele-vance to field of comparative politics.

Statistical Method

Merit: Assesses ri-val explanations through statistical control

Problem: Difficult to collect adequate info in a sufficient num of cases, coz of limit time & re-sources

Definition of the compara-tive method:

① It is a method rather than simply a convenient term to symbolize one’s research interests.

② It is defined as one of the basic scientific methods, not the scientific method.

③ It is regarded as a method of discovering em-pirical relationships among variables, not as a method of measurement –

④ a clear distinction should also be made between method and technique.

“the comparative method is a “broad-gauge, gen-eral method, not a narrow, specialised technique.”

Lijphart.

Comparative Method I

The analysis of small number of cases when there is an intermediate number of

cases then a combination of the statistical and comparative methods is appropriate.

Merit Problem

Give time, financial resources, in-tensive analysis of a few cases

may be more compromising then the superficial statistic analysis of

many cases

weak capacity to sort out rival explanations specifically, problem

from

“many variables, few cases”

Comparative Method II

Weakness:

Problem from arising "many variables, small N.“ It is difficult for researchers to find sufficient similar cases to

control for other possible factors. Comparative studies lead to less generalizable conclusions When possible cases are limited, data selection may pre-deter-

mine the hypothesis

How to minimize the problem?

① Increase the number of cases as much as possible② Reduce the “property-space” of the analysis③ Focus the comparative analysis on “comparable” cases④ Focus the comparative analysis on the “key” variables

Case Study Method

Case studies can make an important contribution to the establishment of general propositions and thus to theory building in political science

Merit: allows intensive examination of cases even with limited resources.

Problem: Contributes less to building theory than studies with more cases.

6 Types of Case Studies Method:

① Atheoretical case studies; ② Interpretative case studies; ③ Hypothesis-generating case studies;④ Theory-confirming case studies;⑤ Theory-infirming case studies;⑥ Deviant case studies;

Altheoret-ical CS

Interpre-tative CS

Hypothe-sis-gen-erating CS

Theory-confirm-ing CS

Theory-infirming CS

Deviant CS

Selected bcoz Inter-ested in case or in theo-

retical building.

Selected for purpose of theoretical building

Traditional single-country or single-case analysis

Not mainly formulate hypothe-sis, BUT It indirectly contribute to theoret-ical build-ing. (Some data)

Do not aim to contrib-ute to empirical general-ization.

Aim to ap-ply gener-alization to the case, not de-velop the generaliza-tion.

It aims to develop theoreti-cal gen-eraliza-tion in area where no theory exists yet*Serve to generalize new hy-pothesis

•Analysis of single case within framework of es-tablishing general-ization (Limit signal

variable or those not re-lated)

• Test of the proposition

Analyze single case that is known to differ from establish-ing gener-alization.*Refine and sharpens existing hypothe-sis

Strength proposition in question

merely weaken the gener-alizatios marginally

*Implicitly comparative Analyses

Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change-- Two main directions

Why do many comparativists to stick only few cases ? bcoz several development:

The risk of interpretive social science,The success of comparative historical analysis,The systematization of case study procedures, Intellectual & institutional strength of area studies,Skepticism about quantitative & statistical analysis among

small – N specialists & statisticians.

New Techniques: new statistical test suitable to “small – N ” analysis ▪ If these new techniques are used by scholars with good quanti-

tative analysis, area studies skills and sensitivity to context a stepping stone on the path toward statistical analysis.

Innovation Relevant to Comparative Method:

Broadened Under-standing of Types of Comparative

Studies

Further Justifica-tions for Focus on a

Small-N

Debates on Solu-tions to Problem of

Many Variables, Small-N

1. Emphasize on in-terpretive under-standing

2. Idea of a “research cycle” among the type (Skocpol & Somers)

1. To pursue “disci-plined configura-tive approach” (Verba, Reinforced by Almond & Genco)

2. To avoid problem of “conceptual stretching” (Sar-tori)

3. To facilitate “thick description” and other forms of in-terpretive under-standing (Greertz & many others)

4. To achieve analytic depth of case-ori-ented approach

1. Value of increasing number of cases

2. Comparable cases VS contrasting cases

3. Reducing number of variables in con-junction with using stronger theory

Casual Analysis

Mechanism and Casual Laws A Casual mechanism is a series of events

governed by law like regularities that lead from the explanans to the explanandum.

Social phenomena are constituted by in-dividuals whose behavior is the result of their rational decision making and non-ra-tional psychological processes that some times are at work

Casual Analysis

What sorts of things have casual properties that af-fect social phenomena?

1. The fact that agents are prudent and calculating about their interests produces a set of regulari-ties encapsulated by rational choice theory.

2. The fact that human beings conform to loose set of psychological laws permits us to draw cause-effect relations between a given social environ-ment and a pattern of individual behavior

Casual Analysis

The Inductive Regularity Criterion The general idea is the Human notion that casual

relations consist only in patterns of regular associ-ation between variables, classes of events, and the like.

How does the statistical relevance test contribute to an explanation of probabilistic phenomena?

The IR criterion should be understood as a source of casual hypotheses and a method to evaluate them empirically.

Casual Analysis

Necessary and Sufficient Condition Casual explanations usually depend on the as-

sumption.

We may also distinguish between standing conditions and instigating conditions within a casual field

The most important defect of the analysis of casual relations in terms of necessary and suf-ficient conditions is tied to the fact.

Casual Analysis

Forms of Casual reasoning1. The case-study method- The most common way to support such a casual analy-

sis is by providing an account of the particular casual mechanisms linking various parts of the story.

- To credibly identity casual mechanisms we must em-ploy one of two forms of inference

1. We may use a deductive approach, establishing casual connections between social factors based on a theory of the underlying processes.

2. We may use a broadly inductive approach, justifying the claim that A caused B on the ground that events of type A are commonly associated with events of type B.

Casual Analysis

The construction of a casual story based on a particular case, then, requires two things.

- Fairly detailed knowledge about the se-quence of events within the large historical process and credible theoretical.

- Inductive hypotheses about various kinds of social causation.

Casual Analysis

2. The comparative method- In the comparative approach the in-

vestigator identifies a small number of cases in which the phenomenon of interest occurs in varying degrees and then attempts to isolate the ca-sual processes.

- The comparative study often uses a form of Mill’s methods.

Casual Analysis

- Theda Skocpol ,who is a prominent exponent , describes her method in these terms.

“The overriding intent is to develop, test, and refine casual, explanatory, hypotheses about events or struc-tures integral to macro-units.”

- She suggests social unrest cannot be the immediate cause of revolution otherwise all agrarian societies would undergo revolution.

Casual Analysis

3. Mills methods

- The comparative method depends heavily on an analysis of casual reasoning provided by John Stuart Mill in his System of Logic

- The methods can define the methods of agree-ment and difference.

- These are methods aimed at identifying the cause of an event by observing variations in antecedent conditions for repeated occurrences of the event.

Casual Analysis

What Mill’s methods cannot handle are complex causation and proba-bilistic causation.

In spite of these limitations, how-ever, Mills methods underline much reasoning about causation in the so-cial sciences.

Discussion

1. Lijphart recommends “to greater use of comparative method to complement statis-tical method in literature”. Do you think so? In your opinion what is the strength of comparative method?

2. Among experimental method (1 )and non-experiemental methods (3), which method do you think is the most efficiently and ap-propriately imply to construct in social sci-ence research?