Transcript Comparative Method.ppt

Case Selection, Analysis
COMPARATIVE METHOD /
COMPARATIVE STUDIES
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PLACE AMONG RESEARCH METHODS
The scientific
method
The ethnographic
method
A. Lijphart
Case study
COMPARATIVE
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EX. OF GREAT COMPARATIVIST WORKS
Alexis de Tocqueville:
Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution
Barrington Moore:
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
compares eight major countries, looking in detail at the varied political roles played
by varied social classes and identifies three main paths from pre-industrial to
modern world - bourgeois revolutionary, capitalist and reactionary, and
communist
Skocpol Theda:
States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France,Russia, and China
method: “comparative history”
Martin Seymour Lipset:
The First New Nation : the social conditions that make a stable democracy
possible, and the extent to which the American experience was representative
or exceptional
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WHY COMPARE?
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To escape ethnocentrism (Hegel)
To theoretize
To conceptualize
To improve quality of data
!!!!! Comparative study: equally weighted evidence per
factor/elements of comparison
!!!!! Cool studies if well supported by RD /
very
easy to mess up
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LEVELS OF COMPARISONS
Types of Comparisons
examples
Cross issue
Comparing EU policy making in the case of
environmental policy and CAP
Cross-sectoral
Comparing public procurement policies in the
areas of infrastructure and IT
Cross-national
Comparing immigration policies in the US and
Canada
Asyncronic/longitudinal comparisons Comparing the nationalization of shipping
industry in the 1950s in Poland with its
privatization in the 1990s
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CASE-ORIENTED (WEBER)
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Classic comparative
methods (qualitative)
Oriented towards
comprehensive examination
of historically defined cases
and phenomena
best suited for identifying
invariant patterns common
to relatively small sets of
cases
VARIABLE-ORIENTED (DURKHEIM)
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Quantitative
concerned with assessing the
correspondence between
relationships discernible across
many societies or countries and
broad theoretically based images of
macrosocial phenomena
best suited for assessing
probabilistic relationships between
features of social structures,
conceived as variables, over the
widest possible population of
observations
CASE-ORIENTED VS VARIABLE-ORIENTED APPROACHES
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METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES (QL / QT)
case
selection
elements of
comparison
methods of
data analysis
• who/what are you comparing?
• why would such comparison make sense?
• a “case” ?
• Problem: too many variables, not enough cases; the
Galton problem – treating nations as independend
units
• which aspects are you comparing?
• signal the structure of the analysis
• classical (structure, data, weight)
• Boolean Algebra
• f/QCA (fuzzy sets)
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1. CASE SELECTION
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Mill’s method of difference
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Mill’s method of similarity / agreement
Meckstroth (1975):
Most similar
system design
(MSSD)
Most different
system design
(MDSD)
•compares similar cases as possible on the
assumption that the more similar the cases
being compared, the more possible it should be
to isolate the factors responsible for differences
between them.
• compares as contrasting cases as possible in order to
show the robustness of a relationship between
dependent and independent variables. Such a design
assumes that by demonstrating that the observed
relationships hold in a range of contrasting settings
the argument of the research is better supported.
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HAGUE, ROD, HARROP MARTIN AND BRESLIN SHAUN,
COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS: AN
INTRODUCTION, 4TH ED, MACMILLAN, 1998.
Representative (typical of the
category)
Prototypical (quasi-typical)
Deviant (exception to the norm)
Crucial (tests a theory in the
least favourable conditions)
Archetypal (creates the
category – the French
revolution)
LIPJHART
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TYPOLOGIES OF CASES
Atheoretical case study
Interpretative case study
Hypothesis-generating case
study
‘theory confirming’ case
study
‘theory infirming’ case study
deviant case study
2. ELEMENTS OF COMPARISON
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Significance of Concepts
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Without concepts, information about different countries may be assembled
together but we have no basis for relating one country to another
in order to connect empirical materials horizontally across national boundaries,
they must also be connected vertically; that is, capable of being related to
concepts that are sufficiently abstract to travel across national boundaries.
Ex: comparing democracies
Structure of analysis:
 PER
ELEMENTS of comparison NOT per CASES
 Structure per cases = case studies / monographies
NOT COMPARISONS
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ELEMENTS OF COMPARISON - CONCERNS
 Data:
 Sources
 Same
methodology of data collection
 Same level of coverage
 equally
balanced between cases (each element
equally discussed for each case compared)
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3. METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS
Classical: QL / QT
 QCA
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 Boolean
algebra
 big
N
 outcome
 Dichotomous values
 Fuzzy
QCA makes it possible to bring the logic
and empirical intensity of qualitative
approaches to studies that embrace
more than a handful of cases -- research
situations that normally call for the use
of variable-oriented, quantitative
methods.
sets analysis
 big
N
 outcome
 segmented values
CHARLES RAGIN
integrates features of case-oriented
(assessment of complex patterns of
multiple and conjunctural causation) and
variable-oriented approaches (examination
of large numbers of cases).
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QUALITATIVE
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Comparative dimension
determined by:
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QUANTITATIVE
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Descriptive statistics
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Inferential statistics
structure
analysis
CLASSICAL
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Eurobarometer Q5 ...anyone ask you or expect you to pay a bribe.
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BOOLEAN ALGEBRA (CSQCA)

cs = a crisp set (or conventional) is dichotomous
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goal: Conditions necessary and sufficient for
outcome
Steps:
 Raw data table / data matrix
 Truth tables: all possible configurations (2variables)
 Reduced truth table - minimisation/simplification
(ex. elimination of deviant cases; identify
patterns)
 Causal configurations: OUTCOME = a*B*C*d*E
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RAW TABLE (FICTIVE) – EX (CASES = 2VARIABLES)
Cases
Intt med
Nat elites
support
Paramilitary
forces
resources
Absence/pre
sence of
conflict
Congo
1
0
1
0
1
Mali
0
0
1
0
1
Rwanda
0
1
0
1
0
Burundi
1
1
1
1
0
Mozambique
1
1
1
0
0
Sudan
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
Comoros Is
1
Cyprus
1
1
0
1
0
Zimbabwe
0
0
1
1
1
Nepal
1
1
1
0
0
CAUSAL CONFIGURATIONS
Cyprus: INTT MED * NATELITES*paramilitary*RESOURCES
Overall study findings (result of truth tables, minimisation
process – manually / software)
INTTMED*NATELITES*paramilitary*resources
!!!! half way through the work
ANALYSIS:
heavily empirically grounded /
findings discussed in relation
to existing literature, theories
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FUZZY SETS /FSQCA
A fuzzy set permits membership in the interval
between 0 and 1:
 "full
C
A
L
I
B
R
A
T
I
O
N
inclusion“ (fuzzy membership = 1.0),
 "almost fully in" the set (membership = .90),
 neither "more in" nor "more out" of the set
(membership = .5, also known as the "crossover
point"),
 "barely more out than in" the set (membership = .45),
 and so on
 "fully exclusion“ (membership = 0).
! up to the researcher to specify procedures for
assigning fuzzy membership scores to cases, and
these procedures must be both open and explicit so
that they can be evaluated by other scholars.
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FS/QCA
Results: Conditions necessary and sufficient
 Raw table / data matrix
 Truth tables: all possible configurations
 Reduced truth table - minimisation/simplification
(ex. elimination of contradictory cases; identify
patterns)
 Causal configurations:
OUTPUT = A*b*C*D*e*f
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Advantage: higher level of nuance
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CTanasoiu, Research Methods
APPLICATION
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Comparative study – qualitative
Subject: euroskepticism
RQ: evolution (pre and post) accession of the political
discourse during eurocrisis in n countries
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Two: bul/ro
Many:
RD: comparation
Elements of comparison:
Data collection:Party leaders / ideological repres (lef/c/right)
 Parliam
 Factors: type of euroskep / post towards bailout/ articul of discourse
on austerity/ articl of ids towards policies /institutions
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