Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:48:51.463Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Case Study Research in Political Science: Evidence for Causal Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sharon Crasnow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Political science research, particularly in international relations and comparative politics, has increasingly become dominated by statistical and formal approaches. The promise of these approaches shifted the methodological emphasis away from case study research. In response, supporters of case study research argue that case studies provide evidence for causal claims that is not available through statistical and formal research methods, and many have advocated multimethod research. I propose a way of understanding the integration of multiple methodologies in which the causes sought in case studies are treated as singular causation and contingent on a theoretical framework.

Type
Case Studies
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 655 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I am grateful to the other participants in the symposium (Mary Morgan, Rachel Ankeny, and Carlo Gabbani) for comments. Comments from participants at the “Reasoning with Cases in the Social Sciences” workshop at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh in November 2011 also helped shape the article.

References

Bennett, Andrew. 2010. “Process Tracing and Causal Inference.” In Brady and Collier 2010, 207–20.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Elman, Colin 2006. “Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods.” Annual Review of Political Science 9:455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Henry. 2010. “Data-Set Observations versus Causal-Process Observations: The 2000 U.S. Presidential Election.” In Brady and Collier 2010, 237–42.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Collier, David, eds. 2010. Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 2007. Hunting Causes and Using Them. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, David, Achen, Christopher H., Brady, Henry E., Dunning, Thad, Elman, Colin, Kapiszewski, Diana, and Schrodt, Philip A.. 2010. “A Sea Change in Political Science Methodology?” Program presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, Washington, DC, September 4. https://www.apsanet.org/content_72134.cfm?navID=193.Google Scholar
Collier, David, Brady, Henry E., and Seawright, Jason. 2010. “Introduction to Part II.” In Brady and Collier 2010, 201–4.Google Scholar
Collier, David, and Elman, Colin. 2008. “Qualitative and Multimethod Research: Organizations, Publications, and Reflections on Integration.” In The Oxford Handbook for Political Methodology, ed. Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M., Brady, Henry, and Collier, David, 779–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L., and Bennett, Andrew. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
George, Alexander L., and McKeown, Timothy J.. 1985. “Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making.” In Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, Vol. 2, ed. Coulam, Robert F. and Smith, Richard A., 21–58. Greenwich, CT: JAI.Google Scholar
Gerring, John. 2004. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good For?” American Political Science Review 98 (2): 341–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, John. 2007. Case Study Research: Principles and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gleiditch, Nils Petter. 1995. “Geography, Democracy, and Peace.” International Interactions 20:297–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. 1971. “Causes and Events: Mackie on Causation.” Journal of Philosophy 68 (14): 426–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O., and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layne, Christopher. 1994. “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Demographic Peace.” International Security 19 (2): 5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lott, John R. Jr. 2005. “The Impact of Early Media Election Calls on Republican Voting Rates in Florida's Western Panhandle Counties in 2000.” Public Choice 123:349–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, John L. 1974. The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2010. “After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research.” World Politics 62 (1): 120–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Goertz, Gary. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis 14:227–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Mary. 2012. “Case Studies: One Observation or Many? Justification or Discovery?” Philosophy of Science, in this issue.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, Judea. 2009. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Susan. 1995. “How Democracies Differ: Public Opinion, State Structure, and the Lessons of the Fashoda Crisis.” Security Studies 5 (1): 3–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, Bruce. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post–Cold War World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schultz, Kenneth. 2001. Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Evera, Stephen. 1997. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar