POL 212a Prof. Daniel Kryder
Thursday 2:00 – 4:50
Fall 2014 office hours by appt.
Research Methods and Methodology:
Strategies of Qualitative Design and Analysis
COURSE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE
This seminar explores the development and application of qualitative research designs and methods for case study analysis. We will develop practical tools for improving validity, reliability, and inference in research where the number of cases is small in comparison to quantitative research. We will address the practical and analytical problems encountered in moving from real world problems to research topic, to clear conceptualization, to theory, to identifying cases, to generating hypotheses, to research design, to research operations, and to analysis of findings. We will focus intensively on the within case technique known as process-tracing, review other approaches such as path-dependence and counterfactual reasoning, and finally consider student projects and presentations. The goal of the course is three-fold: to master recent and classic works on these problems; to enable us to evaluate and critique studies employing qualitative methods; and, to provide us with the skills to create rigorous qualitative designs to guide our own research. The seminar will examine substantive examples drawn mainly from political science - comparative politics, international relations, American politics, and public policy – and sociology. Students will write essays exploring methods issues using their own subfield and topics.
SEMINAR REQUIREMENTS
1. This is a reading seminar, thus active and creative participation in class discussion is essential. Students will be responsible for the assigned readings, for taking part in class discussions, and for leading class discussions. (10%)
2. Students will write a series of six papers totaling 25-30 pages, broken into shorter increments. The assignments will generally ask you to apply an assigned set of analytic tools to a problem drawn from your subfield of political or social science. Instructions for these assignments will be distributed separately. (90%)
SUBJECT OUTLINE
A. Foundations
I. Competing Approaches to Social Science Inference September 4
II. Concepts: Clarity, Validity, and Reliability September 11
III. Recognizing, Presenting, and Building Theory September 18
IV. Selecting Cases September 23 (Tuesday)
B. Case Study and Within Case Methodology
V. Qualitative Evidence and Data Collection October 2
VI. Comparative Case Analysis, History, Bias October 13 (Monday)
VII. Typologies, Causal Complexity, and Configurations October 23
C. Process Tracing
VIII. Process Tracing I October 30
IX. Process Tracing II November 6
X. Process Tracing III November 13
D. Other Analytical Approaches
XI. Time and Path-Dependence November 20
XII. Counterfactual Reasoning December 4
Texts to purchase
Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
Derek Beach and Rasmus Brun Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013).
READING AND DISCUSSION SCHEDULE (readings marked with > are available on Latte)
Aug. 28 Course Overview
> Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Bruce-Partington Plans,” (1912), “The Silver Blaze” (1894), available online
> Sendhil Mullainathan, “Hold the Phone: A Big-Data Conundrum,” New York Times, July 26, 2014: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-big-data-conundrum.html?_r=0
Recommended
>Forrest D. Colburn and Norman Uphoff, “Common Expositional Problems in Students’ Papers and Theses,” PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 45, No. 2 (April, 2012): pp. 291-297.
Sept. 4 Competing Approaches to Social Science Inference
>Gabriel Almond and Stephen Genco, "Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics, World Politics 29, no. 4, 1977 .
>Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, 1994, Intro, ch. 1.
>Timothy J. McKeown, “Case Studies and the Statistical Worldview: Review of King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry, International Organization, Volume 53, Issue 01, December 1999.
>David Collier and Colin Elman, “Qualitative and Multimethod Research: Organizations, Publication, and Reflections on Integration,” in Janet Box-Steffensmeir, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).
David Collier, Henry E. Brady, and Jason Seawright, “Outdated Views of Qualitative Methods: Time to Move On,” Political Analysis, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Autumn 2010): pp. 506-513.
James Druckman, Donald Green, James Kuklinski, and Arthur Lupia, “The Growth and Development of Experimental Research in Political Science,” APSR, Vol. 100, No. 4 (2006): pp. 627-635.
Recommended
James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Political Analysis 14:3 (Summer 2006): 227-249. http://www.jamesmahoney.org/articles.html
Andrew Bennett, Aharon Barth, and Ken Rutherford, “Do we Preach What we Practice? A Survey of Methods in Journals and Graduate Curricula,” PS, July 2003.
Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methodology for Students of Political Science, pp. 89-121
David Collier et. al., “The Quest for Standards: KKV’s DSI,” Larry M. Bartels, “Some Unfulfilled Promises of Quantitative Imperialism,” chs. 2 and 4 in Rethinking Social Inquiry.
James Mahoney, "After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research," World Politics 62(1) (January 2010): 120-47.
http://www.jamesmahoney.org/articles.html
Charles Ragin, "Turning the Tables: How Case-Oriented Research Challenges Variable-Oriented Research," ch. 8 in Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004
Andrew Bennett and Colin Elman, Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods, Annual Review of Political Science, 2006, pp. 459-460.
Sept. 11 Concepts: Clarity, Validity, and Reliability
>W. Phillips Shively, The Craft of Political Research, chs. 4-5, “Problems of Measurement: Accuracy and Precision”
Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misinformation in Comparative Politics,” APSR 64, 1970
>David Collier and Stephen Levitsky, “Conceptual Hierarchies in Comparative Research,” (a revision of “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,” World Politics, April 1997)
>James Mahoney, “Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisals in Macrocausal Analysis,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 14, no. 4, January 1999
>Robert Adcock and David Collier, "Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research," APSR Vol. 95, No. 3, (Sep., 2001): pp. 529-546.
>Goertz, Gary, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), chaps. 1‐2.
>Michael Coppedge, “Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Jul., 1999).
>Michael Coppedge, Democratization and Research Methods (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Chapter 2: Defining and Measuring Democracy.
Mark Bevir and Asaf Kedar, “Concept Formation in Political Science,” APSR vol. 6, no. 3, September 2008.
David Collier and James Mahon, "Conceptual Stretching Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis," APSR December 1993, pp. 845-855.
David Collier, Fernando Daniel Hidalgo, and Andra Olivia Maciuceanu, “Essentially Contested Concepts: Debates and Applications,” Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Oct., 2006): pp. 211-246.
Diane Day, “Citizen Participation in the Planning Process: An Essentially Contested Concept?” Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 11 (1997): pp. 421-434.
Scott Straus, “Contested Meanings and Conflicting Imperatives: A Conceptual Analysis of Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2001): pp. 349-375.
Kenneth M. Ehrenberg, “Law is Not (Best Considered) an Essentially Contested Concept,” International Journal of Law in Context, Vo. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 2011): pp. 209-232.
Recommended
Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts: A User's Guide (Princeton University Press, 2006), chapter 9.
John Gerring and Paul A. Barresi, “Putting Ordinary Language to Work: A Min-Max Strategy of Concept Formation in the Social Sciences,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 15, 2003
Allison, Graham T. 1969. “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” American Political Science Review 63:3 (September) 689-718.
Chatterjee, “Ontology, Epistemology, and Multi-Methods”, QMMR Newsletter 7:2
Claudia Roth Pierpont, “The Measure of America,” The New Yorker, March 8, 2004
Herbert Kritzer, "Interpretation and Validity Assessment in Qualitative Research: The Case of H.W. Perry's Deciding to Decide," Law and Social Inquiry, Summer, 1994
J. Kirk and M. Miller, Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, 1986.
Sept. 18 Recognizing, Presenting, and Building Theory
>W. Phillips Shively, The Craft of Political Research, ch. 6, “Causal Thinking and Design of Research”
>George and Bennett, “Case Studies and Theory Development,” “Case Study Methods and Research on the Interdemocratic Peace,” chs. 1-2 in Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, MIT Press, 2005.
>Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), Chapters 2-3.
>James Mahoney, Erin Kimball, and Kendra Koivu, “The Logic of Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences,” Comparative Political Studies 42:1 (January 2009), pp. 114-146.
>Michael Coppedge, Democratization and Research Methods (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Chapter 3: Criteria for Evaluating Causal
Theories.
>Peter Hedstrom, “Studying Mechanisms to Strengthen Causal Inferences in Quantitative Research,” in Janet Box-Steffensmeir, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).
>Michel Foucault, “The Body of the Condemned” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995).
>Goertz and Mahoney, “A Tale of Two Cultures,” and Waldner, “What are Mechanisms and What are they Good for?” in Symposium: Causal Mechanisms, Process Tracing, and Causal Inference, QMMR, Fall, 2010.
Henry E. Brady, “Causation and Explanation in Social Science,” in Janet Box-Steffensmeir, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Recommended
>Gary Goertz, “The Substantive Importance of Necessary Condition Hypotheses,” in Gary Goertz and Harvey Starr, eds., Necessary Conditions: Theory, Methodology, and Applications (New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
>Edwin Amenta, “What We Know About the Development of Social Policy,” in James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Stephen Van Evera, selections, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, Cornell, 1997.
James Mahoney, "Toward a Unified Theory of Causality," Comparative Political Studies 41:4/5 (April/May 2008): 412-436.
http://www.jamesmahoney.org/articles.html
Sept. 23 Selecting Cases
(Tuesday)
>Barbara Geddes, "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics," Political Analysis 2, 1990
>Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), Chapter 4.
>David Collier and James Mahoney, "Insight and Pitfalls: Selection Bias in Qualitative Research," World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Oct., 1996): pp. 56-91.
>James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, “The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Qualitative Research,” American Political Science Review Vol. 98, No. 4 (Nov., 2004), pp. 653-670.
>John Gerring, “Case Selection for Case-Study Analysis: Qualitative and Quantitative Techniques,” in Janet Box-Steffensmeir, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).
>Gary Goertz and James Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting the Qualitative and Quantitative Research Paradigms (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), Chapter 14 “Case Selection and Hypothesis Testing.”
Recommended
David Collier, David A. Freedman, James D. Fearon, David D. Laitin, John Gerring, Gary Goertz, “Symposium: Case Selection, Case Studies, and Causal Inference,” Qualitative & Multi-Method Research 6(2): 2-16, 2008
Charles C. Ragin, “Constituting Populations,” etc., chs. 2, 3, 5 in Fuzzy-Set Social Science.
David Collier, et. al., “Claiming Too Much: Warnings about Selection Bias,” ch. 6 in Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004
Jason Seawright and John Gerring, “Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research,” Political Research Quarterly 61:2 (2008), pp. 294-308.
Evan Lieberman, “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research,” American Political Science Review 99:3 (2005), pp. 435-52.
John Gerring and Jason Seawright. “Techniques for Choosing Cases.” Chapter 5 of Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gerardo L. Munck, “Tools for Qualitative Research,” ch. 7 in Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004
Jason Seawright and John Gerring, “Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research,” Political Research Quarterly 61:2 (2008), pp. 294-308.
Oct. 2 Qualitative Evidence and Data Collection
>Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, MIT Press, 2005, chs. 3-6, skim 8, 9
>Harry Eckstein, "Case Studies and Theory in Political Science," in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 7, 1975
>Alexander George, "Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison," in Paul Lauren, Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, & Policy, Free Press, 1979
>James Mahoney, “Strategies of Causal Inference in Small-N Analysis,” Sociological Methods and Research Vol. 28 (May 2000).
>Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 6 “The Power of Example.”
Michael Laver, Kenneth Benoit, and John Garry, "Extracting Policy Positions from Political Text Using Words as Data," American Political Science Review 97(2) (May, 2003):311-331.
David Collier, “Data, Field Work and Extracting New Ideas at Close Range,” APSA – CP Newsletter 10(1): 1-6, 1999.
Recommended
> James Mahoney, “Strategies of Causal Assessment in Comparative Historical Analysis,” in James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
>Sheila Carapico, Janine A. Clark, Amaney Jamal, David Romano, Jilian Schwedler, and Mark Tessler, “The Methodologies of Field Research in the Middle East,” PS: Political Science and Politics Vol. 39, No. 3 (2006):pp. 417-441.
Arendt Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” APSR, September 1971.
David Collier, "The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change," in Dankwart Rustow and Kenneth Erickson, eds., Comparative Political Dynamics: Global Research Perspectives, Harper Collins, 1991
John Frendeis, "Explanation of Variation and Detection of Covariation: The Purpose and Logic of Comparative Analysis," Comparative Political Studies, 1983.
Carlo Ginzburg, “Checking the Evidence: The Judge and the Historian,” in James Chandler, Harry Harootunian, and Arnold Davidson, eds., Questions of Evidence: Proof, Practice, and Persuasion Across the Disciplines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).