Case Study Research in Peace and Conflict Studies: Mitigating the Challenges of Fieldwork in and on Conflict Zones

Focusing on process tracing, I develop and illustrate an argument on what theoretically-grounded and empirically-detailed methodological ‘solutions’ can be considered to mitigate the challenges that fieldwork-based case studies pose to the rigour and integrity of research in and on conflict zones. While focused on the methodological dimension, this paper is centrally concerned with how researchers can increase the confidence in their findings and recommendations and how this task is best accomplished by placing methodological considerations into a relevant theoretical and empirical context. In order to accomplish this task, I first outline the assumptions that I make about process tracing as the central case study method and its application in peace and conflict studies. I then discuss in more detail data requirements, data collection, and data analysis, before illustrating these considerations with concrete examples from a recent research project on the conflict in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. I conclude with a brief summary of the main argument that the fundamental task for researchers is to ‘align’ their theories, methods, and empirics in a way that is logically sound and transparent and increases the confidence in the robustness of their findings.