Methodological Advances in Comparative Research : Concepts, Techniques, Applications

During the last few years, methodological issues have been back on the research agenda for comparativists in the social sciences, and notably in political science. New tools are being developed, particularly for “small N” comparative research. These tools attract an increasing number of researchers from various sub-fields of political science (policy studies, democracy studies, political parties & social movements, etc.). The aim of the section is to identify the “state-of-the-art” in this field, to discuss conceptual and methodological problems of the various approaches, and to identify avenues for research, both in terms of methodological developments and in terms of practical applications. The need to take into account both the aim of accuracy and the aim of generalizability leads the empirical analysis in a cross-national comparative framework into an impasse. Choosing accuracy and focusing on historical detail and conjunctural causation often ends in the restriction to a single case study, thereby sacrificing the aim of generalizability. Choosing generality, however, restricts the extent to which events, complex interactions, and multiple causation can be taken into account. The section is intended to discuss possibilities to optimize both aims jointly in the same research endeavour. Although the problems of quantitative and qualitative analysis in comparative research are well understood in the methodological discussion and a number of approaches have been proposed to improve empirical work, the prescriptions often suit only a small, well-defined number of research questions. The potential of more general applicability is often ambiguous. The section is intended to discuss comparative methodology from both a conceptual and an applied perspective. The emphasis will be on discussing suitable solutions to actual problems in empirical work, by exploiting the strengths of existing quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques, and by developing new techniques. Participants are therefore requested to present a paper in which they discuss their substantive work in the field of comparative politics from a methodological perspective and explain the reasons for choosing particular strategies of analysis. In the proposed section we wish to go beyond the mere observation that different approaches lead to different conclusions. Instead, we want to encourage papers that attempt to push forward the combination and/or integration of elements from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives into a common framework. The nine panels discuss currently important comparative research designs, ranging from N = 2 to N > 15-20, and should consist of 3-4 papers and a discussant critical of the approach presented in the panel. Paper proposals should be sent to panel chairs.