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theorizing can help identify which cases are suitable for a most similar case comparison, for example, process-tracing is necessary to help determine whether the one independent variable that differs between two most similar cases is indeed causally related to the differences between these cases’ outcomes. Process-tracing can also help identify variables and interactions among them that have been previously overlooked.501 The inductive side of typological theorizing and process-tracing provides opportunities for researchers to identify variables they have not already thought to include. This does not guarantee that all relevant variables will be identified, but typological theorizing provides a technique for identifying deviant cases that are likely to provide clues on omitted variables, and process-tracing provides a means for exploring where those clues lead. Process-tracing on typical cases can also point to overlooked variables. Indeed, one of the most visible and important contributions of case study methods has been to identify causal variables left out of earlier analyses. This is evident in the literature on deterrence, for example, where case studies have added variables on psychological dynamics and domestic politics to spare deductive theories that included only interests, capabilities, and simple cost-benefit calculations.502

Similarly, the combination of typological theory and process-tracing can incorporate and help identify interactions effects. If a researcher has deductively outlined the interactions he or she expects in a type of case, process-tracing can test for their presence. If the researcher has only identified the configuration of variables that defines the type but has not specified the interactions among them, process-tracing can help identify inductively the interactions that took place in cases of the specified type.503

An Extended Example: Burden Sharing in Contemporary Security Coalitions

The above criteria for first delineating and then reducing the property space, specifying the research design, and selecting cases make it possible to reduce significantly the number of typological categories and cases to be studied. The use of a preliminary typological theory for case selection is in fact one of typological theory’s most important functions. An example, involving two related studies of alliance burden-sharing in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf conflict by Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold, and Danny Unger, illustrates this process. The first study used existing theories to identify five variables that should affect alliance contributions: “a state’s ability to contribute (from collective action theory); the specific threats Iraq presented to the potential contributor (balance of threat theory); the potential contributor’s security dependence on the United States (alliance security dilemma theory); the issue-specific strength of the state vis-à-vis that of the society (strong state/weak state theory); and the power and interests of top government officials (bureaucratic politics theory).”504

This study used a preliminary assessment of interactions among these variables to help guide case selection, and then used the resulting cases to inductively refine and codify a better-specified typological theory. The second study added a sixth variable, “lessons that leaders drew from previous alliance experiences” (learning theory), and it tested the typological theory from the first study against additional cases.505

The dependent variable in both studies was differentiated into three kinds of alliance contributions: military, political, and economic. The resulting property space in the first study was complex, with thirty-two possible types of different combinations of independent variables, and three dichotomous outcome variables (or eight possible outcomes), yielding 256 possible types if all variables are treated as dichotomous (the second study involved an even more complex space of 512 possible types due to the added independent variable). Table 11.1 presents a version of the typological theory