Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences - Alexander L. George [156]
Emphasis is given to the need to ground empirical analysis in small-n research conducted within a well-developed theoretical framework. This is an essential requirement for coping with the limitations of studying a small number of cases.580 These authors’ methodological strategy makes use of analytical induction, a strategy that must be grounded in a cogent theoretical framework.581
The critical importance of case selection in small-n comparative studies is recognized; indeed, it is regarded as a more important concern in comparative historical research than in quantitative cross-national studies “because the latter typically reach for the largest number of cases for which relevant information is available.”582
Three types of case comparisons were analyzed. A chapter on advanced capitalist societies “takes as its central problems a comparative review of the democratization processes and the question of which democracies broke down in the interwar period and which did not.” The chapter on South American cases is of special interest “because political independence here came earlier than in other parts of the Third World and liberal ideas had a strong political appeal in this area during the nineteenth century, in which the fate of democracies was very different from the liberal centers of Europe.” This provides an opportunity to explore the relevance of factors that could not be studied in the more limited comparisons of advanced capitalist societies.
The chapter on Central America and the Caribbean “analyzes a startling contrast between the Spanish- and the English-speaking countries,” but “comes to conclusions quite different from a simplistic explanation in terms of the difference in cultural heritage.” 583
JACK A. GOLDSTONE, REVOLUTION AND REBELLION IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD. BERKELEY: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1991.
This prize-winning book is notable for formulating a detailed general explication of the nature and requirements of comparative history and for illustrating it in a study of revolution.584
This is not a study of all revolutions and rebellions, but like other books summarized in this section, it focuses on a subclass of such events, in this case revolutions and rebellions in the early modern period beginning in 1600. Goldstone notes that the English Revolution of 1640 was part of a wave of revolts from 1600 to 1660 that stretched across Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, and Ming China. From 1789 to 1848, “governments again shook and fell, not only in France, but all across Europe and in the Middle East and China.”585
The central question Goldstone addresses is “why these waves of crisis occurred on such a broad scale.”586 His theoretical framework consists of two interrelated parts. First, “an analysis of how world-wide population trends affected early modern societies”; and second, the use of a “conjunctural model” of state breakdown that addresses “how changes in economic, political, social, and cultural relations affect states and elites and different popular groups.”587 Goldstone emphasizes that these two features have been neglected in most previous studies by historians and political scientists who have underestimated the role of demography in political crises and have tended to develop one-sided social theory instead of recognizing that social order is maintained on a multiplicity of levels.
Recognizing that his focus on a subclass of revolutions limits the scope of his findings, the author emphasizes that the details of the causal model apply only to the early modern period. At the same time, he suggests that the basic principles of his model may be useful for understanding such crises in the more modern period.588 In order not to overwhelm the reader with an enormous mass of historical detail for so many cases, Goldstone adopts a research strategy that focuses first on a detailed treatment of the English Revolution of 1640, “building a full mathematical model of it, testing