Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences - Alexander L. George [159]
The study does not make explicit use of the five design tasks of the structured, focused method. For example, the research design does not include a statement of the questions to be asked of each case in order to obtain the data necessary for assessing the author’s theory. The reader must infer from a reading of the case studies which questions were asked, not a difficult task since the author has stated the components of the theory in considerable detail.
ERIC STERN AND FREDERIK BYNANDER, EDS., CRISIS AND INTERNATIONALIZATION: EIGHT CRISIS STUDIES FROM A COGNITIVE-INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE. STOCKHOLM: THE SWEDISH AGENCY FOR CIVIL EMERGENCY PLANNING, 1998.
This book is one in a series under the supervision of Bengt Sundelius in a project aimed at building case banks drawn from several countries and from different types of crises in areas such as the military, financial, environmental, and health sectors.
In this unusually broad-spanning study, coherence and systematic comparison are achieved by employing a three-step approach. First, each crisis is described in considerable detail. Second, critical decision points in the crisis are identified, and a path-dependency analysis is undertaken that focuses on the crisis as experienced and managed by decision-makers. Third, causal analysis of each crisis addresses a number of specific questions, such as, “In which decision unit were crisis decisions made?” “To what extent was decision-making centralized?” “What were the group dynamics in the decision-making units?” “How and by whom were decisional problems framed?” “How was the flow and analysis of information managed?” “How did decision-makers deal with the media?” “What kind of leadership occurred within the decisional unit?” “What sequencing of decision points occurred during the crisis, and to what extent and how were responses to the crisis influenced by other issues, problems, and developments?”
This project aims to develop a variety of lessons from the study of past crises that may be helpful to crisis managers. To this end, the authors identify the kinds of problems that can be expected to emerge in crisis. In the concluding chapter, the editors of the volume discuss six themes that emerge from cross-case comparison of the crises analyzed. These themes are crisis prevention and mitigation, problem-framing and information processing, problems of value-complexity, the role of bureaucratic politics, the influence of the particular sequencing during a crisis, and how decisions were influenced by other developments.
Studies from International Relations
JOHN LEWIS GADDIS, STRATEGIES OF CONTAINMENT. NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1982.
This book, written by a leading diplomatic historian and specialist in American foreign policy, is a study of several variants of containment strategy employed by the United States since the beginning of the Cold War. It employs structured, focused comparison and makes use of process-tracing to elaborate the five distinct types of containment that were employed. It also makes an important general point that characterizes not only the concept of containment but all other strategies that states employ in the conduct of foreign policy.
Containment—like all other “strategies” such as deterrence, coercive diplomacy, détente, conciliation, etc.—is a general, abstract concept. Such general concepts do little more than to identify, as best one can, the critical variables embraced by a concept, and some identify the general logic associated with successful uses of that instrument of policy. Several characteristics of such strategic concepts limit their immediate usefulness for policymaking. The concept itself is not a strategy but merely the starting point for converting the