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A. Most and Harvey Starr, Inquiry, Logic, and International Politics (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), chap. 5. Most and Starr use the phrase “domain specific laws” to characterize the phenomenon of equifinality. They use the term “substitutability” to characterize the opposite of equifinality (what is termed “multifinality” in general systems theory), namely the fact that similar independent variables can trigger different outcomes. Most and Starr discuss at some length the difficulties equifinality and multifinality create for efforts to develop unconditional generalizations or “laws” in much research on international relations. Most and Starr also emphasize the importance of what we refer to as process-tracing and middle-range theories of limited scope for subclasses of a phenomenon.

307

Ragin, The Comparative Method, pp. 39-44, 46. In his more recent book, Ragin again cautions against being overly impressed with “the relatively simple and straightforward research design” of the method of difference. Ragin, Fuzzy-Set Social Science, p. 9.

308

Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 5.

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Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 37-40; and Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers, “The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1980), pp. 174-197.

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Skocpol and Somers, “The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry,” p. 194.

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Elizabeth Nichols, “Skocpol on Revolutions: Comparative Analysis vs. Historical Conjuncture,” Comparative Social Research, Vol. 9 (1986), pp. 163-186; and Skocpol’s rejoinder, “Analyzing Causal Configuration in History: A Rejoinder to Nichols,” Comparative Social Research, Vol. 9 (1986), pp. 187-194. In her response to Nichols, Skocpol clearly recognizes that she relied on the equivalent of process-tracing as a check on her methods of comparison (p. 189). See also Jack Goldstone, “Methodological Issues in Comparative Macrosociology” (forthcoming), and his “Revolution, War, and Security” (manuscript 1995). In his major work, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), Goldstone provides a detailed discussion of the importance of case studies and process-tracing for explaining macro-political phenomena. See also William H. Sewell, Jr., “Three Temporalities: Toward An Eventful Sociology,” in Terrence J. MacDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966); and Tilly, “Means and Ends of Comparative Macrosociology,” pp. 43-53. David Waldner notes that Mill’s methods can be combined with process-tracing and adds that causal mechanisms are needed for purposes of explanation. David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 230-235. A detailed commentary on Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions is presented in James Mahoney, “Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisal in Macro-Causal Analysis,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 104, No. 4 (January 1999), pp. 1154-1196.

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Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, MIT Press, 1996). Van Evera believes that Mill’s methods are an aid to inductive theory making (p. 10), that the method of difference can be used in controlled comparisons to infer the operation of the antecedent conditions that must be present for theory to apply (p. 37). However, he also observes that “the method of difference is a fairly weak instrument for theory testing” and that the method of agreement is even weaker, but he does not elaborate (p. 47). And, in an interesting reference to one of his own studies some years ago, Van Evera indicates that only after its publication did he realize that he had employed process-tracing and that it had contributed to his theory testing (p.