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11, footnote 24). The usefulness of the method of difference, despite its limitations, is defended also by John S. Odell, “Case Study Methods in International Political Economy,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May 2001), pp. 161-176.

313

Of particular interest is a special issue of Comparative Social Research (Vol. 16, 1997) devoted to methodological issues. Wide-ranging and valuable discussion of theoretical and methodological issues can be found in the publications of the comparative politics section of the American Political Science Association. Similar issues are intensively discussed in sociology as well. In addition to important publications by Charles Ragin, these developments in the social sciences as a whole are discussed in MacDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences.

314

Robert Jervis, “International History and International Politics: Why Are They Studied Differently?” in Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, eds., Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), p. 392.

315

King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, pp. 87-89.

316

Ragin, Fuzzy-Set Social Science, pp. 102 ff.

317

King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, pp. 44-45; 212-213.

318

David Collier, “The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change,”

319

Ragin, The Comparative Method, pp. 98, 113.

320

John Goldthorpe, “Current Issues in Comparative Macrosociology,” in Lars Mjoset et al., eds., Comparative Social Research, Vol. 16, p. 20, n. 8, 9.

321

Ragin, The Comparative Method, p. 98.

322

Ibid., p. 113.

323

Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, “A Qualitative Comparative Approach to Latin American Revolutions,” in Charles C. Ragin, ed., Issues and Alternatives in Comparative Social Research (Leiden, N.Y.: E.J. Brill, 1991), pp. 82-109.

324

Dietrich Rueschemeyer and John Stephens, “Comparative Approach to Latin American Revolutions,” in Ragin, ed., Issues and Alternatives, pp. 82-109.

325

Neil J. Smelser, “The Methodology of Comparative Analysis,” in Warwick and Osherson, Comparative Research Methods, pp. 77-78. Smelser integrated much, but not everything of relevance to the present chapter, in a later book, Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976).

326

Smelser, “The Methodology of Comparative Analysis,” p. 55.

327

Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” p. 688.

328

Adam Przeworski expressed these views in a personal communication to David Collier, as noted in Collier, “The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change.” Arend Lijphart believes that the “most different systems” design does not fit the definition of the comparative method and “should be assigned to the category of statistical analysis.” See “The Comparable-Cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” pp. 164-165.

329

One such case occurred during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Two groups of presidential advisers to John F. Kennedy comparable in all respects except one—their image of the Soviets—came up with different assessments of the threat implicit in Khrushchev’s ultimatum and, consistent with that, made different policy recommendations. See Alexander L. George, “The Causal Nexus Between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision-Making Behavior,” in Lawrence S. Falkowski, ed., Psychological Models in International Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 116-119.

330

This possibility was recognized by Lijphart. He called attention to “maximizing comparability” by analyzing a single country diachronically, a procedure which “generally offers a better solution to the control problem than comparison of two or more [cases].” See “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” p. 689.

331

Collier, “The Comparative Method,” p. 19. The reference is to the book by Donald T. Campbell and Julian C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963).

332

Ibid., pp. 20-21. Collier, too, provides a useful discussion of some