Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences - Alexander L. George [28]
Both proponents and critics of the existence of a democratic peace agree on the importance of process-tracing on causal mechanisms, and researchers who had once relied largely on statistical methods have turned to case study methods because of these methods’ ability to test causal mechanisms.108 Some have combined statistical and case study techniques. 109 Since the 1990s, scholars have used case study methods to test many of the hypothesized causal mechanisms and independent variables listed above, but there is not yet a consensus on which causal mechanisms might account for a democratic peace. However, case studies have been able to rule out the presence of some causal mechanisms in important cases. For example, the assertion that democratic mass publics oppose wars with other democracies does not hold for the Fashoda Crisis between Britain and France in 1898.110
Third, case studies can develop typological theories (theories on how different combinations of independent variables interact to produce different levels or types of dependent variables). Researchers have begun to identify the conditions under which specified types of democracies behave in various contexts to produce specific types of conflict behavior within democratic or mixed dyads.111 The resulting theories usually focus on interactions among combinations of variables, rather than variables considered in isolation.
The development of typological theories thus involves differentiating configurations of independent and dependent variables into qualitatively different “types,” such as types of war or types of democracy. The task of defining “war” and “democracy” is challenging for both statistical and case study researchers, and they respond to it differently. Statistical researchers attempt to develop rigorous but general definitions, with a few attributes that apply across a wide number of cases. Case study researchers usually include a larger number of attributes to develop more numerous types and subtypes, each of which may apply to a relatively small number of cases.112 In the context of the democratic peace, for example, case study researchers have suggested differentiating between centralized and decentralized democracies, and among democracies where leaders and mass publics either share or have different norms regarding the use of force vis-à-vis other democracies.113 It is also useful to distinguish among different kinds of peace. Alexander George has suggested, for example, that it is important to distinguish among three types of peace: “precarious peace,” which is the temporary cessation of hostilities when one side remains dissatisfied with the status quo and continues to see force as a legitimate means of changing it; “conditional peace,” such as the situation that existed during the Cold War, when the threat of mutual destruction by nuclear weapons helped deter war; and “stable peace,” when two states no longer even consider or plan for the possibility of using force against one another.114
Two examples illustrate particularly well the kind of typological theories that case studies can develop to model complex interactions of variables. The first is Susan Peterson’s model of how war was averted in the Fashoda Crisis in ways that are not entirely consistent with either liberal or realist views of the democratic peace. Peterson argues that systemic variables (such as military balance) interacted with state institutions and the preferences of leaders and public opinion in France and Britain to avert war. In Britain, she argues, the dovish Prime Minister Lord Robert Cecil (the Earl of Salisbury) was constrained by a strong and hawkish cabinet, parliament, and public, and was pushed into more confrontational policies than he would have liked. In France, the hawkish Foreign Minister Theophile Delcasse