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By Root 929 0

” general questions are those highly likely to provide the data from the case studies that will be needed when one turns to drawing conclusions from the cases that contribute to meeting the research objectives of the study. The reader’s attention is called also to the Appendix, which describes the variety, flexibility, and ingenuity of research designs in some thirty studies within the field of American politics, comparative politics, and international relations. Reading these accounts will be helpful in designing one’s own study.

Chapter 5, “Phase Two: Carrying Out the Case Studies” provides guidance and cautions for doing case study analyses in ways likely to provide good data. And Chapter 6, “Phase Three: Drawing the Implications of Case Study Findings for Theory,” discusses various methods for using case results to meet the research objectives of a study.

Part III closely examines additional research methods available to case researchers, and presents chapters on process-tracing and typological theory, which we see as two of a researcher’s most important tools for empirically identifying causal mechanisms and for modeling phenomena that reflect complex causation. Graduate students may wish to consult these chapters as they select their methods, and then later as a check that they are using their chosen methods in a disciplined way.

Chapter 7 in Part III surveys recent developments in philosophy of science that are relevant for theory-oriented case study research. We call attention in particular to the emergence of the scientific realism school, which supports the emphasis we give to the role of causal mechanisms in explanation and to within-case analysis and process-tracing.

Chapter 8 provides a detailed discussion of the limitations of “controlled comparison,” which is still the standard comparative method. This chapter also discusses various ways to cope with these limitations. We offer an alternative to controlled comparison, the within-case method, which makes use of process-tracing in analyzing individual cases. Chapter 9 calls attention to another within-case method, the congruence method, which does not make use of process-tracing. Illustrations of both types of within-case analysis are provided.

Chapter 10 provides a detailed discussion of process-tracing, its different types and uses. Accompanying it is a discussion of similarities and differences between theory-oriented process-tracing and historical explanation.

Chapter 11 presents one of the most important contributions of our book: a discussion of how to develop typological theories of problems characterized by equifinality and complex causation. “Equifinality,” a term used in general systems theory, is referred to by some scholars as multiple causality. It identifies a pervasive characteristic of social phenomena, namely the fact that different causal processes can lead to similar outcomes of a given dependent variable. Equifinality complicates the task of theory development and testing and must be taken into account in the design and implementation of all research, not just case study investigation. We emphasize also that many real-world problems are characterized by considerable causal complexity, which also complicates the task of theory development. Both equifinality and causal complexity are discussed in detail at various points in the book. Both can be dealt with effectively in theory-oriented case study research that develops more limited conditional generalizations in lieu of broad-spanning universal or probabilistic generalizations.

Finally, we note in Chapter 12 the kind of theory for which case study research is particularly applicable. This is “middle-range” theory, to distinguish it from efforts to develop and apply broad-spanning paradigmatic theories such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism. In contrast, middle-range theory focuses on specific subtypes of a general phenomenon—for example, not all but each specific type of military intervention and not all but each type of effort to employ a particular variant of coercive diplomacy.