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Middle-range theories carefully delimit the scope of their findings to each particular subclass of a general phenomenon. Individual middle-range theories of each specific subclass constitute building blocks for constructing broader but also internally differentiated theories of a general phenomenon. Middle-range theories, as noted in Chapter 12, are particularly relevant for the development of policy-relevant theoretical findings—or “generic knowledge,” as they are sometimes called—of strategies and problems repeatedly encountered in different contexts in the conduct of foreign policy.

In sum, Parts II and III provide a manual for developing theory through a variety of case study methods. We have attempted to make this manual as “user-friendly” as possible. We hope that it provides an important, usable approach for efforts to raise the standards for case study research and to explicate the procedures for doing so, the two objectives for our study we have pursued for several decades.

Part II

How to Do Case Studies

Chapter 3

The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison

The method and logic of structured, focused comparison is simple and straightforward. The method is “structured” in that the researcher writes general questions that reflect the research objective and that these questions are asked of each case under study to guide and standardize data collection, thereby making systematic comparison and cumulation of the findings of the cases possible. The method is “focused” in that it deals only with certain aspects of the historical cases examined. The requirements for structure and focus apply equally to individual cases since they may later be joined by additional cases.

The method was devised to study historical experience in ways that would yield useful generic knowledge of important foreign policy problems. The particular challenge was to analyze phenomena such as deterrence in ways that would draw the explanations of each case of a particular phenomenon into a broader, more complex theory. The aim was to discourage decision-makers from relying on a single historical analogy in dealing with a new case.151

Before we discuss each of these two characteristics of structured, focused comparison, it will be instructive to show how they improve upon previous case study approaches. Following the end of World War II, many political scientists were quite favorably disposed toward or even enthusiastic about the prospect of undertaking individual case studies for the development of knowledge and theory. Many case studies were conducted, not only in the field of international relations but also in public administration, comparative politics, and American politics. Although individual case studies were often instructive, they did not lend themselves readily to strict comparison or to orderly cumulation. As a result, the initial enthusiasm for case studies gradually faded, and the case study as a strategy for theory development fell into disrepute.152 In 1968 James Rosenau critiqued case studies of foreign policy and called attention to their nonscientific, noncumulative character. These studies of foreign policy by political scientists and historians, Rosenau observed, were not conducted in ways appropriate for scientific inquiry. In his view, most of them lacked “scientific consciousness” and did not accumulate. Individual studies may have made interesting contributions to knowledge, but a basis for systematic comparison was lacking.153

Writers in other fields of political science offered similar critiques of extant case studies. In 1955, Roy Macridis and Bernard Brown criticized the old “comparative politics” for being, among other things, not genuinely comparative. These earlier studies consisted mainly of single case studies which were often essentially descriptive and monographic rather than theory-oriented. In the field of public administration, similar concerns were expressed, and, in the