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under certain conditions link causes to effects also fail to provide specific guidance to those in search of policy guidance. For example, a theory may address the contribution a specific democratic norm makes to the fact that democracies have rarely fought one another—but without contingent generalizations on the conditions under which the norm is actualized and those under which it is overridden by other mechanisms, such a theory cannot tell policymakers whether they should, say, promote the adoption of this norm in newly democratic states. In contrast, middle-range typological theories, which identify recurring conjunctions of mechanisms and provide hypotheses on the pathways through which they produce results, provide more contingent and specific generalizations for policymakers and allow researchers to contribute to more nuanced theories. For example, one typological theory identifies subtypes of ways in which deterrence might fail: through a fait accompli or series of limited probes by a challenger, through a misperception of the adversary’s will or capabilities, through the intrusion of domestic politics into decision-making, and so on.

The next section of this introduction discusses six reasons why we have undertaken the task of codifying case study practices and theory. We then offer a definition of case studies, outline their advantages and limitations, and conclude with a short discussion of the plan of the book.

Advances in Case Study Methods

The time seemed ripe to offer a book that would allow readers to view and assimilate advances and debates in case study methods and that might help these methods find wider use and acceptance. First, interest in theory-oriented case studies has increased substantially in recent years, not only in political science and sociology, but even in economics—arguably the most ambitious social science in its epistemological aspirations. Scholars in these and other disciplines have called for a “return to history,” arousing new interest in the methods of historical research and the logic of historical explanation, discussed in Chapter 10.15

Second, several developments in the philosophy of science in the past three decades, discussed in Chapter 7, have provided a firmer foundation for case study methods. In particular, the “scientific realist” school of thought has emphasized that causal mechanisms—independent stable factors that under certain conditions link causes to effects—are central to causal explanation. This has resonated with case study researchers’ use of process-tracing either to uncover evidence of causal mechanisms at work or to explain outcomes. We also find Bayesian logic useful in assessing how “tough” a test a particular case poses to a theory, and how generalizable the results are from a given case. This logic helps to refine Harry Eckstein’s discussion of using crucial, most-likely, and least-likely cases to test theories. A crucial case is one in which a theory that passes empirical testing is strongly supported and one that fails is strongly impugned. Since cases suitable for such doubly discriminating tests are rare, Eckstein emphasized the inferential value of instances where a theory fails to fit a case in which it is most likely to be true, and hence the theory is strongly undermined, or fits a case in which it is least likely to be true, and thus is convincingly supported.16

Third, we wished to engage contemporary debates among rational choice theorists, structuralists, historical institutionalists, social constructivists, cognitive theorists, postmodernists, and others, who at times may see themselves as having a stake in debates over case study or other methods. We argue that theoretical arguments are for the most part separable from methodological debates and that case study methods have wide applicability. For example, much of the early political science research on rational choice theories relied on formal models and statistical tests, but a growing number of rational choice theorists are realizing that case study methods can also be used