scholarly journals The method of comparative-historical analysis: a tailor-made approach to public diplomacy research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik W. Ohnesorge
Keyword(s):  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Epistemological Perspective ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Methodological Eclecticism

AbstractIn view of the major methodological challenges which confront researchers in public diplomacy (PD), the paper recognizes the method of comparative-historical analysis (CHA) as an eminently suitable approach for robust empirical studies. The paper starts by exploring different conceptualizations and operationalizations of public diplomacy. Subsequently, four defining characteristics of CHA are identified: (1) CHA starts from a positivist epistemological perspective; (2) CHA-based research usually is concerned with “big questions;” (3) comparative methods are applied in CHA, either across different cases or within cases across time, allowing for in-depth analyses; (4) by considering respective starting points, specific historical developments, and cultural particulars, CHA is committed to methods drawn from historical research, including process tracing and causal narrative. The paper demonstrates that CHA, in view of these characteristics and with its highly interdisciplinary pedigree and methodological eclecticism, is eminently suited for studies exploring PD practices and outcomes. To provide a tailor-made approach for such endeavors, CHA is innovatively combined with the method of structured, focused comparison. Finally, drawing on both the different operationalizations of PD and the requirements of CHA, a comprehensive matrix for CHA-based PD research is presented, offering a tangible framework for future empirical analyses.

scholarly journals Explanatory Typologies as a Nested Strategy of Inquiry: Combining Cross-case and Within-case Analyses

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 1018-1048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Møller ◽  
Svend-Erik Skaaning
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Selection Procedures ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Nested Analysis

Explanatory typologies have recently experienced a renaissance as a research strategy for constructing and assessing causal explanations. However, both the new methodological works on explanatory typologies and the way such typologies have been used in practice have been affected by two shortcomings. First, no elaborate procedures for assessing the general explanatory power of a typological theory on the cross-case level have been devised. Second, rigorous selection procedures for within-case analysis are lacking. Against this background, we introduce a systematic measure that helps researchers assess the explanatory power on the cross-case level, first, within the scope set by a particular typological theory and, second, by investigating the transferability of the theory beyond these scope conditions via an increase in the number of cases. Drawing on recent methodological works on nested analysis, we show how researchers can identify key cases for process tracing based on the cross-case explanatory fit of the typological theory. We illustrate the purchase of our procedures by revisiting seminal studies from the field of comparative historical analysis.

Comparative-Historical Analysis in Contemporary Political Science

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Mahoney ◽  
Larkin Terrie
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Testing ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis

This article indicates that comparative historical analysis is complementary to statistical analysis because it deals with ‘causes of effects’ rather than ‘effects of causes’. It also presents some ideas about how one can tackle the problems posed by engaging in comparative historical inquiry. In addition, the article argues that comparative-historical analysis and statistical analysis pursue different research goals, and that while they both face methodological challenges, they both play an essential role in generating knowledge in political science. Comparative-historical studies that use regression analysis in the course of process tracing are not necessarily more powerful than comparative-historical studies that do not use any statistical testing. There is nothing inherently wrong with conducting comparative-historical work that does not include a statistical component (and vice versa).

Summary: Process Tracing and Comparative Methods

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Bennett ◽  
Tasha Fairfield ◽  
Hillel David Soifer
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Process Tracing

Authoritarian Rule of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Meierhenrich
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Hybrid Regimes ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
Society Research

What for many years was seen as an oxymoron—the notion of an authoritarian rule of law—no longer is. Instead, the phenomenon has become a cutting edge concern in law-and-society research. In this concluding chapter, I situate Fraenkel’s theory of dictatorship in this emerging research program. In the first section, I turn the notion of an authoritarian rule of law into a social science concept. In the second section, I relate this concept to that of the dual state and both to the political science literature on so-called hybrid regimes. Drawing on this synthesis, the third section makes the concept of the dual state usable for comparative-historical analysis. Through a series of empirical vignettes, I demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Fraenkel’s institutional analysis of the Nazi state. I show why it is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the legal origins of dictatorship, then and now.

Contextualizing Discrimination of Religious and Linguistic Minorities in South Thailand

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Mark Joll
Keyword(s):  
High Tide ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
World War ◽  
Intractable Conflict ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
Second World

Abstract This article explores how scholarship can be put to work by specialists penning evidence-based policies seeking peaceful resolutions to long-standing, complex, and so-far intractable conflict in the Malay-Muslim dominated provinces of South Thailand. I contend that more is required than mere empirical data, and that the existing analysis of this conflict often lacks theoretical ballast and overlooks the wider historical context in which Bangkok pursued policies impacting its ethnolinguistically, and ethnoreligiously diverse citizens. I demonstrate the utility of both interacting with what social theorists have written about what “religion” and language do—and do not—have in common, and the relative importance of both in sub-national conflicts, and comparative historical analysis. The case studies that this article critically introduces compare chapters of ethnolinguistic and ethnoreligious chauvinism against a range of minorities, including Malay-Muslim citizens concentrated in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. These include Buddhist ethnolinguistic minorities in Thailand’s Northeast, and Catholic communities during the second world war widely referred to as the high tide of Thai ethno-nationalism. I argue that these revealing aspects of the southern Malay experience need to be contextualized—even de-exceptionalized.

The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-545
Author(s):  
Mark Beeson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOne of the more striking, surprising, and optimism-inducing features of the contemporary international system has been the decline of interstate war. The key question for students of international relations and comparative politics is how this happy state of affairs came about. In short, was this a universal phenomenon or did some regions play a more important and pioneering role in bringing about peaceful change? As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay suggests that Western Europe generally and the European Union in particular played pivotal roles in transforming the international system and the behavior of policymakers. This helped to create the material and ideational conditions in which other parts of the world could replicate this experience, making war less likely and peaceful change more feasible. This argument is developed by comparing the experiences of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their respective institutional offshoots. The essay uses this comparative historical analysis to assess both regions’ capacity to cope with new security challenges, particularly the declining confidence in institutionalized cooperation.

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