What Can You Do With a Single Case? How to Think About Ethnographic Case Selection Like a Historical Sociologist

2020 ◽  
pp. 004912411990121
Author(s):  
Josh Pacewicz
Keyword(s):  
External Validity ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Comparative Historical Sociology ◽  
Empirical Generalization ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Validity Claims

Most social scientists agree that case studies are useful for “theory building,” but ethnographic methods papers often look to survey research for case selection strategies. This is due to a common but untenable distinction between theoretical and empirical generalization, which obscures how theoretically inclined ethnographers make implicit external validity claims. I analyze several exemplary ethnographies to show that (a) the distinction between theoretically and empirically oriented ethnography revolves around competing conventions for making claims that others accept as provisionally externally valid, (b) comparative-historical sociology provides a framework for evaluating how theoretically oriented ethnographies make such claims, and (c) each approach to making validity claims is optimized by different kinds of cases. Empirically oriented ethnographies make inductive claims via “pointy” cases wherein a phenomenon is pronounced or bifurcated. Theoretically oriented ethnographers are like post–Millian historical sociologist who triangulate past studies with resolutive or negative cases to make constitutive arguments.

Improving the External Validity of Conjoint Analysis: The Essential Role of Profile Distribution

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon de la Cuesta ◽  
Naoki Egami ◽  
Kosuke Imai
Keyword(s):  
Conjoint Analysis ◽  
Real World ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
The Other ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Actual Distribution ◽  
Open Source Software Package ◽  
Profile Distribution

Abstract Conjoint analysis has become popular among social scientists for measuring multidimensional preferences. When analyzing such experiments, researchers often focus on the average marginal component effect (AMCE), which represents the causal effect of a single profile attribute while averaging over the remaining attributes. What has been overlooked, however, is the fact that the AMCE critically relies upon the distribution of the other attributes used for the averaging. Although most experiments employ the uniform distribution, which equally weights each profile, both the actual distribution of profiles in the real world and the distribution of theoretical interest are often far from uniform. This mismatch can severely compromise the external validity of conjoint analysis. We empirically demonstrate that estimates of the AMCE can be substantially different when averaging over the target profile distribution instead of uniform. We propose new experimental designs and estimation methods that incorporate substantive knowledge about the profile distribution. We illustrate our methodology through two empirical applications, one using a real-world distribution and the other based on a counterfactual distribution motivated by a theoretical consideration. The proposed methodology is implemented through an open-source software package.

Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology.

1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Lawrence A. Scaff ◽  
Stephen Kalberg
Keyword(s):  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Comparative Historical Sociology

scholarly journals To Build a Notion: US State Department Nation Building Expertise and Postwar Settlements in 20th Century East Central Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-89
Author(s):  
Liliana Riga ◽  
James Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
State Department ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The State ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
Comparative Historical Sociology ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Collection Practices ◽  
A Site

This article offers a contribution to the sociology of social science knowledge practices and expertise through the empirical lens of US nation building policies. Drawing on archival materials, including the State Department's Freedom of Information Act documents, and interviews with key policymakers we offer a comparative historical sociology of the US State Department as a site of nation building knowledge and expertise. In examining the evolving character of nation building expertise in three key moments across the twentieth century, we find that as nation building expertise and its attendant knowledge practices were redefined and institutionally relocated, the essential character of the expertise and data collection practices that were valorized shifted from social scientism in the 1910s to geopolitical empiricism in the 1940s to liberal legalism in the 1990s. This changing character of nation building knowledge practices at the State Department had an effect on the substance of US nation building policy.

Quelle(s) stratégie(s) adopter pour sélectionner des cas dans une recherche qualitative ? Illustration à partir d’une recherche comparative sur les changements dans la structure du pouvoir exécutif en Equateur

2021 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
María-Imelda Robalino ◽  
Christian de Visscher
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Sequential Combination ◽  
Two Stages

What strategies should be adopted to select cases in a qualitative research ? Illustration from a comparative study on the changes in the structure of the executive branch in Ecuador. In a qualitative research design – particularly a comparative one - case selection is undoubtedly one of the most critical issues. The literature proposes a series of individual selection strategies, but in practice, researchers use them in combination. This discrepancy between theory and practice motivated us to propose a sequential combination of qualitative techniques for case selection that meet four objectives: to achieve variation in outcome, to respect the diversity of the set, to highlight the different degrees of a continuum, and to highlight the substantial importance of each case. The process was carried out in two stages: first, a pre-selection made directly by the researcher, and second the selection itself, carried out with the participation of experts by means of the Delphi method. The empirical basis of the proposal is the design of a comparative research on changes in the structure of executive power in Ecuador during the three presidential terms of Rafael Correa Delgado (2007–2009, 2009–2013, 2013–2017).

The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and Its Laws of Race Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-42
Author(s):  
Robert Vitalis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Science ◽  
The Way

We now know that the ‘birth of the discipline’ of international relations in the United States is a story about empire. The foundations of early international relations theory are set in not just international law and historical sociology but evolutionary biology and racial anthropology. The problem is the way in which scholars today deal with the place of race in the thought of John Hobson, Paul Reinsch, and virtually all other social scientists of the era. The strand of thought that still resonates in our own time about empire, states, and the like is raised up and depicted as the scientific or theoretical core in the scholars’ work, while the strand that involves now archaic racial constructs is downgraded and treated instead as mere ‘language’, ‘metaphors’, and ‘prejudices’ of the era. To undo this error and recover in full the ideas of early international relations theorists it is necessary to bring the work of historians of conservative and reform Darwinism to bear on the first specialists and foundational texts in international relations.

Is There a (Viable) Crucial-Case Method?

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gerring
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Case Study Method ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Science Disciplines

Case study researchers use diverse methods to select their cases, a matter that has elicited considerable comment and no little consternation. Of all these methods, perhaps the most controversial is the crucial-case method, first proposed by Harry Eckstein several decades ago. Since Eckstein’s influential essay, the crucial-case approach has been used in a multitude of studies across several social science disciplines and has come to be recognized as a staple of the case study method. Yet the idea of any single case playing a crucial (or critical) role is not widely accepted. In this article, the method of the crucial case is explored, and a limited defense (somewhat less expansive than that envisioned by Eckstein) of that method is undertaken. A second method of case-selection, closely associated with the logic of the crucial case, is introduced: the pathway case.

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