Do controlled comparisons still have a place in comparative politics? Long criticized by quantitatively oriented methodologists, this canonical approach has increasingly been critiqued by qualitative methodologists who recommend greater focus on within-case analysis and the confinement of causal explanations to particular cases. Such advice accords with a welcome shift from a combative “tale of two cultures” toward mutual respect for research combining qualitative and quantitative methods in the simultaneous pursuit of internal and external validity. This article argues that controlled comparisons remain indispensable amid this “multimethod turn,” explicating how they too can generate both internal and external validity when their practitioners (a) craft arguments with general variables or mechanisms, (b) seek out representative variation, and (c) select cases that maximize control over alternative explanations. When controlled comparisons meet these standards, they continue to illuminate the world’s great convergences and divergences across nation-states in a manner that no other methods can surpass.
AdcockRobertCollierDavid. (2001). Measurement validity: A shared standard for qualitative and quantitative research. American Political Science Review, 95, 529-546.
2.
AspinallEdward. (1996). The broadening base of political opposition in Indonesia. In RodanGarry (Ed.), Political oppositions in industrializing Asia (pp. 175-195). New York, NY: Routledge.
3.
BowieKatherine A. (1997). Rituals of national loyalty: An anthropology of the state and the village scout movement in Thailand. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
4.
BrownleeJason. (2007). Authoritarianism in an age of democratization. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
5.
CallahanMary. (2003). Making enemies: War and state building in Burma. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
6.
CollierDavidLaPorteJodySeawrightJason. (2012). Putting typologies to work: Concept formation, measurement, and analytic rigor. Political Research Quarterly, 65, 217-232.
7.
CollierRuth BerinsCollierDavid. (1991). Shaping the political arena: Critical junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8.
DarlingFrank. (1971). Political parties in Thailand. Pacific Affairs, 44, 228-241.
9.
DionDouglas. (1998). Evidence and inference in the comparative case study. Comparative Politics, 30, 127-145.
10.
DonerRichardRitchieBryanSlaterDan. (2005). Systemic vulnerability and the origins of developmental states: Northeast and Southeast Asia in comparative perspective. International Organization, 59, 327-361.
11.
ErtmanThomas. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
12.
GeddesBarbara. (2003). Paradigms and sand castles: Theory building and research design in comparative politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
13.
GeorgeAlexanderBennettAndrew. (2004). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
14.
GerringJohn. (2007). Case study research: Principles and practices. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
15.
GoodfellowRob. (1995). Api Dalam Sekam: The new order and the ideology of anticommunism (Working Paper No. 95). Clayton, Australia: Monash University Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
16.
GreeneKenneth. (2007). Why dominant parties lose: Mexico’s democratization in comparative perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
17.
Grzymala-BusseAnna. (2002). Redeeming the communist past: The regeneration of communist parties in East Central Europe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
18.
HefnerRobert. (2000). Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
19.
KalyvasStathis. (2006). The logic of violence in civil war. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
20.
KingGaryKeohaneRobert O.VerbaSidney. (1994). Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
21.
KurzmanCharles. (2008). Democracy denied, 1905–1915: Intellectuals and the fate of democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
LevitskyStevenWayLucan. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the cold war. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
23.
LiebermanEvan. (2003). Race and regionalism in the politics of taxation in Brazil and South Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
24.
LiebermanEvan. (2005). Nested analysis as a mixed method strategy for comparative research. American Political Science Review, 99, 435-452.
25.
LijphartArend. (1975). The comparable-cases strategy in comparative research. Comparative Political Studies, 8, 158-175.
26.
LincolnYvonneGubaEgon. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
27.
LuebbertGregory. (1991). Liberalism, fascism, or social democracy: Social classes and the political origins of regimes in interwar Europe. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
28.
MagaloniBeatriz. (2006). Voting for autocracy: Hegemonic party survival and its demise in Mexico. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
29.
MahoneyJames. (2010). Colonialism and postcolonial development: Spanish America in comparative perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
30.
MahoneyJamesGoertzGary. (2006). A tale of two cultures: Contrasting quantitative and qualitative research. Political Analysis, 14, 227-249.
31.
McCoyAlfred W. (1999). Closer than brothers: Manhood at the Philippine military academy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
32.
McKeownTimothy. (1999). Case studies and the statistical worldview. International Organization, 53, 161-190.
33.
MigdalJoel. (1988). Strong societies and weak states: State-society relations and state capabilities in the third world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
34.
MillJohn Stuart. (2002). A system of logic: Ratiocinative and inductive. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific. (Original work published 1843)
35.
MooreBarrington. (1966). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston, MA: Beacon.
36.
MorellDavidSamudavanijaChai-anan. (1981). Political conflict in Thailand: Reform, reaction, revolution. Cambridge, UK: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain.
37.
MortimerRex. (1974). Traditional modes and communist movements: Change and protest in Indonesia. In LewisJohn Wilson (Ed.), Peasant rebellion and communist revolution in Asia (pp. 99-124). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
38.
NielsenRich. (2012). Case selection via matching (Working paper). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Department of Government.
39.
PosnerDaniel. (2006). Institutions and ethnic politics in Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
40.
PrudhisanJumbala. (1992). Nation-building and democratization in Thailand: A political history. Bangkok, Thailand: Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute.
41.
PrzeworskiAdamTeuneHenry. (1970). The logic of comparative social inquiry. New York, NY: Wiley-Interscience.
42.
PutnamRobert. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
SartoriGiovanni. (1970). Concept misinformation in comparative politics. American Political Science Review, 64, 1033-1053.
44.
ScheinerEthan. (2004). Democracy without competition in Japan. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
45.
SekhonJason. (2004). Quality meets quantity: Case studies, conditional probability, and counterfactuals. Perspectives on Politics, 2, 281-293.
46.
SkocpolTheda. (1979). States and social revolutions: A comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
47.
SkocpolThedaSomersMargaret. (1980). The uses of comparative history in macro-social theory. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22, 174-197.
48.
SlaterDan. (2010). Ordering power: Contentious politics and authoritarian leviathans in Southeast Asia. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
49.
SmithBenjamin. (2007). Hard times in the lands of plenty: Oil politics in Iran and Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
50.
TarrowSidney. (1996). Making social science work across space and time: A critical reflection on Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. American Political Science Review, 90, 389-397.
51.
TarrowSidney. (2010). The strategy of paired comparison: Toward a theory of practice. Comparative Political Studies, 43, 230-259.
52.
TrimbergerEllen Kay. (1978). Revolutions from above: Military bureaucrats and development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
53.
TsaiLily. (2007). Accountability without democracy: Solidary groups and public goods provision in rural China. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
54.
TudorMaya. (in press). Twin births, divergent democracies: The social and institutional origins of regime outcomes in India and Pakistan. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
55.
VarshneyAshutosh. (2002). Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
56.
VarshneyAshutoshGublerJoshua. (2012). Does the state promote communal violence for electoral reasons?India Review, 11, 191-199.
57.
WaldnerDavid. (1999). State building and late development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
58.
WilkinsonSteven. (2004). Votes and violence: Electoral competition and ethnic riots in India. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
59.
WimmerAndreas. (2002). Nationalist exclusion and ethnic conflict: Shadows of modernity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
60.
WoodElisabeth Jean. (2000). Forging democracy from below: Insurgent transitions in South Africa and El Salvador. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
61.
ZiblattDaniel. (2006). Structuring the state: The formation of Italy and Germany and the puzzle of federalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
