Still Searching for the Value-Added

Abstract

What novel leverage for understanding the social world do set-theoretic comparative methods (STCM) offer? I have argued that although important methodological ideas underlie this method, many STCM techniques converge with existing quantitative tools of statistical modeling. Unfortunately, STCM scholars have often obscured this crucial point by instead emphasizing stark differences from quantitative tools. Here, I further develop two key arguments about these convergences by addressing the astute commentaries offered by Thiem et al. and Schneider: (a) Regarding necessary and sufficient conditions, STCM’s procedures for incorporating cases from a 2 × 2 table may yield erroneous conclusions that can easily be avoided by using more conventional techniques. (b) Regarding causal complexity, STCM and statistical interaction terms often provide the same information. These arguments demonstrate that STCM scholars have yet to establish distinctive advantages of their methods over statistical modeling. Furthermore, alternative qualitative tools offer considerably more promise than does STCM.