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.
AarebrotF.BerglundS.. 1995. “Statehood, Secularization, Cooptation: Explaining Democratic Survival in Inter-war Europe—Stein Rokkan’s Conceptual Map Revisited.” Historical Social Research20:210–25.
2.
AhlquistJ.BreunigC.. 2012. “Model-based Clustering and Typologies in the Social Sciences.” Political Analysis20:92–112.
3.
AlaperoR.AllardtE.. 1978. “The Lapua Movement: The Threat of Rightist Takeover in Finland, 1930-32.” Pp. 122–41 in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe, edited by LinzJ. J.StepanA.. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
4.
AndersonP.1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London, UK: Verso.
5.
BaileyK. D.1973. “Monothetic and Polythetic Typologies and Their Relation to Conceptualization, Measurement, and Scaling.” American Sociological Review38:18–32.
6.
BaileyK. D.1994. Typologies and Taxonomies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
7.
BeachD.RohlfingI.. In press. Combining Set Theory and Process-tracing in Multi-method Research: Setting the Parameters of the Debate. Sociological Methods and Research.
8.
BennettA.ElmanC.. 2006. “Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods.” Annual Review of Political Science9:455–76.
9.
BermanS.1997. “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic.” World Politics49:401–29.
10.
CapocciaG.ZiblattD.. 2010. “The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond.” Comparative Political Studies43:931–68.
11.
CollierD.2014. “Comment: QCA Should Set Aside the Algorithms.” Sociological Methodology44:122–26.
12.
CollierD.LaPorteJ.SeawrightJ.. 2012. “Putting Typologies to Work.” Political Research Quarterly65:217–32.
13.
CoppedgeM.2012. Democratization and Research Methods. New York: Cambridge University Press.
14.
DowningB.1992. The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
15.
ElmanC.2005. “Explanatory Typologies in Qualitative Studies of International Politics.” International Organization59:293–326.
16.
ErtmanT.1997. Birth of the Leviathan. Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
17.
ErtmanT.1998. “Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Europe Revisited.” World Politics50:475–505.
18.
FearonJ.LaitinD.. 2008. “Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods.” Pp. 756–76 in The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology, edited by Box-SteffensmeierJ. M.BradyH. E.CollierD.. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
19.
FemiaJ.1972. “Barrington Moore and the Preconditions for Democracy.” British Journal of Political Science2:21–46.
20.
GeorgeA.BennettA.. 2005. Case Study and Theory Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press.
21.
GerringJ.2001. Social Science Methodology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
GlynnA.IchinoN.. 2014. “Increasing Inferential Leverage in the Comparative Method: Placebo Tests in Small-n Research.” Sociological Methods and Research. doi:10.1177/0049124114528879.
24.
GoertzG.2008. “Choosing Cases for Case Studies: A Qualitative Logic.” Newsletter of the APSA Section on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research6:11–14.
25.
GoertzG.MahoneyJ.. 2005. “Two-level Theories and Fuzzy-set Analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research33:497–538.
26.
GoldstoneJ.2003. “Comparative Historical Analysis and Knowledge Accumulation in the Study of Revolutions.” Pp.41–90 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by MahoneyJ.RueschemeyerD.. New York: Cambridge University Press.
27.
KarvonenL.2000. “Finland: From Conflict to Compromise.” Pp. 129–56 in Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919-1939, edited by Berg-SchlosserD.MitchellJ.. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
28.
KingG.KeohaneR.VerbaS.. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Scientific Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
29.
LazarsfeldP. F.BartonA. H.. 1951. “Qualitative Measurement in the Social Sciences: Classification, Typologies, and Indices.” Pp. 155–92 in The Policy Sciences, edited by LernerD.LasswellH. D.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
30.
LiebermanE. S.2005. “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-method Strategy for Comparative Research.” American Political Science Review99:435–42.
31.
LuebbertG. M.1991. Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy. Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
32.
MahoneyJ.2003a. “Strategies of Causal Assessment in Comparative Historical Analysis.” Pp. 337–72 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by MahoneyJ.RueschemeyerD.. New York: Cambridge University Press.
33.
MahoneyJ.2003b. “Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Historical Research: The Case of Democracy and Authoritarianism.” Pp. 131–74 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by MahoneyJ.RueschemeyerD.. New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
MahoneyJ.2004. “Comparative-historical Methodology.” Annual Review of Sociology30:81–101.
35.
MahoneyJ.2010. Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.
36.
MahoneyJ.RueschemeyerD.. 2003. “Comparative Historical Analysis: Achievements and Agendas.” Pp. 3–40 in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by MahoneyJ.RueschemeyerD.. New York: Cambridge University Press.
37.
MahoneyJ.GoertzG.. 2004. “The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research.” American Political Science Review98:653–69.
38.
MahoneyJ.GoertzG.. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis14:227–49.
39.
MikkelsenK.2015. “Negative Case Selection: Justifications and Consequences for QCA-based MMR.” Sociological Methods and Research. doi:10.1177/0049124115591015.
40.
MooreB.Jr. [1966] 1991. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. London, UK: Penguin Books.
41.
NielsenR.2014. “Case Selection via Matching.” Sociological Methods and Research. doi:10.1177/0049124114547054.
42.
RaginC.2000. Fuzzy-set Social Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
RaginC.2008. Redesigning Social Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
44.
RohlfingI.2008. “What You See and What You Get: Pitfalls and Principles of Case Selection of Nested Analysis in Comparative Research.” Comparative Political Studies41:1492–514.
45.
RohlfingI.2012. Case Studies and Causal Inference: An Integrative Framework. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
46.
RokkanS.1970. Citizens, Elections, Parties: Approaches to the Comparative Study of the Processes of Development. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget.
47.
SeawrightJ.GerringJ.. 2008. “Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options.” Political Research Quarterly61:294–308.
48.
SchneiderC.RohlfingI.. 2013. “Combining QCA and Process-tracing in Set-theoretic Multi-method Research.” Sociological Methods and Research42:559–97.
49.
SkocpolT.1973. “A critical review of Barrington Moore's social origins of dictatorship and democracy.” Politics and Society4(1):1–34.
50.
SkocpolT.1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
51.
SkocpolT.1984. “Emerging Agendas and Recurrent Strategies in Historical Sociology.” Pp. 356–91 in Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, edited by SkocpolT.. New York: Cambridge University Press.
52.
SlaterD.ZiblattD.. 2013. “The Enduring Indispensability of the Controlled Comparison.” Comparative Political Studies46:1301–27.
53.
SmithK.2002. “Typologies, Taxonomies, and the Benefits of Policy Classification.” Political Studies30:379–95.
54.
StephensJ.1989. “Democratic Transition and Breakdown in Western Europe, 1870-1939: A Test of the Moore Thesis.” American Journal of Sociology94:1019–77.
55.
TarrowSidney. 2010. “The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice.” Comparative Political Studies43:230–59.
56.
TillyC.1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States AD 990-1992. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
57.
TillyC.1997. “Means and Ends of Comparison in Macrosociology.” Comparative Social Research16:43–53.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
