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In Analytic Narratives, we attempt to address several issues. First, many of us are engaged in in-depth case studies, but we also seek to contribute to, and to make use of, theory. How might we best proceed? Second, the historian, the anthropologist, and the area specialist possess knowledge of a place and time. They have an understanding of the particular. How might they best employ such data to create and test theories that may apply more generally? Third, what is the contribution of formal theory? What benefits are, or can be, secured by formalizing verbal accounts? In recent years, King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) and Green and Shapiro (1994) have provoked debate over these and related issues. In Analytic Narratives, we join in the methodological discussions spawned by their contributions.
In one sense, the aim of our book is quite modest: We hope to clarify the commonalities in approach used by a number of scholars, including us. We do not claim to be developing a brand new method. Rather, we are systematizing and making explicit-and labeling-what others also attempt.t In another sense, the aim of the book is ambitious; by trying to systematize we begin to force ourselves and others to lay out the rules for doing analytic narratives and to clarify how such an approach advances knowledge. We realize that our book is only a first step and concur with another of our reviewers: "As a method, analytic narrative is clearly still in its infancy, but it has promise" (Goldstone 1999, 533).
We have an additional aim: to transcend some of the current and unproductive "tribal warfare," especially between the new economic versus historical institutionalists and between advocates of unbounded and bounded rationality. We believe that each of these perspectives brings something of value, and to different degrees the essays in our book represent an integration of perspectives. By explicitly outlining an approach that relies on rational choice and mathematical models, we do not mean to imply that other approaches lack rigor but, rather, to reveal how to apply our tools in a useful and explanatory way. We wish to join the debate, not claim an end to it.
Part of that debate is among the five of us. Achieving a minimal degree of...