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The questions that I want to raise are related to Comparative Historical Methodology, which is tied to Comparative Historical Analysis (CHA), and what I call ordinary case study methods. Given that Comparative Historical Methodology and Analysis are closely linked to historical institutionalism, I refer to ordinary case study methods and case studies as those that are conducted in the context of a different theoretical approach, but which share with CHA the belief in empirical regularities that can be couched in general theoretical terms.
CHA, of which process tracing is an integral part, has a long and remarkable history in the social sciences (Skocpol, 2003). In addition to having produced outstanding empirical research, there has always been a debate about the methodology that underlies CHA. During recent years, the profile of CHA has been further sharpened (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003; Pierson, 2004) along with elaborations of the distinctive features of Comparative Historical Methodology (Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007; Mahoney, 2003; Mahoney, 2004; Mahoney and Villegas, 2007).1 In short (and at the risk of oversimplification), the key elements of Comparative Historical Methodology are: it aims to provide comprehensive explanations of outcomes in specific cases; it has a particular emphasis on well-crafted concepts and valid measurement; it encompasses tools with which one can search for necessary and sufficient conditions (of the deterministic and probabilistic sort); it has a focus on temporality, which includes, among other things, sequencing and path dependence.
A couple of very insightful elaborations of Comparative Historical Methodology (Mahoney, 2004; Mahoney and Terrie, 2008; Mahoney and Villegas, 2007) contrast it with the practice of quantitative research. While it is valuable to make this comparison, I find it much more difficult to distinguish Comparative Historical Methodology from ordinary case studies. This leads me to my first question: How is Comparative Historical Methodology related to and distinct from ordinary case study methodology? Personally, I find it difficult to sort out the differences between Comparative Historical Methodology and ordinary small-n research because there tends to be a good deal of overlap. For example, case study research is generally appraised as being attentive to sound...