The DOI matches its Crossref record; 78 of the 78 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Case Studies: Types, Designs, and Logics of Inference
Abstract
I focus on the role of case studies in developing causal explanations. I distinguish between the theoretical purposes of case studies and the case selection strategies or research designs used to advance those objectives. I construct a typology of case studies based on their purposes: idiographic (inductive and theory-guided), hypothesis-generating, hypothesis-testing, and plausibility probe case studies. I then examine different case study research designs, including comparable cases, most and least likely cases, deviant cases, and process tracing, with attention to their different purposes and logics of inference. I address the issue of selection bias and the “single logic” debate, and I emphasize the utility of multi-method research.
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Cites
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BackgroundFalsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
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“…not the end of inquiry, as the theory refined on the basis of deviant case analysis must be subject to subsequent testing against new evidence, whether in either largeN or small-N analysis, by applying the revised hypotheses to other cases or to unexamined aspects of the same case (Lakatos, 1970).”
JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
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Cited by
Selecting Appropriate Cases When Tracing Causal Mechanisms
Beach, D., & Pedersen, R. B. (2018) · Sociological Methods & Research · doi:10.1177/0049124115622510 · Cited by 198
Zhao, J., Feng, H., Chen, Q., & Garcia de Soto, B. (2022) · Journal of Building Engineering · doi:10.1016/j.jobe.2022.104028 · Cited by 192
Comparative Hypothesis Testing Via Process Tracing
Rohlfing, I. (2014) · Sociological Methods & Research · doi:10.1177/0049124113503142 · Cited by 85
Critical Event Analysis in Case Study Research
García-Montoya, L., & Mahoney, J. (2023) · Sociological Methods & Research · doi:10.1177/0049124120926201 · Cited by 62
Realist avenues to global International Relations
Foulon, M., & Meibauer, G. (2020) · European Journal of International Relations · doi:10.1177/1354066120926706 · Cited by 28
Metadata
- Authors
- Levy, J. S.
- Venue
- Conflict Management and Peace Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2008-02
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-18
- ISSN
- 0738-8942 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-9219
- OpenAlex
- W2096247380
- Cited by
- 1,050
- References
- 78
- FWCI
- 17.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
