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Case Study Research

Methodology module
Trinity Term 2014


Professor Giovanni Capoccia
Department of Politics and International Relations
Oxford University

Note: the class will meet in two separate groups. In the first meeting the groups will
meet together. This reading list is valid for both groups.

The module is taught in 4 two-hour sessions and analyzes some of the basic
methodological issues and tradeoffs in case study research and small-N comparisons.
Active participation of the students in class and preparation of weekly homework is
expected and is essential to receiving credits for the course. Having attended the
Research Design in Political Science graduate lecture course, or at least being familiar
with the materials covered in that course, is a prerequisite.

Among the topics covered in this module are the logic of small-N comparisons; case
selection strategies; counterfactual analysis; single-case studies and theory; process
tracing and within-case observation techniques; natural experiments and focused
comparisons; the use of primary and secondary sources in historical comparisons.

For credit, the students will write, in groups of two or three, a research memo replicating
existing (comparative) case studies and identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
More detailed information on assignments is provided in the first week of class.

General readings:
Brady, Henry and David Collier (eds.) 2010 Rethinking Social Inquiry, Lanham,
Rowman and Littlefield, second revised edition.
George, Alex and George Bennett 2005 Case Studies and Theory Development,
Boston, MIT Press.
Gerring, John 2007, Case Study Research, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
King, Gary, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994 Designing Social Inquiry:
Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.


Session 1 Introduction. Problem-, theory- and data-driven research.

After an introduction to the course and a discussion of the assignments, this session
discusses the strategies of choosing a topic for research, the use of different methods
of analysis, and modes of explanation in political science.

Readings
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Adcock, Robert 2009. Making Making Social Science Matter Matter to Us,
Journal of Theoretical Politics, 21, 1, 97-112.
Hall, Peter A. 2003. Aligning Ontology and Methodology in James Mahoney and
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social
Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shapiro, Ian 2006, The flight from reality in the human sciences, Yale University
Press, chapters 1 and 5.
Sil, Rudra 2004, Problems chasing methods or methods chasing problems? Research
Communities, Constrained Pluralism, and the Role of Eclecticism, in Shapiro, I.,
Rogers M. Smith and Tarek E. Masoud (eds.), Problems and Methods in the
Study of Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 307-321.
Snyder, Richard 2007, The Human Dimension of Comparative Research, in
Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder, Passion, Craft and Method in
Comparative Politics Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.


Session 2 Case studies and case selection

This session reviews the relationship of case study research with theory and tackles
the problem of case selection in comparative research. The discussion includes the
role of the choice of negative cases and counterfactual analysis in case study research.

Readings
Collier, David and James Mahoney 1996 Insights and Pitfalls: Selection Bias in
qualitative research, World Politics 49, 1, 56-91 (reprinted in Brady, H. and D.
Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004, 85-
101, first edition, 2004. Note that this chapter is not included in the second
edition of this book assigned for this course as a general reading)
Freedman, David A. 2010 On Types of Scientific Reasoning: The Role of
Qualitative Reasoning, in Brady, Henry and David Collier (eds.) Rethinking
Social Inquiry, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, second revised edition, 221-
236.
Mahoney, James, and Gary Goertz 2004, The Possibility Principle: Choosing
Negative Cases in Comparative Research, American Political Science Review,
98 (4), 653-670.
Van Evera, Stephen 1997, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, Ithaca,
Cornell UP, chapter 2.
On counterfactuals:
Belkin, Aaron, and Tetlock, Philip (eds.), 1996 Counterfactual Thought Experiments
in World Politics, Princeton, Princeton UP, chapter 1.
On natural experiments:
Dunning, T. 2012 Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press (you can also read TDs chapter on natural experiments in the
Brady and Colliers volume)

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Session 3 Within-case observation techniques and process tracing

This session focuses on strategies for within-case analysis in the context of the
discussion of different research design for single- and comparative case studies.

Readings
Chapters 9-10 of George and Bennett and 10-12 of Brady and Collier (see general
readings)
Campbell, Donald, 1975 Degrees of freedom and the case study, Comparative
Political Studies 8 (1), 168-93.
Beach, D. and Pedersen, R. B. 2013 Process-Tracing Methods. Foundations and
Guidelines, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, Ch 1 and 2.
Haggard, S. and R. Kaufman 2012 Inequality and Regime Change: Democratic
Transitions and the Stability of Democratic Rule, American Political Science
Review 106, 3, 495-516
Mahoney, James 2010 After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research,
World Politics 62, 1, 120-147.



Session 4 The use of primary and secondary sources in (comparative) case
study research

This session concentrates on the reliability, validity and selection bias problems
emerging from the undisciplined use of secondary sources in case study research.

Readings
Goldthorpe, John H., 2000, On Sociology. Numbers, Narratives, and the Integration
of Research and Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, Ch 2 and 3.
Lieshout, Robert S. et al. 2004 De Gaulle, Moravscik, and The Choice for Europe:
Soft Sources, Weak Evidence, Journal of Cold War Studies, 6, 4, 89-139.
Lustick, Ian S. 1996 History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple
Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias. American Political
Science Review 90, 3: 605-18.
Kreuzer, Marcus 2010, Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis: The Case
of the Origins of Proportional representation, American Political Science
Review, 104, 2, 369-392. (Also have a look at the articles by Boix and
Iversen/Soskice in the same symposium).
Trachtenberg, Marc 2006, The craft of international history. A guide to methods,
Princeton, Princeton UP. Chapters 1, 3, 5 and Appendices.
On replication:
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Symposium Openness in Political Science, PS Political Science and Politics 2014,
47(1), 19-83 (includes pieces on replication and transparency in both
quantitative and qualitative research)
Symposium on Research Registration, Political Analysis, Winter 2014, 1-47 (in
particular the introductory article by Humphreys et al).
On field research and data collection:
Symposium Fieldwork in Political Science: Encountering Challenges and Crafting
Solutions in PSPolitical Science and Politics, 2014, 47 (2) 391-417
Kapiszewski, Diana, Lauren Morris MacLean, and Benjamin Read. 2014. Field
Research in Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.