Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry [Hardcover]

Brings together chapters from more than a dozen leading methods scholars to revolutionize qualitative research design.Brings together chapters from more than a dozen leading methods scholars to revolutionize qualitative research design. Provides novel strategies for conducting comparative political research beyond the controlled comparisons typically taught in graduate methods courses.Brings together chapters from more than a dozen leading methods scholars to revolutionize qualitative research design. Provides novel strategies for conducting comparative political research beyond the controlled comparisons typically taught in graduate methods courses.Qualitative comparative methods  and specifically controlled qualitative comparisons  are central to the study of politics. They are not the only kind of comparison, though, that can help us better understand political processes and outcomes. Yet there are few guides for how to conduct non-controlled comparative research. This volume brings together chapters from more than a dozen leading methods scholars from across the discipline of political science, including positivist and interpretivist scholars, qualitative methodologists, mixed-methods researchers, ethnographers, historians, and statisticians. Their work revolutionizes qualitative research design by diversifying the repertoire of comparative methods available to students of politics, offering readers clear suggestions for what kinds of comparisons might be possible, why they are useful, and how to execute them. By systematically thinking through how we engage in qualitative comparisons and the kinds of insights those comparisons produce, these collected essays create new possibilities to advance what we know about politics.1. Rethinking comparison: an introduction Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith; Part I. Rethinking the Building Blocks of Comparison: 2. Beyond mill: why cross-case qualitative causal inference is weak, and why we should still compare Jasl3€