Rethinking Social Inquiry Diverse Tools, Shared Standards [Hardcover]

Praise for the Second Edition: The new edition of Rethinking Social Inquiry is, quite simply, the best treatise yet on the intersection of qualitative and quantitative methods. The book places causal-process tracing on a new foundation and provides a framework for skeptically evaluating natural experiments. The discussions are conceptually, statistically, and historically rigorous; the examples will have broad appeal.I love this book and its pragmatic, ecumenical message. In an era where deep, if artificial, methodological divisions unnecessarily hamstring social research, this book is especially timely. Written by some of the most skilled and innovative methodologists in political science, the individual essays are consistently excellent. But it is the larger message about the need for methodological breadth and variety that will make the book such a valuable teaching tool.Praise for the First Edition: Rethinking Social Inquiry is a breakthrough book. It powerfully makes the case for social inquiry as a rigorous quest for valid causal inference that must exploit to the full the insights and strengths of both statistical and case-based methods. Brady and Collier and their fellow contributors show the pitfalls of mechanically applying dogmas from 'quantitative' or 'qualitative' extremes. Shared standards are possible; and researchers using diverse research designs can work together to build illuminating, empirically grounded theories. All political scientistsindeed all social scientistsshould read and reflect on this compelling set of arguments.Praise for the First Edition: King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry aimed at incorporating qualitative research methods into the conceptual framework of quantitative methodology. But was the attempt successful? What is the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methods? In this volume, Brady, Collier, and several other prominent social scientists address these questions in powerful essays. Everyone ilsD