Triangulating Area Studies, Not Just Methods: How Cross-Regional Comparison Aids Qualitative and Mixed-Method Research (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Area studies scholarship, while it has been indispensable for the development of social scientific knowledge, risks becoming marginalized in the absence of concerted efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance to social science disciplines as they now stand. This chapter introduces a volume designed to showcase comparative area studies (CAS) -- a broad approach that explicitly seeks to leverage both the in-depth local knowledge of the area studies tradition and the use of the comparative method to generate portable "middle range" theories. CAS incorporates familiar elements from past comparative research, but draws them together into a coherent strategy for balancing context-sensitive understandings of diverse locales with cross-regional qualitative research on questions that matter to social science disciplines. This approach is not intended to subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to "middle range" theoretical arguments of interest to both area studies and the social sciences. The remainder of the volume is divided into two parts. The first part of the volume considers - from different vantage points - the epistemological, methodological and practical issues underlying CAS and cross-regional comparative research. While acknowledging the challenges and risks involved, the authors emphasize the distinctive gains from extending one's field of vision beyond one’s primary area of expertise. The second part of the volume presents studies that demonstrate how creatively designed contextualized comparisons across two or more regions can produce novel insights into research questions ranging from protests and rebellions to anti-corruption campaigns, resource booms, and the organization of production. A final chapter recasts the significance of CAS in light of current methodological debates over the role and utility of qualitative research, suggesting that contextualized comparison across regions can partly compensate for some of the blind spots in the most common forms of qualitative and mixed-method research. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that the pursuit of area expertise and the search for social scientific knowledge need not be a zero-sum game as long as we make a conscious effort to connect scholarly debates taking place within separate area studies communities to each other and to theoretical debates unfolding in social science disciplines.
Comparative Area Studies: Epistemological and Methodological Foundations and a Practical Application
Vestnik RUDN. International Relations, 2020
In recent decades, area studies have been transformed from mostly descriptive ethnographic and historical accounts to theory-oriented and analytical approaches. They retain some of their depth and cultural specificity, but have been widened in a comparative sense to come up with some broader social scientific explanations. This has been enhanced by more recent systematic comparative methods such as “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” (QCA) and related procedures, which are particularly suitable for medium-N studies of specific regions at the macro-level and cross-area analyses in contrast to more common statistical approaches. This paper discusses the epistemological background of this approach as well as recent methodological developments. As an illustration, it provides an example of an ongoing large international “cross-area” research project concerned with successful democratic transformations in different world regions and more recent threats to democratic stability and some of ...
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
Two convictions lie at the heart of this volume. First, area studies scholarship remains indispensable for the social sciences, both as a means to expand our fount of observations and as a source of theoretical ideas. Second, this scholarship risks becoming marginalized without more efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance and utility. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is one such effort, seeking to balance attention to regional and local contextual attributes with use of the comparative method in search of portable causal links and mechanisms. CAS engages scholarly discourse in relevant area studies communities while employing concepts intelligible to social science disciplines. In practice, CAS encourages a distinctive style of small-N analysis, cross-regional contextualized comparison. As the contributions to this volume show, this approach does not subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to “middle range” theoretical arguments of interest to both ar...
Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, 2020
The tremendous value of Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is difficult to overstate, as CAS scholars appear to accomplish the impossible: reaching broad-ranging conclusions from cross-case comparisons spanning two or more geographic regions, while still incorporating the sort of deep and detailed knowledge of people and places that is the hallmark of classic area studies. CAS researchers not only showcase the approach's great strengths; they also encourage more work along these lines, since CAS contributions comprise only around 15 percent of recent works in comparative politics (Ahram, Köllner, and Sil 2018, 17). With this encouragement comes some welcome advice, including a push for more precisely conceptualized variables so that they are portable across contexts, admonitions against the assumption that geographic proximity defines the full population of cases to which one's theory applies, and a reminder that idiosyncratic factors are no less important than systematic condit...
Area Studies, Comparative Politics, and the Role of Cross-Regional Small-N Comparison
Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (QMMR) Section Newsletter, 2009
Area‐focused scholarship of all varieties – ranging from case studies intended to explore general hypotheses to context‐bound narratives generated through ethnography or discourse analysis – have long contributed to the richness and vibrancy of the field of comparative politics, sometimes generating enduring concepts, sometimes reinforcing or challenging prevailing general theories. The question for comparativists is not whether area studies ought to have a place in the field of comparative politics but rather how to generate productive conversations between area studies and scholars working on general theories and models. Such conversations are not going to be jump‐started by simply noting the value of area‐focused scholarship. This is precisely why I have focused on the mediating role of cross‐regional comparative research in highlighting the connections between different clusters of area‐focused scholarship and general theoretical and methodological debates in the field. Unfortunately, the dynamics of methodological debates are such that those partial to small‐N comparison have typically preferred to go closer to the ground, seeking the cover of area‐specific expertise rather than reaffirming the analytic leverage small‐N analysis is designed to provide. In light of this state of affairs, it is worth applauding the handful of studies that have boldly embarked on cross‐regional comparison, recognizing the limitations of this approach but standing fast in highlighting its distinctive payoffs. But, the broader argument for reviving cross‐ regional small‐N comparison has to do with its distinctive dialogical benefits – that is, the role it can play in "horizontally" connecting diverse area-studies research communities and "vertically" bridging the gulf that continues to separate area‐studies communities from generalists in comparative politics. If this latter gulf is not reduced, area specialists could find themselves further misunderstood and marginalized, and the field of comparative politics will be impoverished as a result.
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 2007
Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel bietet eine Einführung in jüngere Debatten über Area Studies und ihren weniger bekannten "Cousin" Vergleichende Area Studies. Obwohl aus politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive verfasst, beziehen sich viele der in dem Artikel behandelten Aspekte auch auf andere Disziplinen. Wir zeigen zunächst einige der Entwicklungen und Debatten auf, die auf die Area Studies seit Ende des Kalten Krieges eingewirkt haben. Im Anschluss weisen wir auf einige zeitgenössische Verständnisse von Area Studies hin und präsentieren unsere eigene Definition von Vergleichenden Area Studies. Die Bedeutung sowohl von Area Studies als auch Vergleichenden Area Studies wird in einem weiteren Schritt herausgearbeitet. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt im Folgenden zwei methodologischen Herausforderungen, vor denen Vergleichende Area Studies stehen: der Gebrauch von Konzepten und die Auswahl geeigneter Forschungsstrategien. Eine Zusammenfassung der zentralen Punkte schließt das Papier ab.
KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
This paper synthesizes methodological knowledge derived from comparative survey research and comparative politics and aims to enable researches to make prudent research decisions. Starting from the data structure that can occur in international comparisons at different levels, it suggests basic definitions for cases and contexts, i. e. the main ingredients of international comparison. The paper then goes on to discuss the full variety of case selection strategies in order to highlight their relative advantages and disadvantages. Finally, it presents the limitations of internationally comparative social science research. Overall, the paper suggests that comparative research designs must be crafted cautiously, with careful regard to a variety of issues, and emphasizes the idea that there can be no one-fits-all solution.
Area Studies and Comparative Area Studies: A Primer on Recent Debates and Methodological Challenges
In this paper 1 we provide an introduction to recent debates on area studies and its less well-known 'cousin' comparative area studies. We begin by noting some of the developments and debates that have surrounded area studies since the end of the Cold War. In section two of the paper we highlight some contemporary understandings of area studies and present our own definition of comparative area studies. The general importance of both area studies and comparative area studies is illustrated in section three. The penultimate section focuses on some of the methodological challenges comparative area studies are facing. We conclude by summing up the main points of the paper.
Area Studies Shifting Epistemologies in Area Studies
conception of causality, inclined to complex long-term processes as well as global interdependencies. From the perspective of Comparative Area Studies, the case of transitional justice studies testifies to the need of combing local, national, transnational, trans-local as well as global foci of analysis.