1

Comparative-Historical
Methods: An Introduction

Since the rise of the social sciences, researchers have used comparative-
historical methods to expand insight into diverse social phenomena
and, in so doing, have made great contributions to our understanding of
the social world. Indeed, any list of the most influential social scientists
of all time inevitably includes a large number of scholars who used
comparative-historical methods: Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl
Marx, Max Weber, Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, and Theda Skocpol,
are a few examples. Demonstrating the continued contributions of the
methodological tradition, books using comparative-historical methods
won one-quarter of the American Sociological Association’s award for
best book of the year between 1986 and 2010, despite a much smaller
fraction of sociologists using comparative-historical methods.
Given the contributions made by comparative-historical researchers, it
is apparent that comparative-historical methods allow social scientists to
analyze and offer important insight into perplexing and pertinent social
issues. Most notably, social change has been the pivotal social issue over
the past half millennium, and social scientists have used comparative-
historical methods to offer insight into this enormous and important
topic. State building, nationalism, capitalist development and industrial-
ization, technological development, warfare and revolutions, social move-
ments, democratization, imperialism, secularization, and globalization are
central processes that need to be analyzed in order to understand both the
dynamics of the contemporary world and the processes that created it;
and many—if not most—of the best books on these topics have used
comparative-historical methods.
Despite the great contributions made by comparative-historical analy-
ses of social change, there is very little work on exactly what comparative-
historical methods are. Unlike all other major methodological traditions

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 within the social sciences, there are no textbooks on comparative-historical
methods; moreover, present books reviewing comparative-historical analy-
sis touch on methods only briefly, focusing most attention on the types
of issues analyzed by comparative-historical scholars and important fig-
ures within the research tradition. Thus, comparative-historical methods
have produced some of the best works in the social sciences; many of the
best social scientists use them to analyze vitally important social issues,
but there is little discussion of what such methods actually are.
This omission is unfortunate for comparative-historical analysis; it is
also unfortunate for the social sciences in general. Indeed, the works and
issues analyzed by scholars using comparative-historical methods have
dominated the social sciences since their emergence, so an understand-
ing of comparative-historical methods helps improve our understanding
of the entire social scientific enterprise. Moreover, comparative-historical
methods—as their name implies—are mixed and offer an important
example of how to combine diverse methods. Given inherent problems
with social scientific analysis, combining methods is vital to optimize
insight, but competition and conflict between different methodological
camps limit methodological pluralism. Comparative-historical methods,
therefore, offer all social scientists an important template for how to gain
insight by combining multiple methods. Finally, yet related to this last
point, comparative-historical methods also offer an example of how to
deal with another dilemma facing the social sciences: balancing the par-
ticular with the general. The complexity of the social world commonly
prevents law-like generalizations, but science—given the dominance of
the natural sciences—privileges general causal explanations. The social
sciences are therefore divided between researchers who offer general
nomothetic explanations and researchers who offer particular ideo-
graphic explanations. Comparative-historical analysis, however, com-
bines both comparative and within-case methods and thereby helps to
overcome this tension, and to balance ideographic and nomothetic
explanations.
In the pages that follow, I help to fill the methodological lacuna
Comparative-Historical Methods

surrounding comparative-historical methods. This book is not meant

to be an overview of everything comparative and historical; rather,
using broad strokes, it paints a picture of the dominant methodolog-
ical techniques used by comparative-historical researchers. For this,
I summarize past methodological works, review the methods used in
past comparative-historical analyses, and integrate all into a single
statement about the methodological underpinnings of comparative-
historical analysis. In so doing, I also offer new interpretations of what
comparative-historical methods are, their analytic strengths, and the
best ways to use them.
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 Defining Comparative-Historical Analysis
Comparative-historical methods are linked to a long-standing research
tradition. This tradition was previously referred to as comparative-
historical sociology, but Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003) refer to
it as comparative-historical analysis in recognition of the tradi-
tion’s growing multidisciplinary character. In addition to sociology,
comparative-historical analysis is quite prominent in political science
and is present—albeit much more marginally—in history, economics, and
anthropology.
As the Venn diagram in Figure 1.1 depicts, comparative-historical
analysis has four main defining elements. Two are methodological, as
works within the research tradition employ both within-case methods
and comparative methods. Comparative-historical analysis is also defined
by epistemology. Specifically, comparative-historical works pursue social
scientific insight and therefore accept the possibility of gaining insight
through comparative-historical and other methods. Finally, the unit of
analysis is a defining element, with comparative-historical analysis focus-
ing on more aggregate social units.
A methodology is a body of practices, procedures, and rules used by
researchers to offer insight into the workings of the world.They are central
to the scientific enterprise, as they allow researchers to gather empirical and
measurable evidence and to analyze the evidence in an effort to expand
knowledge. According to Mann (1981), there is only one methodology

Social Scientific

Aggregate
Comparative
Unit of
Method
Analysis
Introduction

Within-Case Method

Figure 1.1 Venn diagram of comparative-historical analysis

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 within the social sciences. It involves eight steps: (1) formulate a problem,
(2) conceptualize variables, (3) make hypotheses, (4) establish a sample,
(5) operationalize concepts, (6) gather data, (7) analyze data to test hypoth-
eses, and (8) make a conclusion. He suggests that the only methodological
differences in the social sciences are the techniques used to analyze data—
something commonly referred to as a method. Because particular tech-
niques commonly require particular types of data, methods are also linked
to different strategies of data collection.
All works within comparative-historical analysis use at least one
comparative method to gain insight into the research question. By
insight, I mean evidence contributing to an understanding of a case or
set of cases. As described in considerable detail in Chapter 5, common
comparative methods used within comparative-historical analysis include
narrative, Millian, Boolean, and statistical comparisons. All of these com-
parative methods compare cases to explore similarities and differences in
an effort to highlight causal determinants, and comparative-historical
analysis must therefore analyze multiple cases. Although some compara-
tive methods offer independent insight into the research question, others
must be combined with the second methodological component of
comparative-historical analysis: within-case methods.
Within-case methods pursue insight into the determinants of a
particular phenomenon. The most common within-case method is
causal narrative, which describes processes and explores causal determi-
nants. Narrative analysis usually takes the form of a detective-style
analysis which seeks to highlight the causal impact of particular factors
within particular cases. Within-case analysis can also take the form of
process tracing, a more focused type of causal narrative that investigates
mechanisms linking two related phenomena. Finally, comparative-
historical researchers sometimes use pattern matching as a technique for
within-case analysis. Different from both causal narrative and process
tracing, pattern matching does not necessarily explore causal processes;
rather, it uses within-case analysis to test theories.
Within-case methods constitute the “historical” in comparative-
Comparative-Historical Methods

historical analysis—that is, they are temporal and analyze processes over
time. Moreover, they commonly analyze historical cases. This historical
element has been a commonality unifying works within the comparative-
historical research tradition to such an extent that works using within-case
methods that do not analyze historical/temporal processes should not be
considered part of the research tradition.
In addition to methods, comparative-historical analysis is also defined
epistemologically. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that consid-
ers the scope and possibility of knowledge. Over the past few decades,
there has been growing interest in postmodern epistemological views
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 that deny the possibility of social scientific knowledge. They take issue
with positivism, which suggests that social scientists can gain knowl-
edge about social relations by using social scientific methods. Instead, the
postmodern view suggests it is impossible to decipher any social laws
because of the sheer complexity of social relations. These works go
beyond Max Weber’s claims that social scientists should pursue verstehen—
or understanding—instead of social laws, suggesting that even a limited
understanding is impossible. Verstehen is impossible, according to this
view, because discourses impede the scientific study of human relations.
Most basically, our social environments shape human values and cogni-
tions in ways that severely bias our analysis of social relations and—in
combination with extreme social complexity—prevent any insight into
the determinants of social relations.
It is not my intention to discuss the merits and demerits of postmod-
ern epistemological views, but such a position necessarily prevents a
work from being an example of comparative-historical analysis. In par-
ticular, when a researcher denies the ability of social scientific methods
to provide causal insight, they are inherently anti-methodological. Further,
because methodology is the primary defining element of comparative-
historical analysis and because comparative-historical analysis is focused
on causal analysis, postmodern works are epistemologically distinct
from comparative-historical analysis and should be considered separate
from the research tradition.
The final definitional element of comparative-historical analysis con-
cerns the unit of analysis. Traditionally, all works that are considered
examples of comparative-historical analysis have taken a structural view
and explore meso- and macro-level processes—that is, processes involv-
ing multiple individuals and producing patterns of social relations. Along
these lines, Tilly (1984) described comparative-historical analysis as ana-
lyzing big structures and large processes, and making huge comparisons.
As such, states, social movements, classes, economies, religions, and other
macro-sociological concepts have been the focus of comparative-historical
analysis. This focus does not prevent comparative-historical researchers
from recognizing the causal importance of individuals. For example,
Max Weber was a founding figure of comparative-historical analysis and
paid considerable attention to individuals. More contemporary social
scientists using comparative-historical methods also employ individual-
level frameworks that consider individual-level action. Both Kalyvas
(2006) and Petersen (2002), for example, analyze the causes of violence
Introduction

and focus on individual-level mechanisms. However, in doing so, Weber,

Kalyvas, and Petersen all analyze how the structural and institutional
environments shape individual actions and, thereby, the actions of large
numbers of people. Even when analyzing individual-level processes,
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 therefore, comparative-historical researchers retain a structural focus and
consider the interrelations between individual and structure.
While one might justify this final definitional element based on his-
torical precedent, there are practical reasons to limit the category of
comparative-historical analysis to works at the meso- and macro-level.
Individual-level analyses that do not link individuals to structure are
inherently different from the analysis of collective units, as scholars of the
latter analyze collective processes and dynamics rather than individual
thought processes and actions. Most notably, micro-analysis draws on
individual-level data to understand the perceptions, interests, motivations,
and actions of a single person and is, therefore, very biographical.
Biography can also be an important component of more macro-level
analyses, but such analyses also include structural analysis. That is, because
meso- and macro-level analysis explores causal processes involving a
number of people, it analyzes common structural and institutional factors
shaping how large numbers of people act. As a consequence, familial,
religious, economic, and political institutions as well as warfare, popula-
tion growth, and other events that affect the lives of large numbers of
people hold prominent positions in comparative-historical analysis.
Using all four defining elements, the size of the body of work that
constitutes comparative-historical analysis is greatly reduced, leaving a
large body of work that is similar to comparative-historical analysis in
several ways but is not an example of it because the work lacks at least
one of the four defining elements. Thus, Said’s Orientalism (1978) and
other postmodern works that compare cases and use narrative analysis to
explore meso/macro-level processes are not examples of comparative-
historical analysis because they are not social scientific: they deny the
ability to gain insight into our social world through comparative and
within-case methods. Similarly, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s
(2001, 2002) statistical analyses of colonial legacies are social scientific,
analyze macro-processes, and use comparative methods; but they are not
examples of comparative-historical analysis because they omit within-
case analysis. Next, Tilly’s The Contentious French (1986) offers a social
Comparative-Historical Methods

scientific analysis of the French political system through the use of

within-case methods, but the book is not a clear example of comparative-
historical analysis because it does not gain insight through the explicit
use of inter-case comparison. Notably, all three of these are influential
works of exceptional quality. By excluding them, I am not suggesting
that they are inferior to comparative-historical analysis in any way; they
simply do not conform to the main defining elements of the method-
ological tradition.
Despite my use of a specific definition, the boundaries of comparative-
historical analysis are very blurred. Some works clearly use within-case
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 methods to answer their research questions but do not make explicit
comparisons that explore similarities and differences. Others use com-
parative methods to gain insight into their research questions but
include brief case studies that offer little insight. Similarly, some
researchers question—but do not deny—the possibility of social scien-
tific insight, and some analyses focus primarily on micro-level processes
while briefly considering how the structural environments shape the
micro-level. Ultimately, I am not concerned with delineating precise cut-
off lines because the quality of an analysis is not determined by whether
or not it is an example of comparative-historical analysis. Instead, I have
defined comparative-historical analysis in an effort to clarify the major
elements of the research tradition. A comparison of comparative-historical
methods with other major methodological traditions in the social sci-
ences is also helpful in this regard.

Social Scientific Methods: A Review

Comparative-historical methods are one of several methodological
traditions used by social scientists in their efforts to understand our
social world. In this section, I briefly review the major social scientific
methods—statistical, experimental, ethnographic, and historical—and
compare them to comparative-historical methods. I conclude that
comparative-historical analysis employs a hodge-podge of methods
and therefore has affinities with almost all other methodological tradi-
tions. Indeed, the main distinguishing characteristic of comparative-
historical analysis is that it combines diverse methods into one
empirical analysis that spans the ideographic-nomothetic divide.

Nomothetic/Comparative Methods
Different methodological traditions take a positivistic approach and
attempt to provide nomothetic explanations of social phenomena.
That is, they pursue insight that is generalizable and can be applied to
multiple cases. At an extreme, nomothetic explanations pursue law-like
generalizations that apply to the universe of cases, something implied by
its name (“nomos” is Greek for law). Given the dominance of the natural
sciences and their ability to offer insight that applies to the universe of
cases, nomothetic explanations are commonly—but incorrectly—viewed
Introduction

as more scientific, so researchers who attempt to make the social sciences

as scientific as possible commonly pursue this type of explanation. Rarely,
however, do they go to the extreme of pursuing social laws that apply to
the universe of cases, believing that extreme social complexity makes
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 social laws impossible. So, instead of exploring the causes of ethnic vio-
lence in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, these works explore
common determinants of several episodes of ethnic violence, but they
rarely try to discover a cause of all episodes of ethnic violence.
Methods pursuing nomothetic explanations necessarily analyze mul-
tiple cases because it is impossible to generalize based on one or a few
cases. Although a researcher might simply complete numerous case stud-
ies, nearly all researchers pursuing nomothetic explanations gain insight
from inter-case comparison. The two most common comparative meth-
ods used to provide nomothetic insight are statistics and controlled labo-
ratory experiments.

Statistical Methods
The most popular and formalized methodological tradition in the social
sciences is statistical methods, a massive methodological category that
includes a number of subcategories. Statistics attempts to approximate
controlled experiments by analyzing natural variation among a set of
cases. The insight gained from statistical methods is derived primarily
from inter-case comparison, although an increasing number of works
use time-series data and also analyze variation within cases over time. For
statistical comparison, variables are operationalized for a number of cases
to explore whether one variable is commonly related to another among
the set of cases. If there is a strong relationship between variables among
the set of cases, the statistical analysis provides evidence that the two
might be causally related. Thus, if a cross-sectional study finds that per
capita GDP is strongly and negatively related to the incidence of civil
war, it provides evidence that national wealth deters civil war in some
way, as the natural variation among cases shows that non-wealthy coun-
tries are at a heightened risk of civil war.
Statistical methods are advantaged in several ways. By including
multiple variables in the same model, statistics allows researchers to test
different theories simultaneously. Statistics also allows researchers to
Comparative-Historical Methods

estimate causal effects and risks. Third, cross-sectional statistics analyzes

several cases and offers insight that is generalizable across the set. It
therefore allows researchers to pursue nomothetic insight. Finally, sta-
tistics is very formalized, which makes possible the replication of find-
ings, and has numerous techniques that can be matched to best suit the
analysis at hand.
Like all methodological traditions, statistics also has shortcomings. First,
statistical results are commonly open to question for two reasons: statisti-
cal analysis is based on numerous assumptions that are commonly broken,
and there is no way of determining which model is most appropriate for
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 any statistical analysis (and results vary according to the model). Even if
one accepts the validity of the statistical findings, correlation is not the
same as causation, and frequently statistical methods are unable to provide
insight into whether a relationship is causal or spurious. Indeed, statistical
findings have difficulty highlighting causal mechanisms that underlie rela-
tionships, as they provide little ideographic—or case-specific—insight
into causal processes. Finally, statistical methods commonly cannot be
used because some social phenomena either lack appropriate data sets or
have an insufficient number of cases.

Experimental Methods
Experimental methods are most prominent in psychology and attempt
to use controlled laboratory experiments on humans. Notably, statistical
methods are a central element of this methodological tradition. What
separates experimental methods from standard statistics is data collection,
as researchers using experimental methods manipulate subjects and then
use statistical methods to analyze the impact of this treatment. Standard
statistical methods, on the other hand, explore natural variation instead of
variation caused by a treatment.
Researchers using controlled laboratory experiments usually assign
subjects to different treatment groups to see whether the various groups
react differently based on their different treatments. For example, to ana-
lyze whether gender stereotypes shape our perceptions of others, a
researcher might tell one-third of the subjects that a toddler is a boy, tell
one-third of the subjects that a toddler is a girl, and deliberately conceal
the child’s sex to the remaining subjects. After the subjects have played
with the toddler, the researcher can then interview the subjects and ask
them to describe the personality traits of the toddler, noting whether the
treatment—what they have been told regarding gender— affects how
the subjects perceive the toddler (see Seavey, Katz, and Zalk 1975).
Although the use of different treatment groups is common, research-
ers using experimental methods sometimes give the same treatment to
all subjects but analyze whether they react differently to the treatment
based on some measurable characteristic of the individual subjects. For
example, a researcher exploring how self-esteem affects violent action
might ask subjects to complete questionnaires that allow the researcher
to assess the self-confidence of the subjects. The researcher could then
ask the subjects to write an essay, have an employee critique the essays
Introduction

harshly, and then give each of the subjects an opportunity to retaliate

against the employee who critiqued their paper by blowing a loud horn
at them. Finally, the researcher could measure each subject’s retaliatory
act by timing how long the subject honked the horn, to see whether
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 there is a relationship between an individual’s self-confidence and the
length of the retaliation (see Bushman and Baumeister 1998).
Experimental methods provide very powerful insight into general
determinants of causal processes. Relative to statistics, they offer research-
ers a superior ability to manipulate a particular factor while controlling
for others, an advantage allowing researchers to gain more precise insight
into causal determinants. Most notably, controlled laboratory experiments
are much less likely to produce spurious findings, have a greatly superior
capacity to offer insight into causal mechanisms, and measure causal
effects with much greater accuracy.The main disadvantage of experimen-
tal methods—and the factor that prevents them from being used more
broadly—is their impracticality. Notably, experimental methods are most
appropriate for simple micro-level processes and become difficult—if not
impossible—for processes involving large numbers of people. For exam-
ple, it is virtually impossible to use experimental methods to explore
directly the causes of social revolutions or the rise of capitalism. Similarly,
experimental methods cannot easily be used to analyze either processes
lasting extended periods of time or complex social phenomena requiring
multiple treatments and interactions. Finally, for moral reasons, experi-
mental methods cannot be used to analyze phenomena when the treat-
ment is potentially harmful to the well-being of the subject. Thus, a
researcher cannot explore the impact of severe verbal abuse by a stranger
on feelings of self-worth among adolescents because the subjects could
be harmed by the treatment.
When researchers are unable to use experimental methods, they can
try to approximate them through natural experiments, which use natural
variation in an effort to isolate the impact of certain factors (see Diamond
and Robinson 2010). Unlike laboratory experiments, researchers attempt-
ing natural experiments cannot control for all factors and manipulate
only one. Instead, they select cases that were very similar in many ways
but subsequently differed in one key way. The researcher is thereby able
to compare the cases and estimate the impact of the difference.
Unfortunately, even the most similar of cases cannot control for all influ-
Comparative-Historical Methods

ential factors, so one cannot be as confident in their findings. This is

especially the case given that a natural experiment commonly compares
only two cases, not the hundreds or thousands of cases compared through
more controlled experiments. Moreover, it can be very difficult to find
appropriate natural experiments to answer all types of research questions.

Ideographic/Within-Case Methods
Whereas statistical methods and experimental methods compare multi-
ple cases in pursuit of nomothetic explanations, several social scientific
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 methods specialize in providing case-specific—or ideographic—insight.
Such analyses explore either what happened in a particular case or what
the characteristics of a particular case were through in-depth analysis of
the case. Authors pursuing this type of analysis commonly believe that
extreme social complexity caused by free will and multicausality pre-
vents researchers from making discoveries that can be extended across a
large set of cases. They therefore strive either to pursue findings that can
be applied to only one case or to show how social processes unraveled
very differently in multiple cases.
It is possible to pursue ideographic explanations through comparative
methods, as comparisons might not highlight commonalities or strong
relationships. Most commonly, however, researchers employ within-case
methods when making ideographic explanations.Two prominent examples
of within-case methodologies are ethnographic and historical methods.

Ethnographic Methods
Ethnographic methods are the dominant method within anthropol-
ogy, and a substantial minority of researchers in sociology and political
science use them. They are commonly used for the study of culture
within a particular group of people, ranging from elites, to ethnic groups,
to criminals, to students.
Ethnographic methods have two distinct components. The first is
concerned with how to gather data through participant observation and
interviews. Much of this literature discusses appropriate ways to find
subjects, observe and interact with subjects, and gather data from sub-
jects. For example, a researcher using ethnographic methods to analyze
elite culture has to figure out sites to observe elite culture, how to find
elites for interviews, how to conduct the interviews, and what questions
to ask. The second component deals with how to analyze and present
the findings. These ethnographic analyses lay out and interpret the data,
thereby giving an account of the phenomenon under analysis. The
analyses usually take the form of a narrative description and commonly
present photographs, texts, and tables. Unlike statistics and controlled
experiments, ethnographic analyses commonly are not formalized, and
the ultimate insight gained from them depends on both the quality of
the data and the analytical skills of the researcher. Such skills primarily
involve making sense of the data, recognizing patterns, and being able to
present the findings clearly. Interpersonal skills are also very important as
Introduction

they are vital to the data collection process.

Two notable strengths of ethnographic methods are its ability to offer
descriptive insight into the characteristics of a phenomenon and its ability
to analyze complex phenomena. Most notably, ethnographic methods are
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 usually the best means of gaining insight into motivations, perspectives,
values, rituals, and other factors commonly considered as subcomponents
of culture. These advantages help to explain their dominance in anthro-
pology and why researchers using ethnographic methods commonly take
a more interpretivist approach. Along with these advantages, however,
ethnographic methods also have three notable disadvantages. First, ethno-
graphic methods cannot be used for many historical phenomena, as the
past cannot be observed directly and relevant individuals might not be
available for interview. So, while ethnographic methods would be an
excellent source of insight into the causes and characteristics of the
French Revolution, they cannot now be used for this research question.
Second, ethnography pursues case-specific insight for a particular time
and place and is therefore poorly suited for nomothetic explanation. This
is not to say that ethnography cannot provide generalizable insight. Lipset,
Trow, and Coleman’s (1956) Union Democracy, for example, offers a superb
ethnographic analysis of the International Typographical Union and
offers generalizable insight into the mechanism underlying Michels’s
(1911/1968) iron law of oligarchy. Still, gaining nomothetic insight from
ethnography requires that one either perform multiple ethnographic
analyses or link the ethnographic analysis of one case to a larger theory
or literature. Third, ethnographic methods require willing participants,
and it can be very difficult to find willing participants when researchers
want to analyze delicate topics which reveal the private lives of individu-
als. Moreover, even if a researcher finds participants willing to allow her
or him to analyze sensitive issues, it is possible that the participants will
modify their behavior when being observed or respond inaccurately to
interview questions in order to portray themselves to the researcher in
the most positive light. Researchers must therefore critically assess the
validity of the data they collect through ethnographic methods.

Historical Methods
Historical methods, also known as historiography, are the most com-
Comparative-Historical Methods

mon analytic techniques used in the discipline of history. They are gen-
erally used to explore either what happened at a particular time and
place or what the characteristics of a phenomenon were like at a par-
ticular time and place. Similar to ethnographic methods, methodological
discussions of historiography focus on both data collection and data
analysis. The first includes guidelines for finding historical data, as this is
a major concern of historians. The second component consists of guide-
lines for interpreting and presenting data. These guidelines generally
describe how to judge the validity of historical data but rarely discuss how
the data is analyzed once its validity has been assessed. This overlooked
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 element is central to the historical method and involves piecing together
the evidence to make a conclusion about the research question.
Researchers can use historical methods to analyze diverse phenomena.
For instance, a researcher might investigate the processes leading to
Truman’s decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan. For this, the researcher
might analyze biographies, diaries, and correspondence between Truman
and other officials involved in deciding to use nuclear weapons. They
might also interview officials or close confidants of deceased officials. In
gathering this data, the researcher must consider the source of the data and
its apparent validity and accuracy. Then, the researcher must analyze the
collection of data to assess the influences on Truman, his state of mind, and
the sequence of events leading up to his decision to use nuclear weapons.
Alternatively, researchers interested in the structure of families in the
English countryside during the mid-nineteenth century would rely on
different types of sources. They might use census data to get information
on the members of households; legal documents about marriage, divorce,
inheritance, and household responsibilities; and newspapers, magazines,
diaries, and other relevant literature that provides information on house-
hold relations. After gathering the data, the researcher must then assess the
validity of the data, analyze the collection of data to gain insight into the
structure of families, and write a narrative that presents the evidence.
Not surprisingly, historical methods are able to provide insight into the
characteristics and determinants of historical phenomena. Similar to eth-
nographic methods, they offer considerable insight into complex phe-
nomena and processes. Indeed, historical and ethnographic methods are
commonly used to analyze the same types of phenomena, the main dif-
ference being that ethnographic methods analyze contemporary exam-
ples whereas historical methods analyze examples from the past. In this
way, data collection and type of data are commonly the only factors
separating ethnographic methods from historical methods. Historical
methods are also similar to ethnographic methods because their insight is
limited to particular cases, as historical methods analyze particular phe-
nomena in particular places at particular times. As a consequence, they are
ill-suited for nomothetic explanations. Historical methods are also disad-
vantaged because they cannot generate their own data and therefore
depend on the presence of historical sources. As a consequence, such
methods cannot be used to analyze phenomena that lack appropriate data.

Comparative-Historical Methods in Comparative

Introduction

Perspective
Comparative-historical methods combine comparative and within-case
methods, and therefore have affinities with both comparative/nomothetic
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 methods and within-case/ideographic methods. Similar to statistical and
experimental methods, comparative-historical methods employ com-
parison as a means of gaining insight into causal determinants. Similar to
ethnographic and historical methods, comparative-historical methods
explore the characteristics and causes of particular phenomena.
Comparative-historical analysis, however, does not simply combine
the methods from other major methodological traditions—none of the
major comparative methods is very common in comparative-historical
analysis. Indeed, only a small—albeit growing—portion of comparative-
historical analyses uses statistical comparison, and laboratory-style
experimental methods are not used by comparative-historical researchers.
There are several reasons for the marginal position of statistics within
comparative-historical analysis. Most notably, within-case methods have
been the dominant method used in the research tradition, and the basic
logics of statistics and within-case methods differ considerably, with the
former focusing on relationships between variables and the latter focusing
on causal processes (see Mahoney and Goertz 2006). As a consequence,
comparative-historical researchers commonly avoid statistics and simply
focus on causal processes. Additional reasons for the limited use of statistical
comparison within the comparative-historical research tradition include
the limited availability of historical data needed for appropriate statistical
analyses and the small number of cases analyzed by comparative-historical
researchers. Experimental methods are excluded from comparative-
historical analysis for two main reasons. First, comparative-historical schol-
ars ask research questions about concrete real-world phenomena, such as,
“What caused the American civil rights movement?” Controlled experi-
ments, on the other hand, can only provide insight into general issues, for
example, “Are people with higher or lower self-confidence more likely to
retaliate aggressively?” Second, comparative-historical analysis focuses on
social processes like revolutions, economic development, and state build-
ing that involve many people within a complex social environment over
an extended period. For practical and moral reasons, such phenomena
cannot be replicated in controlled environments.
Comparative-Historical Methods

Instead of statistics and controlled experiments, the most common

comparative methods employed in comparative-historical analysis are
small-N comparisons. These comparisons usually explore how causal
processes are similar and different and, in so doing, pay attention to the
impact of context and causal mechanisms. Different from statistical com-
parison, such comparisons are usually not an independent source of
insight, pursue insight that can be applied to a fewer number of cases,
and focus on more specific details.
Besides comparative methods, comparative-historical scholars employ
several different types of within-case methods. Ethnography can and is
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 used for within-case analysis and is therefore part of the comparative-
historical methodological toolkit. Comparative-historical researchers
only rarely use it with great rigor, however, because ethnographic meth-
ods are usually used for very descriptive works that attempt to increase
understanding about a particular group of people, their livelihoods, and
their culture. Comparative-historical analysis, on the other hand, usually
has a broader research agenda than understanding culture. As a conse-
quence, ethnography can only provide partial insight into most of the
questions asked by comparative-historical researchers. In addition,
comparative-historical methods are used to analyze multiple cases, and
ethnographic work is so intensive that it is very difficult to analyze more
than one case in a single work. As a result, it is rare for ethnographic work
to be comparative, although there are exceptions, such as Geertz’s Islam
Observed (1968). Finally, in general ethnographic methods cannot be used
to analyze historical phenomena, so they are usually not appropriate for
comparative-historical analysis. For all of these reasons, comparative-
historical scholars rarely employ ethnographic methods themselves,
although they commonly gather data from ethnographic analyses to use
for their comparative-historical analyses.
Historical methods are much more commonly employed within
comparative-historical analysis. In particular, comparative-historical
researchers frequently use historical methods to gather, assess, and present
data.Yet, because of the breadth of the questions analyzed by comparative-
historical researchers and the multiple cases under analysis, comparative-
historical researchers rely primarily on data from secondary sources, and
many do not use historical methods to collect and assess data. Instead,
they gather data from historical secondary sources and use this data for
their comparative-historical analyses.
While using ethnographic methods and historical methods as sources
of data, comparative-historical methods differ fundamentally from each
in their analysis of the data. Whereas ethnographic and historical meth-
ods are primarily descriptive and document the characteristics of social
phenomena, comparative-historical methods analyze data to offer insight
into causal determinants. For this, comparative-historical researchers
commonly employ three different within-case methods. These methods
are all similar to those used by detectives and involve sorting through the
available evidence and attempting to reconstruct causal scenarios in an
effort to gain insight into the determinants of social phenomena. The
three methods differ based on the type of inference they pursue: causal
Introduction

narrative offers insight into causal processes, process tracing explores

causal mechanisms, and pattern matching tests theories.
Comparative-historical methods are also distinct from all other major
methodological traditions in the social sciences because they have a
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 much more extensive and diverse methodological toolkit. Indeed,
comparative-historical methods include multiple types of comparative
methods and multiple types of within-case methods. Researchers com-
bine them in different ways and for different purposes. Considering the
latter, they sometimes combine methods for triangulation, sometimes
combine methods to exploit the strengths of different methods, and
sometimes combine methods to improve the insight that can be gained
by the individual methods.
Relatedly, comparative-historical methods are also unique because
they pursue both ideographic and nomothetic explanations.The within-
case methods offer ideographic insight, whereas the comparative methods
offer more nomothetic insight.Their combination, in turn, weakens both
the ideographic bent of the within-case methods and the nomothetic bent
of the comparative methods, and pushes the researcher to consider both
ideographic and nomothetic explanations.
Most comparative-historical researchers value ideographic explana-
tions deeply, and both Skocpol and Somers (1980) and Tilly (1984)
recognize ideographic explanation as a common goal of comparative-
historical researchers. However, the methods of comparative-historical
analysis are actually biased against this type of explanation. Most nota-
bly, comparative methods require multiple cases and usually seek
insight that can be extended beyond a single case, and scholars pursu-
ing purely ideographic explanations usually restrict their analysis to a
single case. As a consequence, ideographic explanations are relatively
rare in comparative-historical analysis but very common in history and
historical sociology.
At the same time, comparisons highlight differences as well as simi-
larities, and some comparative-historical researchers focus on the differ-
ences highlighted through comparison. These works show how each
case is unique and does not follow any common logic. Notably, the fail-
ure of such comparisons to discover commonalities does not imply that
ideographic explanations are in any way inferior to more nomothetic
explanations. As Tilly notes, an ideographic explanation is not a “bungled
Comparative-Historical Methods

attempt at generalization” (1984, 88). Instead, it seeks to find variation,

not explain it. Such difference-oriented comparisons are valuable
because they highlight the great diversity and complexity of the social
world and show how social phenomena are commonly unique. They
therefore serve as a corrective to comparative works that seek to stretch
generalizations to the extreme. It is thus not by coincidence that most
ideographic analyses in comparative-historical analysis seek to correct
the universalism of different theories.
One master of this difference-oriented strategy was Reinhard Bendix.
Several of his books combined detailed within-case analysis with small-N
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 comparison, and both methods ultimately highlighted the uniqueness of
each case. His 700-page Kings or People (1978) offers a notable example.
This book analyzes a subject that was the focus of much of Bendix’s
work—authority—and explores how popular sovereignty came to suc-
ceed hereditary monarchy in diverse countries throughout the world. It
analyzes and compares England, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and
China and is divided into two analytic sections. The first analyzes how
monarchs founded, legitimized, and protected their rule; the second
explores the emergence of popular sovereignty and traces the develop-
ment of popular sovereignty in his cases up to the mid-twentieth century.
His three main points are that (1) demonstration effects contributed to
the emergence of popular sovereignty but that popular sovereignty still
emerged relatively independently; (2) preexisting institutions, history, and
beliefs shaped the emergence of popular sovereignty; and (3) the major
causes of the emergence of popular sovereignty were changes in ideas,
beliefs, and justifications. Notably, all three could be generalized and
thereby offer some nomothetic insight. Still, as Tilly remarks, “Through
their stress on the causal influence of conditions that are unique to each
state, the three assumptions push the whole analysis back toward indi-
vidualization” (1984, 93). In this way, Bendix’s ultimate conclusion is that
the processes leading to popular sovereignty were distinctive in all of his
cases and did not follow a single pathway to modernity.
Different from an ideographic strategy, a nomothetic strategy privi-
leges methods that offer insight into multiple cases, and this is a notable
strength of comparative methods. A number of social scientists view
nomothetic explanations as more scientific than ideographic explana-
tions.This is because the natural sciences produce more law-like findings
that apply to the universe of cases, and they therefore commonly privi-
lege methods that offer general insight. Because of this methodological
bias, nomothetic analyses frequently do not employ within-case meth-
ods, an omission that removes them from the realm of comparative-
historical analysis. When researchers do employ within-case methods, a
nomothetic analysis commonly privileges the comparative analysis and
simply uses the within-case analysis to supplement the comparisons by
either scoring variables or highlighting common mechanisms. The dan-
ger of this epistemological and methodological bias, however, is that
social relations are much more unpredictable than atoms, molecules, and
stars, and generalizations in the social sciences usually come at a price:
they abstract reality and overlook actual causal processes.
Introduction

Some comparative-historical analyses undoubtedly suffer from these

problems associated with a focus on nomothetic insight, but there is a
general bias within the research tradition against these types of work.
Indeed, just as comparative methods prevent works from being overly
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 ideographic, within-case methods impede overly nomothetic explanations.
Within-case methods, for example, force researchers to consider particular
historical and social contexts and to—first and foremost—try to get the
within-case analyses right. As a result, most comparative-historical
researchers who pursue nomothetic insight take a more moderate position
and avoid claims of universal laws. Instead, as Mahoney and Rueschemeyer
claim, they almost always “suggest that an explanation is contingent on
complex and variable conditions” (2003, 10).
Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions (1979) offers a well-known
example of a work that attempts to balance ideographic and nomo-
thetic explanation. Skocpol sets out to increase general insight into the
causes of social revolutions and, through a comparative-historical analy-
sis of several cases, shows how both state breakdown and peasant mobi-
lization capacity are vital to social revolution. Still, she offers detailed
analyses of individual cases that provide considerable ideographic
insight. Moreover, she limits her analysis to a subset and notes that her
cases have particular characteristics that make them different from other
more recent revolutions: they were non-colonies with limited interna-
tional dependence, their revolutions occurred during a certain time
period, and the cases were agrarian bureaucracies at the time of the
revolutions. These factors differentiate them from more recent revolu-
tions, and have led Skocpol to claim that her findings are not likely to
apply to cases outside of her subset.
This middling position of comparative-historical analysis within the
ideographic-nomothetic continuum has made the research tradition a
target of criticism from both sides. Historians, for example, commonly
criticize comparative-historical analysis for sacrificing “good history” for
the sake of generalization. Alternatively, several more positivistic social
scientists believe covering laws are the purpose of the social sciences and
criticize comparative-historical analysis for privileging internal validity
over external validity. The position of most comparative-historical
researchers, however, is that ideographic and nomothetic explanations
are both important and that one should not be sacrificed for the other.
Comparative-Historical Methods

Indeed, both the particular and the general are vital to any understand-
ing of social relations, and comparative-historical methods force
researchers constantly to consider both.

Book Outline
Having described what comparative-historical analysis is and compared
comparative-historical methods to other major methodological traditions
in the social sciences, the remainder of this book reviews the origins and
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 basic elements of comparative-historical methods. Chapter 2 offers a his-
torical overview of the methodological tradition and reviews major
scholars and works within it. It also describes the topics researchers com-
monly analyze through comparative-historical methods and the disci-
plines that use comparative-historical methods. Chapter 3 begins to
review the actual methods employed in comparative-historical analysis by
describing the main within-case techniques used by comparative-historical
scholars to produce and analyze evidence. Chapter 4 continues to ana-
lyze within-case methods and reviews how researchers employ within-
case methods to explore two influential aspects of causal processes:
temporality and inter-case relationships. Chapter 5 turns to comparative
methods and explores the ways comparative-historical researchers use
them to gain insight. It describes large-N and small-N comparisons as well
as sub-types of each. Chapter 6 discusses different ways that comparative-
historical researchers combine within-case and comparative methods
and the benefits derived from different combinatorial strategies.
Although Chapters 3 through 6 consider the actual methodological
techniques that are used to analyze data, Chapter 7 discusses three non-
analytic aspects of comparative-historical methods: data, case selection,
and theory. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes by reviewing major points
highlighted in the chapters and discussing the important analytical
strengths of comparative-historical methods.

Glossary
Comparative methods: Diverse methods used in the social sciences
that offer insight through cross-case comparison. For this, they com-
pare the characteristics of different cases and highlight similarities
and differences between them. Comparative methods are usually
used to explore causes that are common among a set of cases. They
are commonly used in all social scientific disciplines.
Comparative-historical analysis: A prominent research tradition in the
social sciences, especially in political science and sociology. Works
within this research tradition use comparative-historical methods,
pursue causal explanations, and analyze units of analysis at the meso-
or macro-level.
Comparative-historical methods: The collection of methods commonly
employed for comparative-historical analysis. These include a variety
of comparative and within-case methods. Comparative-historical
methods necessarily combine at least one comparative method and
Introduction

one within-case method.

Epistemology: A branch of philosophy that considers the possibil-
ity of knowledge and understanding. Within the social sciences,

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 epistemological debates commonly focus on the possibility of gain-
ing insight into the causes of social phenomena.
Ethnographic methods: A type of social scientific method that gains
insight into social relations through participant observation, inter-
views, and the analysis of art, texts, and oral histories. It is com-
monly used to analyze culture and is the most common method of
anthropology.
Experimental methods: The most powerful method used in the social
sciences, albeit the most difficult to use. It manipulates individuals in a
particular way (the treatment) and explores the impact of this treat-
ment. It offers powerful insight by controlling the environment, thereby
allowing researchers to isolate the impact of the treatment.
Historical methods: Also known as historiography, it is the dominant
method in the discipline of history. Such methods focus largely on
finding data, judging the validity of the data, and accurately present-
ing the data through narrative analysis. Historical methods can be
used to analyze causal processes but are most commonly used in his-
tory to describe social phenomena.
Ideographic explanation: Causal explanations that explore the causes
of a particular case. Such explanations are not meant to apply to a
larger set of cases and commonly focus on the particularities of the
case under analysis.
Insight: Evidence contributing to an understanding of a case or set of
cases. Comparative-historical researchers are generally most con-
cerned with causal insight, or insight into causal processes.
Method: A technique used to analyze data. Commonly, a method is
aligned with a particular strategy for gathering data, as particular
methods commonly require particular types of data. “Method” is
therefore commonly used to refer to strategies for both analyzing and
gathering data.
Methodology: A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by
researchers to offer insight into the workings of the world.
Nomothetic explanation: Causal explanations that apply to the uni-
Comparative-Historical Methods

verse of cases. They are commonly associated with positivism.

Because the physical sciences pursue nomothetic explanations, they
are frequently—albeit incorrectly—perceived by some as being more
scientific than ideographic explanations.
Positivism: An epistemological approach that was popular among
most of the founding figures of the social sciences. It claims that the
scientific method is the best way to gain insight into our world. Within
the social sciences, positivism suggests that scientific methods can be
used to analyze social relations in order to gain knowledge. At its
extreme, positivism suggests that the analysis of social relations
through scientific methods allows researchers to discover laws that

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 govern all social relations. Positivism is therefore linked to nomothetic
explanations. Other positivists believe social complexity prevents the
discovery of social laws, but they still believe that the scientific
method allows researchers to gain insight into the determinants of
social phenomena.
Statistical methods: The most common subtype of comparative meth-
ods. It operationalizes variables for several cases, compares the cases
to explore relationships between the variables, and uses probability
theory to estimate causal effects or risks. Within the social sciences,
statistics uses natural variation to approximate experimental meth-
ods. There are diverse subtypes of statistical methods.
Verstehen: Meaning “understand” in German, the term was used by
Max Weber to designate a particular epistemological position in the
social sciences at odds with extreme varieties of positivism. It sug-
gests that social scientists cannot discover social laws and should
simply strive to understand social phenomena. The term is commonly
associated with interpretivism, which claims that it is impossible to
gain concrete knowledge about the determinants of social action and
that social scientists should simply attempt to interpret the meaning
of action to gain insight into its determinants.
Within-case methods: A category of methods used in the social sci-
ences that offer insight into the determinants of a particular phenom-
enon for a particular case. For this, they analyze the processes and
characteristics of the case.

Introduction

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