Collaborative Research: Robust and Reliable Research Workshop Proposal: Rethinking Comparison in the Social Sciences

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

General Abstract Comparison is an important research tool in the social sciences. Scholars make comparisons across time and place to better understand a wide range of political and social phenomena. One of the central techniques that social scientists often use is the controlled comparison, whereby scholars hold potential explanatory factors constant across different cases to help them assess their contribution to particular outcomes. This approach has been central to some of the most influential works of social science. It has helped scholars explain everything from why some countries are rich and some are poor to why some countries are democratic and some are authoritarian. Yet even as controlled comparisons have produced lasting insights, they are not the only form of comparison that scholars utilize to answer important questions about social and political life. There is little guidance, however, on how to develop and execute comparisons that do not rely on the controlled case model, and what types of insights alternative comparison models can offer. The goal of this project is to lay out just such guidelines. To do so, this project will explore two of the most fundamental questions in the study of politics: (1) how and why scholars decide on what they compare, and (2) how the methodological assumptions scholars make about why and how they compare shape the knowledge they produce. By answering these questions, the project will create new resources for future students and researchers to draw upon in their efforts to advance knowledge. Technical Abstract This project aims to reimagine three central components of the comparative method in order to develop new logics for comparative research designs that move beyond traditional controlled comparison designs. First, it will encourage political scientists to think critically about what a case is by challenging dominant norms and encouraging scholars to think of processes, practices, meanings, and concepts as cases to be compared. Second, the project will expand the notion of what it means to compare. It aims to push scholars to conceptualize comparison as a method that includes approaches beyond controlled comparison, including greater attention to the experiences of subjects being studied and the ways those experiences re-order social worlds. Finally, the project proposes to expand the explanatory goals of comparative research by de-emphasizing variations in outcomes and opening up variations in political processes, meanings, and concepts as similarities or differences to be explained. To achieve these goals, this project will convene a workshop on comparative methods, and produce an edited volume based on contributions emerging from the workshop that will serve as a resource for scholars looking to conduct non-controlled comparisons to guide future scholars in new research directions.