A Realist Philosophy of Social Science

Historical sociology typically employs comparison as a research strategy. In what follows we concentrate on the idea of comparison and try to get clear on its use – and misuse. Inspired by Theda Skocpol's influential States and Social Revolutions (1979), recent sophisticated discussions argue that the methods codified by John Stuart Mill are appropriate techniques toward advancing a more “scientific” approach to comparative analysis. Finally, as part of this, we look at the idea of “narrative” as a mode of explanatory sociology. The issues are at the heart of a lively recent debate between Skocpol and William Sewell. While the two writers seem often to be talking past one another, once the key assumptions and confusions are clarified, a resolution is readily available.

We can develop these issues by considering the ideas put forward by James Mahoney (1999) regarding “Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisal in Macrocausal Analysis,” the title of his important essay. Mahoney is interested in identifying explanatory generalizations and offers that the three strategies identified in the title of his essay can be, and are, employed jointly by researchers, despite the view often taken that the work uses only one strategy. On his view, “each of these three different strategies represents a different technique that can be used for assessing the same causal relationship.” Thus States and Social Revolutions is wrongly taken to employ one basic strategy, “nominal appraisal.” Mahoney argues that, indeed, Skocpol employs successfully all three.