In this paper, we argue that claims of necessity and sufficiency involve a type of asymmetric causal claim that is useful in many social scientific contexts. Contrary to some qualitative researchers, we maintain that there is nothing about such asymmetries that should lead scholars to depart from standard social science practice. We take as given that deterministic and monocausal tests are inappropriate in the social world and demonstrate that standard multiplicative interaction models are up to the task of handling asymmetric causal claims in a multivariate, probabilistic manner. We illustrate our argument with examples from the empirical literature linking electoral institutions and party system size.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to Wand's careful and detailed analysis of our paper (Lewis and Schultz 2003). With the discipline's increasing inclination to move toward fully structural strategic choice models (e.g., Signorino 1999; Morton 1999), the issues that Wand raises are important to consider, as they bear on crucial questions of model construction and interpretation. Moreover, his work has allowed us to consider more carefully the properties of an estimator that we are in the process of applying to actual data.

Social scientists who strive to reflect on their research “while they're doing it” (Becker 1998) live in very fortunate times. On the one hand, it seems as if an increasing number of scholars want to do a little more than simply apply ready-made recipes. On the other hand, a few key volumes have recently been published that move beyond ready-made recipes. In my personal top three, I would most probably place Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003), George and Bennett (2005), and—last but not least—the volume discussed in this symposium. What distinguishes Rethinking Social Inquiry (RSI) from the two other volumes, in my view, is that it has a broader agenda and hence a broader ambition.

Every good book has a small bit—a sentence, paragraph, maybe a page—that the authors intended as a simple aside but which brings an epiphany to the reader. In Brady and Collier (2004), this occurs at the beginning of chapter 3: Brady's critique of the “quantitative template,” where the recovering seminarian frames our discourse on the philosophy of social inquiry in terms of pragmatic theology and homeliletics, rather than science or sociology. Hey, that is it!—while this debate is not in any sense about religion, its dynamics are best understood as though it were about religion. We have always known that, it just needed to be said.

Rethinking Social Inquiry (RSI) is a key turning point in a long arc of development and contestation within and between qualitative and quantitative research methods in the social sciences. It builds on and further advances three important trends in these research methods: a renaissance in qualitative methods in the last decade, the continuing refinement of statistical and formal methods, and a nascent convergence of methodologists of all kinds behind a more pluralistic vision of methodology that includes growing interest in multimethod work. RSI achieves these contributions not just substantively but symbolically, bringing together leading methodologists in the quantitative and qualitative traditions, most notably the editors themselves, to address the tough issue of what would constitute shared standards for good research regardless of method. Although much of the initial commentary on RSI will no doubt focus on its critiques of Designing Social Inquiry, I suspect that in the long run the subtitle of RSI (“Diverse Tools, Shared Standards”) better captures what will be its lasting contribution to the social sciences.

This book, responding to the stimulus of the volume by Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, helps to carry forward King et al.'s original purpose—to bridge quantitative and qualitative perspectives and find the unity of method underlying both of them. Whether or not we accept King et al.'s own vision of the underlying unity, it is clear that their work has been a catalyst for progress in this direction.

When I first read King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) (KKV), I was excited by the general theme of what seemed to me the obvious, but usually unspoken, idea that all political scientists, both quantitative and qualitative, are scientists and governed by the same scientific standards. KKV, as Henry Brady (Brady and Collier 2004, chap. 3) cleverly notes, clearly were preaching to the qualitative researcher, and the subject of the sermon was that qualitative researchers should adopt many of the ideas standard in quantitative research. Thus, to abuse both the metaphor and KKV, one might compare KKV to the view of the Inquisition that we are all God's children. But, having sat through many talks based on case studies, it is clear to me that getting everyone to think about the nature of the scientific enterprise we are all engaged in can only be a good thing.

The discussion of qualitative and quantitative research methods in political science has followed a “long arc of development,” according to Andrew Bennett (this symposium). He sees our book Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Standards (RSI) as a “key turning point” in this development and as contributing to a more pluralistic vision of methodology. We would certainly be gratified if we have indeed made this contribution. Yet this is an ongoing discussion, and this symposium points to fruitful directions this discussion can take.