The findings presented in Chapters 3 through 5 are based on analyses of an historical database developed for this research project. The database was designed to make comparisons with respect to over-time political, economic, and social processes across countries. It integrates historical observations from secondary sources, and from a host of primary sources, including newspaper articles, in-depth interviews, and analysis of survey data. The analysis was carried out by organizing this eclectic set of data into an analyzable electronic format, largely through Microsoft Access software. That software provided significant flexibility in sorting records by place, time, variable, and/or on key words, facilitating the development of qualitative comparisons. Ultimately, the analyses still required interpretation and discussion, as presented in the book chapters, but the organization of the data in this format greatly simplified the task of creating historical narratives, and this technique may be useful for other scholars.

Analysis

The database was designed to facilitate comparative-historical analysis – that is, the making of comparisons of outcomes and processes simultaneously across time and space. The main challenge in designing the database was that the historical record of countries does not neatly fit into a grid of time series cross-sectional data. That is, there is sufficient incongruence between the units of observation (real events and outcomes) and the units of analysis (periods) that it was necessary to develop a tool for analysis that would allow me to retrieve data in a variety of different formats, allowing me to quickly assess the historical order of various outcomes and processes and to compare those outcomes across countries.