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Set Relations in Social Research: Evaluating Their Consistency and Coverage
- Charles C. Ragin
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- Journal:
- Political Analysis / Volume 14 / Issue 3 / Summer 2006
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 04 January 2017, pp. 291-310
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Because of its inherently asymmetric nature, set-theoretic analysis offers many interesting contrasts with analysis based on correlations. Until recently, however, social scientists have been slow to embrace set-theoretic approaches. The perception was that this type of analysis is restricted to primitive, binary variables and that it has little or no tolerance for error. With the advent of “fuzzy” sets and the recognition that even rough set-theoretic relations are relevant to theory, these old barriers have crumbled. This paper advances the set-theoretic approach by presenting simple descriptive measures that can be used to evaluate set-theoretic relationships, especially relations between fuzzy sets. The first measure, “consistency,” assesses the degree to which a subset relation has been approximated, whereas the second measure, “coverage,” assesses the empirical relevance of a consistent subset. This paper demonstrates further that set-theoretic coverage can be partitioned in a manner somewhat analogous to the partitioning of explained variation in multiple regression analysis.
The Logic of Qualitative Comparative Analysis
- Charles C. Ragin
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- Journal:
- International Review of Social History / Volume 43 / Issue S6 / December 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 06 October 2010, pp. 105-124
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Social scientists often face a fundamental dilemma when they conduct social research. On the one hand, they may emphasize the complexity of social phenomena – a common strategy in ethnographic, historical and macro social research – and offer in–depth case studies sensitive to the specificity of the things they study. On the other hand, they may make broad, homo genizing assumptions about cases, and document generalities – patterns hold across many instances. Research strategies that focus on complexity are often labeled “qualitative”, “case–oriented”, “small–N”, or “intensive”. Those that focus on generality are often labeled “quantitative”, “variable–oriented”, “large–N”, or “extensive”. While the contrasts between these two types social research are substantial, it is easy to exaggerate their differences and t o caricature the two approaches, for example, portraying quantitative work on general patterns as scientific but sterile and oppressive, and qualitative research on small Ns as rich and emancipatory but journalistic. It is important to avoid these caricatures because the contrasts between these two general approaches provide important leads both for finding a middle path between them and for resolving basic methodological issues in social science Social scientists who study cases in an in–depth manner often see empiri cal generalizations simply as a means to another end – the interpretive understanding of cases. In this view, a fundamental goal of social science is t o interpret significant features of the social world and thereby advance our collective understanding of how existing social arrangements came about and why we live the way we do. The rough general patterns that social scientists may be able to identify simply aid the understanding of specific cases; they are not viewed as predictive. Besides, the task of interpreting and then representing socially significant phenomena (or the task of making selected social phenomena significant by representing them) is a much more immediate and tangible goal. In this view, empirical generalizations and social science theory are important – to the extent that they aid the goal interpretive understanding.
The Logic of Qualitative Comparative Analysis
- Edited by Larry J. Griffin, Marcel van der Linden, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam
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- Book:
- New Methods for Social History
- Published online:
- 04 August 2010
- Print publication:
- 28 March 1999, pp 105-124
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
Social scientists often face a fundamental dilemma when they conduct social research. On the one hand, they may emphasize the complexity of social phenomena - a common strategy in ethnographic, historical and macrosocial research – and offer in-depth case studies sensitive to the specificity of the things they study. On the other hand, they may make broad, homogenizing assumptions about cases, and document generalities – patterns that hold across many instances. Research strategies that focus on complexity are often labeled “qualitative”, “case-oriented”, “small-N”, or “intensive”. Those that focus on generality are often labeled “quantitative”, “variable-oriented”, “large-N”, or “extensive”. While the contrasts between these two types of social research are substantial, it is easy to exaggerate their differences and to caricature the two approaches, for example, portraying quantitative work on general patterns as scientific but sterile and oppressive, and qualitative research on small Ns as rich and emancipatory but journalistic. It is important to avoid these caricatures because the contrasts between these two general approaches provide important leads both for finding a middle path between them and for resolving basic methodological issues in social science.
Social scientists who study cases in an in-depth manner often see empirical generalizations simply as a means to another end – the interpretive understanding of cases. In this view, a fundamental goal of social science is to interpret significant features of the social world and thereby advance our collective understanding of how existing social arrangements came about and why we live the way we do. The rough general patterns that social scientists may be able to identify simply aid the understanding of specific cases; they are not viewed as predictive.
12 - Introduction to qualitative comparative analysis
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- By Charles C. Ragin, Northwestern University
- Thomas Janoski, Duke University, North Carolina, Alexander M. Hicks, Emory University, Atlanta
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- Book:
- The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 28 January 1994, pp 299-319
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Summary
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a new analytic technique that uses Boolean algebra to implement principles of comparison used by scholars engaged in the qualitative study of macrosocial phenomena (Ragin 1987). Typically, qualitatively oriented scholars examine only a few cases at a time, but their analyses are both intensive – addressing many aspects of cases – and integrative – examining how the different parts of a case fit together, both contextually and historically. By formalizing the logic of qualitative analysis, QCA makes it possible to bring the logic and empirical intensity of qualitative approaches to studies that embrace more than a handful of cases – research situations that normally call for the use of variable-oriented, quantitative methods. While quantitative methods are powerful data reducers, they embody strong assumptions about social phenomena that are often at odds with the interests of investigators. QCA avoids these troublesome assumptions. This chapter develops the contrast between qualitative (or caseoriented) research and quantitative (or variable-oriented) research as a way to introduce QCA and then presents a brief overview of the technique.
CASE-ORIENTED AND VARIABLEORIENTED RESEARCH STRATEGIES
In the study of macrosocial phenomena there are two basic research strategies, case-oriented and variable-oriented. While many different types of strategies have been described (e.g., Przeworski and Teune 1970; Bonnell 1980; Skocpol and Sommers 1980; Tilly 1984; Kohn 1989; and Janoski 1991), the continuum represented by the distinction between case-oriented and variable-oriented work forms the primary axis of variation among strategies.
13 - A qualitative comparative analysis of pension systems
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- By Charles C. Ragin, Northwestern University
- Thomas Janoski, Duke University, North Carolina, Alexander M. Hicks, Emory University, Atlanta
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- Book:
- The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 28 January 1994, pp 320-345
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Summary
There is nearly universal agreement in advanced capitalist democracies today that it is the responsibility of national governments to provide or at least sanction old-age support programs. Public expenditures on these programs have grown dramatically over the post–World War II period, and today expenditures on programs for the elderly outweigh expenditures on other welfare programs in most advanced countries (Quadagno 1987). Despite these commonalities, there is striking diversity among the advanced countries in how systems of old-age support are organized. Systems vary in the relative importance of public and private programs, the degree to which benefits are tied to contributions associated with paid labor, the degree to which programs have special provisions for different occupational groups or for civil servants, their relative administrative costs, and in many other ways.
Scholars have proposed a variety of explanations for these broad national differences. Three general explanations are discernible in the social scientific literature on the welfare state. According to the “logic of industrialism” explanation, both the growth of the welfare state and cross – national differences in “welfare state effort” – including pension expenditures – are by-products of economic development and its demographic and social organizational consequences (Wilensky 1975, Pampel and Williamson 1985). The “political class struggle” argument contends that the level of working-class mobilization and the strength of Left parties are the primary determinants of both the size of welfare state programs and their redistributive impact (Stephens 1979; Korpi 1983; Myles 1984; and Esping-Andersen 1990).