Case Study and Theory by Harry Eckstein
Regarding Politics "d0e2292"
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0k40037v;chu...
Preferred Citation: Eckstein, Harry. Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030 /ft0k40037v/
Four— Case Study and Theory in Political Science
Four— Case Study and Theory in Political Science Author's Note : One aim of the attempt to overhaul comparative politics was to make it more theoretical. Before the 1950s comparative politics consisted almost entirely of studies of particular cases (polities or aspects of them); many of these were highly learned, but not theoretical. Even the major texts in the field were collections of case studies: usually Britain first; then France and Germany; in some cases, also, a smattering of Italy and Sweden; and, for contrast, the Soviet Union. This was the genre in which I was formed, and thus I have always found intensive case study congenial. One can readily understand why, to achieve "theory," highly extensive large-n studies using aggregate statistics (that is, studies in the manner of Gurr, Hibbs, or the Cross-Polity Survey ) would be used, despite sacrificing intensive knowledge of the cases covered. I have not been much impressed by their results. Usually they have been complex, weak, and much-qualified by ill-fitting variables. And, although alienated from the configurative case studies prevalent in the field before, I was impressed by the import of single or limited observations, critical for theory, in the "hard" sciences or, in sociology, by the theoretical case-method as used by Michels, Malinowski, or Whyte. This led to reflections on "extensive" versus "intensive" studies for purposes of building theory; to reflections on what the process of theory building is about: and about the roles that case studies, which come in a number of varieties, might play in the process. This essay first appeared in
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0k40037v;chu...
Preferred Citation: Eckstein, Harry. Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030 /ft0k40037v/
Four— Case Study and Theory in Political Science
Four— Case Study and Theory in Political Science Author's Note : One aim of the attempt to overhaul comparative politics was to make it more theoretical. Before the 1950s comparative politics consisted almost entirely of studies of particular cases (polities or aspects of them); many of these were highly learned, but not theoretical. Even the major texts in the field were collections of case studies: usually Britain first; then France and Germany; in some cases, also, a smattering of Italy and Sweden; and, for contrast, the Soviet Union. This was the genre in which I was formed, and thus I have always found intensive case study congenial. One can readily understand why, to achieve "theory," highly extensive large-n studies using aggregate statistics (that is, studies in the manner of Gurr, Hibbs, or the Cross-Polity Survey ) would be used, despite sacrificing intensive knowledge of the cases covered. I have not been much impressed by their results. Usually they have been complex, weak, and much-qualified by ill-fitting variables. And, although alienated from the configurative case studies prevalent in the field before, I was impressed by the import of single or limited observations, critical for theory, in the "hard" sciences or, in sociology, by the theoretical case-method as used by Michels, Malinowski, or Whyte. This led to reflections on "extensive" versus "intensive" studies for purposes of building theory; to reflections on what the process of theory building is about: and about the roles that case studies, which come in a number of varieties, might play in the process. This essay first appeared in