example of case study in political science

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Writing a Case Study

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Reading Research Effectively
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Bibliography

The term case study refers to both a method of analysis and a specific research design for examining a problem, both of which are used in most circumstances to generalize across populations. This tab focuses on the latter--how to design and organize a research paper in the social sciences that analyzes a specific case.

A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or among more than two subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in this writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a single case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• Does the case represent an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• Does the case provide important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• Does the case challenge and offer a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in practice. A case may offer you an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to the study a case in order to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• Does the case provide an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings in order to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• Does the case offer a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for exploratory research that points to a need for further examination of the research problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of Uganda. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a particular village can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community throughout rural regions of east Africa. The case could also point to the need for scholars to apply feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation.

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work. In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What was I studying? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why was this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the research problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would include summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to study the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in the context of explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular subject of analysis to study and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that frames your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; c) what were the consequences of the event.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experience he or she has had that provides an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of his/her experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using him or her as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, cultural, economic, political, etc.], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, why study Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research reveals Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks from overseas reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should be linked to the findings from the literature review. Be sure to cite any prior studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for investigating the research problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is more common to combine a description of the findings with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps to support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings It is important to remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations for the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and needs for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1)  restate the main argument supported by the findings from the analysis of your case; 2) clearly state the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place for you to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in and your professor's preferences, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented applied to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were on social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood differently than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis.

Case Studies . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical (context-dependent) knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Case Study Methods in International Relations

Introduction, textbooks and monographs.

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Case Study Methods in International Relations by Christopher K. Lamont LAST REVIEWED: 11 July 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 29 November 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0225

Case studies are perhaps the most widely used research design in international relations (IR). Across the discipline’s subfields of security studies, international political economy, foreign policy analysis, and international political theory, case studies have become ubiquitous. As such, it is not surprising that case studies have been the subject of debate as to what constitutes a case study, how to conduct or design case studies, the potential contribution of case studies to general, or case specific, knowledge in the field of IR, and of course, how to evaluate case studies. To be sure, debates on case study research in IR mirror the field’s methodological pluralism and broader debates on methodology. Case studies have been widely used by interpretivist and positivist scholars of IR alike. It is for this reason that literature on case study design contains scholarship that on the one hand aims to emphasize how case study design, and case selection strategies, can help generalize findings beyond specific cases to literature on the other hand that emphasizes the historic, contextual and descriptive richness of case studies. However, it will become apparent in this bibliography that most scholarship that deals explicitly with the case study method has done so from a positivist perspective on the social sciences. Indeed, each methodological standpoint advances distinct claims as to the purpose and contribution of case studies to IR. Therefore, as we will see in the overview of scholarship presented here within this bibliography, early methodological literature on case studies in IR, political science, and comparative politics, attempted to evaluate the utility, or contribution, of case studies along the lines of the extent to which case studies could contribute to causal explanation and generalizability. However, it is also the case that today, as in the past, IR scholarship that utilizes case study design cuts across both methodological traditions as not all scholars of IR deploy case studies for the purpose of explanation. Indeed, although there has been much discussion in the literature on case study design with an aim to maximize causal inference within the positivist tradition, this bibliography will highlight scholarship on case studies that includes both positivist debates on causality, inference, and generalization, and scholarship that embraces case studies as a means of producing deeper context-dependent knowledge on a given topic, notion, or concept. The first sections will present general texts and journals on case study research relevant to IR. The following texts are general textbooks or monographs on case study research design and methods. While there is a growing body of methodological scholarship that focuses on case studies in the social science that makes reference to research in IR, most of the texts below have a broader disciplinary focus. This is because debates over case study methods have tended to center around wider philosophy of social science debates on causal inference and the study of the social world.

In recent years the growing popularity of case studies in international relations (IR) has coincided with a growth in textbooks and monographs that examine case study methods. These range from broad texts on research methods in the social sciences ( Blatter and Haverland 2012 , Burton 2000 ) that sometimes contain collections of essays on case study design and research ( Gomm, et al. 2000 ) or provide examples of case studies drawn from a wide range of cognate disciplines ( Yin 2004 ). For scholars of IR, the most discipline-specific broader text is Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences ( George and Bennett 2005 ), while Qualitative Methods in International Relations ( Klotz and Prakash 2008 ) also contains contributions that explicitly address case study methods, or methods such as process tracing, that are relevant to case study research. Also of note are texts that provide readers with guidance on how to conduct case studies ( Thomas 2016 , Yin 2014 ). An example of a text that both reflects on case study methods and also provides practical how-to guidance is Case Study Research ( Gerring 2017 ).

Blatter, Joachim, and Markus Haverland. Designing Case Studies: Explanatory Approaches in Small-N Research . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137016669

This text presents an overview of case study methods that makes the case for a pluralist case study epistemology. Blatter and Haverland explore case study design in the context of co-variational analysis, causal process tracing, and congruence analysis.

Burton, Dawn. Research Training for Social Scientists . London: SAGE, 2000.

DOI: 10.4135/9780857028051

This is a broad text on research methods in the social sciences that contains specific chapters relevant to case study research that provide a basic introduction to case study research. See in particular chapter 16, which sets out uses of case studies in social science research.

George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences . Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2005.

This text provides an in-depth assessment of case study research design for researchers whose focus is on designing case studies for theory testing. While the first part of the book provides an in-depth overview of social science debates on the merits of case studies, the second part provides a guide for researchers to conduct case study research. This text draws upon examples from both international relations and political science research.

Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

This textbook provides an overview of case study research design that primarily addresses strategies for maximizing causal inference in case study research, but also provides an overview of descriptive case studies. This text contains a practical guide to doing case study research and analyzing findings.

Gomm, Roger, Martyn Hammersley, and Peter Foster, eds. Case Study Methods: Key Issues, Key Texts . London: SAGE, 2000.

This is a general collection of essays that addresses core elements of case study design and research. It contains numerous contributions on case studies and generalizability and case studies and theory. The latter includes a contribution by Harry Eckstein on case study research in political science.

Klotz, Audie, and Deepa Prakash, eds. Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide . New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.

This volume contains numerous useful contributions relevant to case study methods that range from Klotz’s chapter on case selection to a contribution on process tracing by Jeffrey Checkel.

Thomas, Garry. How to Do Your Case Study . 2d ed. London: SAGE, 2016.

This is an accessible guide for case study research whose primary audience is students. It begins with defining case studies and strategies for case design before presenting a practical guide to carrying out case study research.

Yin, Robert K. The Case Study Anthology . London: SAGE, 2004.

This collection of essays includes examples of case studies drawn from IR, political science, sociology, and other related disciplines.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 5th ed. London: SAGE, 2014.

This textbook provides a comprehensive overview of case study research. Starting from providing definitions for case studies, this textbook goes on to provide a practical guide for students to conduct their own case studies.

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Case Study Method and Policy Analysis

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• Leslie A. Pal  

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Case studies are a good part of the backbone of policy analysis and research. This chapter illustrates case study methodology with a specific example drawn from the author’s current research on Internet governance.

Real-world problems are embedded in complex systems, in specific institutions, and are viewed differently by different policy actors. The case study method contributes to policy analysis in two ways. First, it provides a vehicle for fully contextualized problem definition. For example, in dealing with rising crime rates in a given city, the case approach allows the analyst to develop a portrait of crime in that city, for that city, and for that city’s decision makers. Second, case studies can illuminate policy-relevant questions (more as research than analysis) and can eventually inform more practical advice down the road. The chapter reviews the relationship between case study research and the aspirations of more nomothetic (law-like generalizations) social science. To study a case is not to study a unique phenomenon, but one that provides insight into a broader range of phenomena.

The author’s example of ICANN illustrates issues pertaining to globalization, global governance, and the internationalization of policy processes.

• comparative case study approach
• critical test
• generalization
• idiographic
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
• unit of analysis

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Pal, L.A. (2005). Case Study Method and Policy Analysis. In: Geva-May, I. (eds) Thinking Like a Policy Analyst. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980939_12

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Case Studies in Political Science Research Paper

View sample Case Studies in Political Science Research Paper. Browse other research paper examples and check the list of political science  research paper topics for more inspiration. If you need a research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Also, chech our custom research proposal writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

I. Introduction

Academic writing, editing, proofreading, and problem solving services, get 10% off with 24start discount code, ii. the debate within the discipline, iii. examples of the case study approach, a. u.s. politics, b. comparative politics, c. international relations, iv. conclusion.

The case study method has always been an integral tool in the investigation of social science phenomena, being of particular value when the number of observations, or cases studied, is limited in number, restricting the utility of statistical approaches. However, for some time the individual case study approach had been supplanted by large-N, data-intensive quantitative methods as the preferred technique for empirical studies. More recently, the case study has seen a revival of interest by social scientists as part of a multimethod, holistic approach that includes formal, qualitative, and quantitative methods. Indeed, each major methodological approach plays an important role in the research cycle, with the qualitative application of the case study enlightening the inductive aspect of theory development through the identification of alternate causal explanations, new variables, or complex interactions of variables. Fundamentally, case studies allow one to go beyond often simplistic quantitative analysis and develop contextually rich and in-depth pictures of the phenomena being observed.

By itself, a case study is the history of an event, be it of short or long duration—a civil protest movement, for example, or the evolutionary process from colonial rule toward stable democracy. As such, a case study identifies the expected, predictable aspects of an event, while ideally it also captures additional but less quantifiable detail, such as the cultural context, that potentially asserts a causal role as well. Individual or comparative case studies of specific, individual events, actors, or systems allow the researcher to obtain a depth of knowledge and understanding about the object being studied that large-N quantitative studies fail to provide.

A carefully crafted case study serves several purposes within the research cycle. First, while quantitative studies identify outlying or deviant cases, those well beyond the expected normal distribution, quantitative methods are generally not able to explain the specific reasons for a particular case’s extreme variation from its population mean. The case study, however, not only provides the opportunity to identify likely reasons for these individual deviations but may illuminate previously unidentified causal variables and possible alternate explanations as well. This information potentially leads to the extension of existing theory, if not its revision, and may suggest new theoretical explanations altogether.

Additionally, the case study may be the best, or only, way to study certain phenomena because of the relatively small number of identified cases and a resulting scarcity of data, which restricts the use of quantitative methods. And while much of the earliest criticism of case studies (by social scientists) centered on their application as a mainly historical narrative, the substantive purpose of case study is to understand that history but to do so in a way that allows for the identification of critical actions, structures, or other aspects that contribute to the end result. Being able to examine with scientific rigor phenomena that either do not lend themselves well to quantitative study, or for which only a limited set of objective measures is available, makes such an approach valuable. The role case studies can play in identifying and understanding previously unknown variables and in establishing causal paths and the interdependency of variables, as well as being critical tests of existing theory, makes them not just a complement to quantitative methods but potentially of equal value (Geddes, 1990; Gerring, 2004).

Case studies are by definition qualitative, meaning that the focus of the study is not primarily the systematic manipulation of aggregated points of data, an objective exercise, but rather a study that focuses on the quality of the potential data observed, a much more subjective work. This is not to say that case studies are not objective as well: In reality, for a case study to have any influence, it must identify and measure variables to allow for reliable comparison and to build theory that is testable, replicable, and generalizable. Case study is ultimately a method that falls into two forms: the individual, within case study and the comparative across case study, usually limited to a small number of cases. Both types work to identify causal relationships and enlighten theoretical explanations. Good case study work can be either accumulating (building on previous knowledge) or original (establishing entirely new avenues of research).

Political scientists have had an ongoing discussion about the role of the case study approach in their field. This discussion has focused on the relative value of case study compared with other methods for evaluating and advancing theoretical understanding. Of central concern is the perceived methodological limitation of single and small-N case work within a discipline that favors quantitative methodologies. A tension results between the benefits accrued from this method and its limitations. What value can a unique examination contribute? Are hypotheses and theory valid only if they are testable and generalizable? Within these debates over the fundamental usefulness of deliberative case study work are questions that address both the inherent strengths and weaknesses of such an approach. Scholars have generally fallen into two camps, those who argue for its usefulness and those who contend it has limited utility in a discipline with a strong quantitative emphasis and reliance on scientific method.

Addressing this fundamental question over the potentially ambiguous nature of a case study finding, which alone can neither directly inform nor disprove a generalizable finding, Arend Lijphart (1971) states that because of its singular nature, the case study in and of itself does not directly satisfy the standards of scientific research. He does, however, credit the case study with multiple indirect benefits, making it a valuable component in establishing political science theory. He identifies six types of case studies that fall into roughly two categories: those chosen because the case itself is of interest and that are purely descriptive and those chosen to inform and build theory. The first category encompasses single case studies, which are generally detailed histories of a specific event or result and which, he argues, have value for this history alone. The thorough knowledge of a country gained by such an intensive, rich study provides critical information that others can also benefit from. Additionally, these in-depth analyses not only are a source of data for larger comparative studies but may also identify new variables of interest or suggest potentially new theoretical explanations. Lijphart’s other typologies include those case studies that are chosen specifically for theory-building purposes. They include hypothesis-generating cases in areas in which no established theory exists; theory-confirming and -informing cases, both of which test existing theories; and deviant case analysis, for cases known to have varied from the expectations predicted by theory. This third type of case often reveals additional variables previously unidentified. It may suggest a temporal ordering of variables (path dependency) or identify the sometimes critical interactions of variables. The study of deviant cases may merely suggest refinements to the way variables are operationalized within the study, still an important theoretical contribution. These last three case typologies constitute the core of comparative case study, with their usefulness coming from their deliberate selection as a test to existing theory. While Lijphart identifies certain benefits of the case study approach, his praise is still conditional, and he favors the value of large-N quantitative studies whenever possible.

Harry Eckstein (1975) addresses the utility of case studies by first noting the predominant status held by historiographic work in earlier political science research. His main contention is that this early case study work, at both the micro and the macro level, although insightful in its own right, was perceived to be severely limited in its usefulness for producing generalizable theory, because of its singular focus and the statistical consequence of an N of 1. The prevailing assumption was that what theory-building utility case study work had was inductively drawn from the events studied, and those inferences might or might not represent replicable conclusions. Eckstein questions this assumption and lays out a detailed argument supporting the utility of case study work in all stages of the theory development process, not just the nascent ones. He additionally contends that case studies may actually be most valuable at the theory testing stage. Particularly in the field of comparative politics and when studying complex, potentially unique systems, Eckstein suggests that well-designed case study methods may be the best way of testing hypotheses and cumulating generalizable theories. Indeed, he emphasizes the role of case study in its comparative application and perspective.

Before he makes his argument for the value of case study to theory building, Eckstein (1975) provides valuable definitions of case study by emphasizing the concentrated, yet flexible, aspect of an investigation into a single event or individual. This focused yet not narrowly defined approach allows the investigator to be open to unexpected observations and new conclusions. Eckstein additionally makes the important distinction that the study of one event does not necessarily mean only one measure of the results. Rather, he contends that how an event or thing is studied will dictate its number of observations. Thus, one event can be broken down into numerous observations. For example, “Astudy of six general elections in Britain may be, but need not be, an N = 1 study. It might also be an N = 6 study. It can also be an N = 120,000,000 study” (p. 85). This example illustrates his definition of a case as the single measurement of a pertinent variable observed, so that comparative study is then defined as “simply numerous cases along the same lines, with a view to reporting and interpreting numerous measures on the same variables of different ‘individuals’” (p. 85).

After he provides a useful review of the steps toward the development of theory, first the question or puzzle, followed by the formulation of a hypothesis and then a test, with the cycle likely repeating itself as refinements are made, Eckstein proceeds to describe five distinct varieties of the case study and identifies the particular uses each has. The first of these, the configurative idiographic study, is meant to be a comprehensive study of its target but one that allows for intuitive interpretation of the facts. By definition, idiographic is individualizing rather than nomographic or generalizing. Indeed, Eckstein acknowledges that this type of case study was the predominant type he first alluded to in this work. But he makes the point that the strengths of these types of case studies are their very weakness. Their rich description and often persuasive intuitive interpretations may be individually factual, but they aren’t systematic, which makes generalizable conclusions problematic and substantive theories unlikely.

The disciplined configurative study, a term Eckstein (1975) credits to Sidney Verba, turns this relationship around somewhat; rather than building theories on interpretations, interpretations should be driven by theory. This implies that the details of a case should either confirm or disprove a theory that ought to apply to it. The problem with this approach is, as Eckstein points out, its “discipline.” The strict and usually narrow application to a case of a hypothesized theory should either confirm or deny it. In essence, Eckstein suggests that this approach may be too restrictive. It may also lack the flexibility to accommodate more intricate relationships not already identified or suggested by existing theory. He also worries that interpretation of cases on an existing theory presumes that the theory itself is correct and suggests that existing theory, however valid, may “compel particular case interpretations” (p. 104, italics added) with its emphasis on generalizability at the expense of more individualized findings.

Eckstein’s (1975) third type is heuristic case studies, which are deliberate searches for discovery, often a result of trial and error. These are meant to be creative, stimulating the imagination of the researcher toward new ways of looking at a problem, focusing on broader, more generalizable relationships. This discovery is incremental and is often developed in sequential studies as the new theory is further refined. The reason for heuristic case study is given rather succinctly by Eckstein: Theories do not arise from data alone but rather from the imagination of the researcher, after discerning puzzles and then patterns. Case studies, with their intensive analysis, increase the likelihood that these critical relationships will be found, particularly when they are carefully chosen to advance theory building. One caveat Eckstein offers on heuristic case studies is that they often produce too much—multiple explanations, too many variables, and a resulting complexity of interactions that are not only unwieldy but make generalization impossible.

Case studies are also used to probe the likelihood of proposed theories, a form that Eckstein (1975) calls plausibility probes. These are an intervening step before testing, to determine whether the expense of testing is warranted. Although the usefulness of such a study is limited to this end, and alone it cannot confirm a theory, it can, however, improve the prospects of testing, and for this reason it has value.

A more critical example of case study in theory building is the crucial case study. Eckstein (1975) confronts the dilemma of a single observation and the inability to correctly determine a statistical relationship on the basis of such limited information as a source of potential error for any theory based on it. The inductive fallacy is the error made when one derives a theory from only the observed (gathered) data, without further testing. The critical caveat is that one cannot test a theory with the same data used to originate the theory, and therefore another such example must be found. The crucial case is just such a test of a proposed theory. If all those variables deemed critical to a theory exist, then the results should be as predicted by the theory. Conversely, one can study a case similar in most respects, yet lacking in the hypothesized critical components, as a way of demonstrating that similar results did not result because the causal variable was missing. Although these most likely and least likely case study designs cannot absolutely confirm or deny theory, they are important tests of the likelihood of the theory and the correctness of the causal relationships being proposed.

Eckstein’s (1975) thorough typology and analysis of the case study method methodically crafts an argument for the benefits of case study work. These include the insight made possible by the rigorous, thorough inspection in a carefully crafted case study and its across-discipline utility in identifying new variables and new causal mechanisms leading to the generation of new theory. To accomplish this goal, Eckstein emphasizes that case study selection must be driven by theory, and not by interest or convenience.

Charles Ragin (1987), in The Comparative Method, devotes a chapter to the discussion of case-oriented comparative methods and addresses the likelihood that even the most meticulously performed case study is unlikely to produce definitive explanations. However, identifying critical contextual facts may help determine the causal relationships underlying the observed phenomena. It is important to note that Ragin emphasizes the value that an intensive case study accrues to its researcher. Deep understanding of an event or case in its entirety, rather than merely knowing pieces of information, allows for more contextually rich comparison to other events. This richness can only enhance the reliability of the causal inferences drawn. Such depth of knowledge is likely limited to a small number of cases, and indeed this complexity is a constraint on the case study researcher. Case study is, as Ragin shows, a successful strategy for analyzing complex, multicausal events and at the same time still cohesively connecting them theoretically. He concludes with a nice summation of the strengths of the case study method: Case studies make possible the discovery of patterns of relationships and difference, with all deviations requiring an explanation, necessitating a thorough knowledge of the data. Since case study work does not rely on statistical probabilities such as frequency or distribution, a single case can be critical and can potentially prove or disprove a hypothesis. Case study work is holistic and requires a thorough understanding of the entire event, not just targeted aspects of it, and finally, case study encourages creative new ways of examining behavior and events. Particularly in the identification of complex interactions and the importance of context in understanding their role, Ragin makes the point that case studies provide a methodologically distinct approach.

In Designing Social Inquiry, Gary King, Robert O. Koehane, and Verba (1994) argue that the same level of testable, scientific rigor can be applied to qualitative work that quantitative scholars are able to use in their statistically based work; qualitative work includes, of course, case studies. King et al. focus on research design with an emphasis on the logic of inference, to use the facts that are known to learn about facts as yet unknown. This is then used to identify causal relationships and construct theories that can then be tested. King et al.’s emphasis on the latter stages of research design, producing theory that is testable and thus falsifiable, challenges case study researchers to think rigorously about their work, to recognize the similarities of quantitative and qualitative work with respect to empirical rigor, and to approach their work as such. King et al. argue that the primary way to do this is to see qualitative data more quantitatively, and to accomplish this from a practical standpoint, they advise maximizing the number of observations (from which measures are taken) whenever possible. At the same time, when adding an observation is not possible, they recommend summarizing on the outcome of interest instead, in order to avoid issues of micronumerosity (having more variables than observations). Echoing Eckstein (1975), King et al. remind us that the size of a case study, its N, is often determined by the level of analysis chosen: Is it one single event, several incidents within that event, or many more individual acts? In addition to constructing a design that allows for multiple observations, the authors emphasize the requirement of designing theories that can be falsified (i.e., the null hypothesis can be tested). King et al. also address the importance of reducing the potential bias introduced through case selection. They emphasize the care with which cases must be chosen, as there must be “the possibility of at least some variation on the dependent variable” (p. 129). Other potential sources of selection bias they cite are investigator induced: choosing cases because data are available or because one has a particular interest in or understands the language, or the larger bias that often occurs when case selection is correlated with the dependent variable. In this instance, the process being studied has already been selected for over time, leaving as evidence only its most recent iteration and losing any obvious trace of what may have been critically important in the intervening stages.

Not all scholars implicitly agreed with the arguments made by King et al. (1994), and a lively review symposium in response to it appeared in the journal American Political Science Review. In it, Ronald Rogowski (1995) challenges King et al.’s concern with the testability of single-observation studies and relates three examples of just such single-case studies that do succeed under this limitation. He offers additional examples in response to their admonitions against dependent variable selection bias and comments that without deliberate selection based on a case’s anomaly (its status as a statistical outlier), one of the core benefits of case study work would be lost. Rogowski sums up by emphasizing the importance of not losing the benefits of good qualitative work at the expense of increased quantifiability. In the same symposium, David Collier (1995) also takes issue with how King et al. address selection bias. However, although Collier generally concurs with their position, he argues for a bit more nuance when one is faced with some of the realities of the comparative method. Additionally he identifies the importance of valuing the context of research findings as more important perhaps than their generalizability, and he gently suggests that King et al. could be less rigid in their appraisal of qualitative methods.

Since case study is just that, an intensive examination of at least one item, how cases are selected is a fundamental issue. In comparative case studies, this issue is particularly relevant because small-N studies suggest that there exists more than one unique example of what is being examined and therefore a larger population to choose from. As a result, concerns over potential selection bias contribute prominently in discussions of the case study method. In “How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics,” Barbara Geddes (1990) addresses this issue by reexamining three prominent comparative studies. She neatly demonstrates how the potential error of case selection on the dependent variable can particularly impact results in small-N studies. Essentially a primer on selection bias, this article outlines the importance not only of identifying the most likely causal reasons some event occurred, but also of examining the counterfactual as well. Geddes makes the point that by not providing a larger sample, selected randomly (rather than on the dependent variable) for testing the proposed relationship between cause and effect, one is really comparing only “the differences among the selected cases” (p. 132). She then shows how such an error can also occur in a path-dependent argument. In both examples, misleading findings resulted from researchers’ not expanding the population from which the targeted cases were drawn. Had they done so, they would have had a larger and likely more random sample to test. Geddes’s final example involves time-series studies and the determination of the appropriate end point of a case study. In this instance, she shows how changing the dates of a study would affect its results drastically, and she also makes the point that historical case studies are especially vulnerable to selection bias based on the time frames chosen for analysis.

The more recent discussion of case study work has focused increasingly on understanding the role of this method as part of a comprehensive research strategy. John Gerring (2004) emphasizes how, by failing to accommodate the bounded aspect of case work, most commonly used definitions for case study are inadequate. He offers the definition of case study as “an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding a larger class of (similar) units,” with units being “spatially bounded phenomena” (p. 342). This implies the study of a unique event or thing, at one point in time, with the goal of generalizability, which, he argues, provides a more theoretically useful interpretation. Gerring then provides a comprehensive discussion of the methodological ambiguities that occur in case studies and identifies six areas in which case studies are vulnerable. With these as a guide, he outlines the strengths and weaknesses of case (within-unit) study versus across-unit study. He notes that the case study method is more suited to descriptive inferences than to causal ones. It is a method that has a special affinity with intensive, focused studies rather than those that are extensive and broad. Case study is more likely to have high internal validity and weak external validity. It facilitates the defining of causal mechanisms, and not the testing of causal effects, performing better when causal mechanisms are deterministic instead of probabilistic. Finally, case studies are well suited to exploratory research but are limited in their uses for confirming hypotheses, yet they are preferred when across-case studies cannot provide adequate variance for the relationship being studied. With this enhanced clarity, and by situating case studies not apart from but as a complement to noncase methods, Gerring suggests that case study methods should be accepted as an equally worthy methodological approach by the entire discipline and that rather than favoring one method over another (often exclusively), scholars should use the method most suited to their question, their data, and their theory.

With Alexander George and Andrew Bennett’s (2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, the debate within the discipline over case studies is brought up to date. Both authors have been longtime advocates of case study methods, and this latest work is a very thorough argument for the value of case study methods as part of a research strategy that includes both quantitative and qualitative methods as well as formal theory (Bennett, 2004, offers a chapter-length article distilled from this material, as well). George and Bennett disagree with King et al.’s (1994) contention that there can be only one “logic of Inference” (p. 11). George and Bennett discuss the relationship between case studies and the systematic building of theory. They compare the strengths and weaknesses of case studies and first identify four strengths, all areas in which statistical methods tend to be weak. These include concept validity, the potential for discovering new causal variables and deriving new hypotheses, a better understanding of the relationship between causal variables and possible path dependency, and the ability to identify or model the complex interactions of these variables. Weaknesses of case studies include the potential for introducing selection bias from the cases chosen and the inability to accurately measure the relative strength of an effect. Also, because of their single or very small number, case studies are relatively unique and not necessarily representative; cases chosen from a small pool may not necessarily be independent of one another, and they do not have a rich number of observations from which to judge the strength of associations between variables. George and Bennett advocate the use of the structured, focused comparison, which allows for the collection of data that can be systematically compared with other cases as well as accumulated. In this way, scientific rigor is added, and the utility of case methods is likely increased. The authors then outline the method of case study, from designing the research to executing the study and to drawing conclusions from the findings. In all steps, the role of theory is predominant: It drives the design and motivates the findings. In addition to being the definitive authority on case methods, George and Bennett present a compelling argument for using multiple methodological approaches in a research program. Not only do they show how qualitative and quantitative methods complement each other; they integrate formal modeling as well. This approach is gaining momentum in political science today, making a qualitative skill set not merely useful but necessary.

In the field of U.S. politics, the classic example of a grounded, participant observer case study must be Alexis de Tocqueville’s (1835/2004) Democracy in America. Although most modern scholars of U.S. politics solve their N of 1 problem by focusing on the subunits of U.S. government, using states or administrations, court terms or congressional voting records as their unit of analysis, Tocqueville analyzed the United States as a single entity. He drew his conclusion, that it is citizens’ affinity for joining in and participating at all levels of civic life that strengthens democracy and enables it to flourish, from his personal observations as he extensively toured the country in the early 1800s. A more modern work in U.S. politics that is rooted in qualitative case study work is Richard Fenno’s (1978) examination of congressional members, Home Style: House Members in Their Districts, in which he used extensive interviews and considerable time observing congressmen, both in Washington, D.C., and, critically, in their districts. This self-styled “soaking and poking” enabled a comprehensive, in-depth observation that allowed Fenno to identify the paradox of individual representatives’ being very well-liked by their constituents at the same time as the institution of Congress is collectively viewed much more critically, and he explains much of the paradox by the personal relationships developed through district service. David Mayhew’s (1974) Congress: The Electoral Connection also looks at the relationship between members of Congress and their constituents and is another example of a work based on inductive reasoning rooted in extensive in-depth participant observation. Mayhew finds that it is the incentive for reelection that motivates the individual behavior of both congressmen and the Congress. Through committee assignments, leadership positions, and vote trading (among other means), congressmen ensure their reelection chances. Mayhew suggests that with Congress motivated as a whole by mutual self-interest, it is no surprise that the structural arrangements of Congress, its organization of the leadership and committee system, have evolved to facilitate this behavior.

The case study method is used most extensively in the subfield of comparative politics. Using primarily small-N research designs, many significant works have been produced. Included among these is Barrington Moore’s (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Moore examines five societies to compare their experiences with modernization and the economic revolution that ensues. He concludes that there are three likely outcomes, dependent on the country’s social structure, and these in turn predict the likelihood of a successful transition to democracy or descent into dictatorship. The most well-known example of an intensive single-country case study must be Robert Putnam’s (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, also an excellent example of historiographic work. The subject of lively debate within the discipline, social capital, that is, the extent to which citizens are participatory and invested in their communities as a result of their civic relationships, was found by Putnam to be a necessary component of a successful democratic society. Putnam argues that the associational experience of northern and central Italy developed interpersonal trust and fostered more democratic local governments, but the lack of similar groups in the south left them with less. Another such single-case work is Robert Bates’s (1989) Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya. This work, which focuses on the intersection between land use, government institutions, and public policies, relies on a critical understanding of the economic, political, and cultural forces at work in Kenyan society. The complex interplay of economics and politics that Bates studies is only fully appreciated when the cultural context is included; the influence of tribal affiliations and Kenya’s British colonial legacy are just two examples. These kinds of rich, multilayered observations and intimate knowledge of a society can be accomplished only with case study methods, with which Bates combines quantitative rigor as well.

International relations scholars have also extensively used the case study method to selectively examine the actions of elite actors and organizations during critical events. Case study work is used to evaluate existing theory as well as propose alternate explanations to better understand the often complex motivations of and among nation-states. In Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Graham T. Allison (1971) examines the Cuban missile crisis and, primarily through interviews, reconstructs the often conflicted decision-making process of all the major participants. To do this, he approaches the same event from the perspective of three different decisional- behavior models. These competing approaches are collectively used to illustrate the author’s thesis: that despite internal pressures to the contrary, it was the actions and the decisions of the two leaders that successfully resolved the issue. Alexander George and Richard Smoke’s (1974) Deterrence in American Foreign Policy is an example of a focused-comparison case study that examines 11 instances of the failure of U.S. deterrence policy. George and Smoke use process tracing to establish the causal explanation, which would not be possible without the depth of knowledge acquired in these case histories. In doing so, they critique existing theory and are able to offer a new, more dynamic, explanation. In another example of a focused-comparison study, Stephen M. Walt (1987), in The Origins of Alliances, looks at alliance formation and contrasts two distinct types: those made for mutual support to defend against a threat and those that are more opportunistic (or perhaps pragmatic), in which one aligns with the threat itself. Walt then explores the likely causes of these choices, looking specifically at shared ideology and the influences of foreign aid. His concentrated case study of states in the Middle East during a single period allows him to develop the depth of knowledge necessary for such a study, in which data alone would be inadequate.

As the previous examples illustrate, case study work is applicable to a broad range of theoretical questions. Indeed, for many situations, a case study examination is the only way to rigorously examine an event. Case study can be used in either half of the research cycle: to deductively test the hypothesized research question or to inductively explore the results of empirical observations. It is also a valuable method for developing original theoretical insight, which can often form the basis of a research design using more statistically robust methods. Case study in and of itself serves a vital informative purpose as well, allowing in-depth appreciation of often nuanced yet critical conditions of the larger phenomenon being observed. Finally, the case study is increasingly being appreciated as a necessary component of comprehensive political science research today: Together with traditional quantitative methods that provide reliable statistical probabilities for a tightly focused view, and formal theory methods that produce more soft-focused or abstract explanations, case study work provides a necessary contribution by filling in the gaps, compensating for the inevitable shortcomings when formal and quantitative methods are applied to real-life questions and problems. Most critically, a well-crafted case study gives the researcher a level of knowledge and understanding of the matter being examined that no other method allows. This benefit alone justifies the application of case study methods to social science research today and in the future.

Bibliography:

• Allison, G. T. (1971). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Bates, R. (1989). Beyond the miracle of the market: The political economy of agrarian development in Kenya. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Bennett, A. (2004). Case study methods: Design, use and comparative advantages. In D. F. Sprinz & Y. Wolinsky Nahmias (Eds.), Models, numbers and cases: Methods for studying international relations (pp. 19-55). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Collier, D. (1995). Review: Translating quantitative methods for qualitative researchers: The case of selection bias. American Political Science Review, 89, 461-466.
• Collier, D., & Mahoney, J. (1996). Insights and pitfalls: Selection bias in qualitative research. World Politics, 49, 56-91.
• Eckstein, H. (1975). Case study and theory in political science. In F. Greenstein & N. Polsby (Eds.), Handbook of political science: Vol. 7. Strategies of inquiry (pp. 79-137). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
• Fenno, R. (1978). Home style: House members in their districts. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Geddes, B. (1990). How the cases you choose affect the answers you get: Selection bias in comparative politics. Political Analysis, 2, 131-150.
• George, A. L., & Bennett, A. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• George, A. L., & Smoke, R. (1974). Deterrence in American foreign policy: Theory and practice. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Gerring, J. (2004). What is a case study and what is it good for? American Political Science Review, 98, 341-354.
• King, G., Koehane, R. O., & Verba, S. (1994). Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Lijphart, A. (1971). Comparative politics and the comparative method. American Political Science Review, 65(3), 682-693.
• Mayhew, D. R. (1974). Congress: The electoral connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Moore, B., Jr. (1966). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Ragin, C. C. (1987). The comparative method: Moving beyond qualitative and quantitative strategies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Rogowski, R. (1995). Review: The role of theory and anomaly in social scientific inference. American Political Science Review, 89, 467-470.
• Tocqueville, A. de. (2004). Democracy in America. New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1835)
• Walt, S. M. (1987). The origins of alliances. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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A Political Science Guide

For students, researchers, and others interested in doing the work of political science, outline and structure, research papers.

Social science research papers combine the presentation of both argument and evidence in response to a core question. It is common for such papers to have a literature review that considers the work others have done to address the core subject.

Generic Research Paper Outline Example

There are many ways to structure a research paper. This is just one.

I. Introduction

State the core question; Tell the reader the significance of the question; Provide a brief version of your answer to the question; Provide an overview of the rest of the paper.

II. Theoretical Framework/Literature Review

Provide an overview of the possible explanations for your question. Include consideration of the broader literature that addresses your subject. Address your method for approaching the question.

III. Case Study (or Case Studies)

Apply the theoretical framework to one or more cases. This could involve multiple separate major sections of a research paper.

[IV.] Conclusion

Return to your core question. Summarize your core argument and findings. Discuss the broader implications or prospects for future research.

Policy Papers

One purpose of a policy paper is to make a prescription for future policies. The following is an example of how to structure such a paper.

Generic Policy Paper Outline Example

II. Criteria and Goals for the Policy

Provide clear and measurable criteria for assessing the success of a policy choice.

III…  Policy Choices

State specific policy choices. Apply all identified criteria to each policy choice.

Return to your core question. Summarize your policy recommendation and findings. Discuss the broader implications or prospects for future research.

Theses and Long Projects

It goes without saying that there is no simple formula on how to optimally structure your work. Different analyses demand different frames of presentation, and the wealth of the structure types available are limited only by how creative a writer can be with his or her analytical and writing style. Still, there are a couple of key tenets that can (and probably should) be considered when addressing this crucial step to producing your research work.

First , you should always remember that when it comes to structure, the central consideration should be answering the question of: What is the best and most effective way of getting my reader to know exactly what is going on, or to buy what I’m trying to say?

Second , give some thought to the kind of analysis you’re doing. A study chasing a trend throughout history would probably do well by divvying chapters up according to time periods, or yaers. An analysis comparing and contrasting a controlled event throughout various geographic locations could benefit from having chapters go by regions. Your organization could also be more atypical than that: chapters can be broken down based on concepts (with countries or time periods being held constant), or divided according to key individuals and organizations.

Third, a chapter should capture and put forward one complete overarching component of your argument, as each section within the chapter covers a smaller potion of that overaching component. It’s more or less a follow-through on the basic idea of arguments, in that each argument can be broken down into smaller pieces which are integral or concretely supportive of the whole. Think about it as somewhat equivalent to the biological levels of organization of living things:

A collection of cells is a tissue. A collection of tissues is an organ. A collection of organs is an organ system. A collection of organ systems is an organism.

The composition of an argument – especially when we think of it in terms of an extended written arugment – very much echo these biological levels of organization. When considering how the table of contents of your thesis is going to look like, perhaps think of it this way.

The following are some examples of theses organizations, represented by central arguments and table of contents:

“Stemming the Nuclear Tide: Coercive Diplomacy and US Nonproliferation Efforts, 1964-Present.”

By : Nicholas LeSuer Miller, Class of 2009.

Thesis : “By examining the universe of cases since the Chinese test where the U.S. has made an effort to halt a state’s nuclear weapons program, and analyzing these cases within the broader theory of coercive diplomacy, this work seeks to explain why the U.S. has succeeded in certain non-proliferation efforts and failed in others.” (p. 6)

Table of Contents :

• Introduction
• Pakistan: Looking the Other Way
• South Korea: Coercing a Cold War Ally
• Israel : Half-Hearted Diplomacy
• Taiwan: Persistence Pays Off
• South Africa: Too Little Too Late
• Libya: Unsolicited Success
• India: Nonproliferation Policy Paralysis
• North Korea: Failure at Every Turn
• Findings and Implications.

This thesis has a very straightforward and clear approach; because this writer’s analysis focuses on country-specific differences regarding a common controlled event/concept (in this case, American non-proliferation efforts), it makes perfect structural and argumentative sense to manage chapters by countries.

The same principle can be applied to temporal comparisons or between concepts and events – essentially anything that has a clear and definitive conceptual quality.

“Organizing African Unity: a Pan-African Project.”

By: Kathryn Hana Cragg, Class of 2008.

Thesis : “This paper examines the history of continental cooperation, focusing on a comparative analysis of the OAU and the AU. It will argue that a particular set of domestic and international factors interplayed to create the OAU in 1963. As a result of historical divisions from the colonial age, the paper contends that the OAU suffered from regional and historic divisions from its inception.” (p. 5)

Table of Contents:

• Part I – Traditional International Relations Perspectives
• Part II -African Cooperation: A Unique Experience
• Part III – New Outlooks on Third World Alignment
• Nkrumah’s Beginnings
• The Conferences of Independent African States
• The Brazzaville-Casablanca Split
• Congolese Civil War
• The Monrovia Block
• Unity Revisited
• Conference at Addis Ababa
• The Charter of OAU
• Structure of OAU
• Responsibilities of the OAU
• Factors in the Formation of the OAU
• History and Downfall of the OAU
• OAU Legacy and a Culture of Change
• South African Foreign Policy: The African Renaissance and NEPAD
• Obasanjo’s Reform Package and the Creation of the AU
• Colonel Muammer Gaddafi and Libyan Integration
• Objective and Principles of the CA
• Structure of the AU
• The AU – A Security Community?
• Conclusion.

This thesis follows a slightly more complex strategy. The writer began by laying a conceptual foundation with her initial chapter – a solid idea if one is tackling a particularly conceptually messy phenomena (that is, of course, not to say that nuclear non-proliferation efforts are not conceptually messy). The analysis then progressed on a somewhat temporal route, breaking down large sections according to “eras” linearly along the time-line. Notice, however, the fact while the writer divided the sections by time-line, she wrote the subsections by mixing both particular events and theoretical discussions. Once again, go with what best and most effectively presents your argument.

“Rethinking Repression: Exploring the Effectiveness of Counterterrorism in Spain.”

By: Evan James Perkoski.

Thesis : “I argue that legal, nonviolent forms of counterterrorism are the most effectiveat reducing the frequency of terrorist attacks.” (p. 4)  “The goal of this thesis is to provide a quantitative assessment of the relative ability of counterterrorist tactics to reduce the likelihood of terrorist incidents.” (p. 5)

• Central Question
• Significant of the Study
• Research Design
• The First Step: Defining Terrorism
• Implications of the Study
• Thesis Layout
• What defines effective counterterrorism?
• Understanding Counterterrorism
• The Options: What do Government have to choose from?
• Repressive Policies
• Conciliatory Policies
• Legal Reform and Restriction
• Indiscriminate vs. Discriminate Actions
• Additional Policy Concerns: Group Motivations, Structural Factors, Institutional Restrains, and Information Asymmetries.
• Problems with previous studies of counterterrorism
• Introduction to Series Hazard Modeling
• Conclusions
• Study Limitations and Further Research
• Rationale for Choosing 1988-1992
• Event Data and TABARI
• Study Limitations
• Using Politics to Deter Political Violence
• Violence: A Viable Option to Fight Terrorism?
• Restricting Terrorists to Deter Terrorism
• Effectiveness of Policy Combinations
• Discriminate vs. Indiscriminate Actions
• Theoretical Contributions and Policy Implications

As opposed to the earlier two examples, this thesis specifically raises and examines the effectiveness of a self-conceived (or observed) theory. To this end, the writer looks first at presenting and arguing for all aspects of the theory, which can be seen with the first chapter. It is worth noting that many qualifications goes into his discussion, explaining just about every major choice he makes with respect to his model.

This work also has the added complication of being a predominantly quantitative analysis. As such, it is proper that a good number of sections were dedicated to exposition, analysis, and discussion of the techniques that he used, including even the software involved.

The meat of the research here lies in the third and fourth chapters, which examines policies and tactics respectively. In similar theses, these would be the case study analysis sections, where the theory proposed earlier is applied and interacted with studied events or occurrences.

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The Role of Case Study Research in Political Science: Evidence for Causal Claims

2012, Philosophy of Science

Political science research, particularly in international relations and comparative politics,has increasingly become dominated by statistical and formal approaches. The promise of these approaches shifted the methodological emphasis away from case study research. In response, supporters of case study research argue that case studies provide evidence for causal claims that is not available through statistical and formal research methods, and many have advocated multimethod research. I propose a way of understanding the integration of multiple methodologies in which the causes sought in case studies are treated as singular causation and contingent on a theoretical framework.

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This article seeks to present, in a pedagogical and introductory way, central issues concerning research design, inference and causality in Political Science and International Relations. It is aims, therefore, at familiarizing students of this field with the common tools of this scientific endeavor, as well as introducing them to the main debates that cut across the discipline. In order to do so, we review the guidelines presented in the book Designing Social Inquiry and in the publications that answered it, either endorsing or contesting its conceptions on the best scientific practices. The objective of this contribution is to better equip Political Science and International Relations students to think critically about the choices involved in the elaboration and execution of a research design.

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This article argues that International Relations (IR) researchers concerned with why-questions about the state’s external behaviour ought to employ a multicausal approach attentive to the interrelated relationship between external structures and internal agents, presenting the (meta-)theoretical rationales underlying its argument. Here the author suggests ‘a rich/bold ontology’ regarding foreign policy behaviour. Then the article elaborates on detailed and explicit guidelines on how to traverse the bridge that connects the insights of that rich ontology to the empirical research necessary to make claims about the real world of any one moment. In a related vein, the article claims that a multicausal approach should be established using what the author calls ‘loose-knit deductive reasoning’ through which epistemological and methodological openness can be preserved in a manageable way. More importantly, this article discusses the role of theory for IR scholarship and the standards for judging theoretical contributions and progress in the field of IR. Ultimately, the author argues that a complex and flexible approach – both as a useful mode of explanation and as a progressive model of theory construction – can make important contributions to a better understanding of foreign policy and world politics, not only because it enables researchers to become keenly sensitive to the complex reality underlying a nation’s foreign policy and to the interrelated relationship between structures and agents in international relations, but also because it can serve to provide a secure base for the progressive accumulation of the evidence closely associated with multiple causation on which any adequate explanation about complex foreign policy behaviour must surely be founded and without which general theory cannot really flourish.

Government and Opposition

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This article reviews recent attempts to develop multi-method social scientific frameworks. The article starts by discussing the ontological and epistemological foundations underlying case studies and variance-based approaches, differentiating approaches into bottom-up, case-based and top-down, variance-based approaches. Case-based approaches aim to learn how a causal process works within a case, whereas variance-based approaches assess mean causal effects across a set of cases. However, because of the different fundamental assumptions, it is very difficult for in-depth studies of individual cases to communicate meaningfully with claims about mean causal effects across a large set of cases. The conclusions discuss the broader challenges this distinction has for the study of comparative politics more broadly.

Tulia Falleti

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This article makes the case for process patterns as an alternative to causal mechanisms. Causal mechanisms are explanatory tools to unpack the " black boxes " separating the input and output of models. Unlike causal mechanisms, process patterns do not require such a black box. They refer to recurrent sequences of interaction observed across any number of empirical domains. Scholars can apply them across disciplines when similar processes occur in different domains. The article provides examples from International Relations where scholars have sometimes studied process patterns in all but name.

Edgar Ojeda

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7.1: What are Qualitative Methods?

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• Page ID 76219

• Josue Franco
• Cuyamaca College

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define qualitative research methods
• Understand the strengths and limitations of qualitative research methods

Political science is the study of power, political authority, conflict, and negotiation, all of which can be approached through deep observation and analysis. In understanding these central foci of political life, there is a rich body of work employing qualitative research methods. Qualitative research refers to data collection in which the focus is on non-numerical data. This can include texts, interviews with individuals or groups, observations recorded by researchers, and many other sources of knowledge. Despite the quantitative turn that political science has taken in recent decades, qualitative approaches have provided powerful insights into many important research questions.

Early political thinkers from Aristotle to Sun Tze were deeply analytical in their approach to understanding the world, and they did so by observing and recording phenomena through nonnumerical means. Aristotle, in Book IV of Politics, discusses possible types of regimes in the world and argues that polity, a combination of democracy and oligarchy, is the best possible kind of government given his observations of human behavior. 14 Today, political scientists employ a variety of qualitative research methods to understand topics as varied as the dynamics of revolution, campaign strategies, and the impact of political change on communities and individuals.

Qualitative methods can also be part of a larger methodological toolkit used by political scientists. Some scholars rely on “mixed methods” to answer their research questions about the world. Mixed methods utilize both qualitative and quantitative methods. For example, consider the research question, “Under what conditions might Texas become a purple state within the United States, i.e., a place that is a mix of Democratic and Republican voters?” Quantitative data may tell researchers about trends in voter registration and turnout over time. Qualitative methods, such as interviewing Texans in focus groups or town hall-style meetings, will illuminate how voters perceive their political choices and political future. The combination of both qualitative and quantitative data can overcome deficiencies in relying solely on one or the other.

The methods employed by qualitative researchers are myriad, and we will review several of them in this chapter (Table 7.1). Because politics are inherently relational, one starting point in the qualitative method toolkit is talking to people. This can take the form of interviews, either of a single individual or group of people. Documentary sources are also a valuable source of knowledge. Documents may be collected from repositories such as libraries or archives or when visiting relevant sites such as the offices of government bureaus or advocacy organizations. Ethnographic research involves “going into the field,” or conducting fieldwork at one or more research site(s) to address a research question. Fieldwork can include interviewing and document collection and analysis, but it is also a means for a researcher to collect and record observations about their subject.

For example, a Canadian political scientist interested in understanding US southern border policy might be well-served by conducting fieldwork on the US-Mexico border and observing the interplay between US government authorities and citizens on both sides of the border. There are also exciting research possibilities in the digital realm, and digital ethnographers are exploring political dynamics in this space. Some researchers, for example, are mapping the political communication strategies carried out on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. All these methods can come together in the building of case studies, which are in-depth examinations of particular cases to unravel one of the most challenging aspects of political science research, causal mechanisms. Each of these methods will be explored in a separate section in this chapter.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Summary of Qualitative Methods

Strengths and limitations of qualitative methods

There are many reasons to employ qualitative methods in research. First and foremost, qualitative methods are useful for identifying causal mechanisms. Recall the scientific method emphasizes the formulation of testable hypotheses from broader theories. These hypotheses imply explanatory (independent) and outcome (dependent) variables. Linking explanatory and outcome variables is a causal logic. This causal logic is essential, as it tells a “story” that connects concepts. Qualitative methods, particularly case studies, can be powerful in illuminating causal mechanisms. If we think of theories as stories, qualitative methods are a way to knit together a narrative in a coherent and plausible way to help us know whether a story is true or false.

For example, scholars in international relations have long observed that modern democracies tend not to go to war with one another. 15 Collecting data on regime type (democracy versus nondemocracy) and outbreak of war has yielded the finding that democracies over the past century have been unlikely to go to war with one another. But why is this? Statistical analysis may yield a significant correlation, but this is not causation. Qualitative methods such as detailed case studies of two democracies in a crisis situation can help uncover what led to reconciliation rather than war. This kind of “process tracing,” or uncovering the process by which events unfolded, is a strength of qualitative approaches.

A second strength of qualitative methods is producing more fine-grained and nuanced analysis than widely used quantitative methods such as regression analysis. Whereas regression analysis attempts to identify trendlines in collected data, fitting a straight line through a cloud of data points, qualitative methods are interested in the messiness of observed data. Qualitative methods, in short, are interested in depth over breadth. For example, it can be illuminating to see that race is a key correlate of party affiliation in the US, but interviewing individuals can help to drill down into how racial identity might shape whether a person identifies as a Democrat, Republican, or independent. 16 Again, qualitative methods are helpful for understanding the “why” by digging into the details.

It is important to note the shortcomings of qualitative methods, too. They are typically very resource intensive. Downloading publicly available data from the Internet on is generally less costly than arranging interviews or making research plans to live in, say, Catalonia for a semester (no matter how delightful the latter would be). Qualitative methods can be resource-intensive, both in terms of time and money expended. Related, the resource-intensiveness of some qualitative methods, such as case studies, implies that a researcher may only generate one or a few of them to answer a research question. Suppose a researcher wanted to compare the quality of governance around the world. One quantitative starting point for exploring this topic would be to download the World Banks’ Worldwide Governance Indicators. 17 A more in-depth, qualitative approach might be reading World Bank and other organizations’ reports on select countries’ governments. Crafting case studies of even two countries’ quality of governance might take weeks, months, or years of careful data collection and writing. This would yield an “n” of two -- and here again the tradeoff is depth over breadth.

A final critique of qualitative methods relates to the difficulty replicating findings. If one gold standard in hypothesis testing is replicability of research findings, this is challenging to achieve with many qualitative methods. The observations that a researcher might record while embedded in pro-independence organizations in Catalonia, Spain, are very difficult to confirm by subsequent researchers. Even if a researcher were to have access to the same fieldwork sites, they will likely face very different circumstances. Compounding this are issues with access to research sites. A researcher conducting fieldwork in China and visiting government bureaus may share their findings and conclusions in research papers, but due to the closed nature of the government in China, other researchers are unlikely to have access to the same government bureaus. This also relates to the reliability of inferences reached solely from qualitative research. If other researchers cannot confirm the data used for a research paper, how reliable are the findings? One workaround is employing mixed methods to triangulate across multiple sources and findings. This can at least demonstrate that the findings within a study have internal validity.

14 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Aristotle: Politics,” available online at www.iep.utm.edu/arispol/#H10. Accessed August 2019.

15 See Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

16 See Pew Research Center, “Trends in party affiliation among demographic groups,” March 20, 2018. Available online at https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/ . Accessed August 2019.

17 These indicators have been tracked for 215 countries and territories over the period 1996-2014 and involve quantifying six different governance indicators. They are available for download from https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/worldwide-governance-indicators .

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Case Studies and Cases in Point

The Institute's case studies utilize the rich resources of local archival collections to provide an in-depth historical analysis of key individuals, pivotal events, and important public policies, whereas cases in point offer a snapshot in time of a particular event that had a direct impact on policy in the region. A full listing of the Institute's case studies and cases in point can be found below.

Case Studies

• Talia Hullum and Briana Mihok, Integration of Human Services among Counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Five Case Studies (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2013)
• PVAAS and Data Management Case Studies  (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2009)
• Jenny Wolsk Bain, Pink Slip: Southwestern Pennsylvania's Response to Workforce Reductions at US Airways, 2001-05  (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2006)
• Clarke Thomas,  Hurricane Katrina: A Community's Response to a National Disaster   (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2006)
• Pamela Tokar-Ickes, Flight 93: Policy Considerations for Emergency Preparedness in Pennsylvania   (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2005)

The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident: A series by Louise Comfort and Carrie Miller

• The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident: Continuing Policy Issues, Dilemmas, and Strategies   (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2003)
• Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident from Multiple Perspectives  (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2004)
• Safety vs. Technology in High Risk Environments: Trade-offs in Public Policy Decision-Making  (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2004)
• Intergovernmental Communication and Cooperation: Networks vs. Hierarchy in Dynamic Environments  (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2004)
• The Media's Role in High Risk Conditions: Community "Right to Know" vs. Public Information Management   (University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, 2004)

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, condition, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study research paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or more subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in the Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• The case represents an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• The case provides important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• The case challenges and offers a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in current practice. A case study analysis may offer an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• The case provides an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings so as to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• The case offers a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for an exploratory investigation that highlights the need for further research about the problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of east central Africa. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a rural village of Uganda can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community. This example of a case study could also point to the need for scholars to build new theoretical frameworks around the topic [e.g., applying feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation].

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work.

In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What is being studied? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis [the case] you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why is this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would involve summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to investigate the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your use of a case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in relation to explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular case [i.e., subject of analysis] and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that constitutes your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; and, c) what were the consequences of the event in relation to the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experiences they have had that provide an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of their experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using them as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem [e.g., why is one politician in a particular local election used to show an increase in voter turnout from any other candidate running in the election]. Note that these issues apply to a specific group of people used as a case study unit of analysis [e.g., a classroom of students].

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, historical, cultural, economic, political], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, explain why you are studying Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research suggests Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut off? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should clearly support investigation of the research problem and linked to key findings from your literature review. Be sure to cite any studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for examining the problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your analysis of the case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is common to combine a description of the results with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings Remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations revealed by the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research if that is how the findings can be interpreted from your case.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and any need for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1) reiterate the main argument supported by the findings from your case study; 2) state clearly the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in or the preferences of your professor, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented as it applies to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were engaged with social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood more in terms of managing access rather than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis that leave the reader questioning the results.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent] knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical [context-dependent] knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

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Article Contents

Introduction, section i: individual events and political science methodology, generalizability, research design, evaluating evidence, contingency, falsifiability, section iii, acknowledgments.

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A New Case for the Study of Individual Events in Political Science

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Joseph Torigian, A New Case for the Study of Individual Events in Political Science, Global Studies Quarterly , Volume 1, Issue 4, December 2021, ksab035, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksab035

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Despite significant advances in both quantitative and qualitative methods over the last few years, the discipline of political science has yet to explicitly address the special challenges and benefits of studying specific historical events marked by high levels of contingency. The field of security studies, where concrete historical cases have always played a major role in the development of the subfield, should place special focus on the specific challenges and benefits to the study of such events. Taking full advantage of what event-specific research can teach us, however, will require thinking about generalizability, evidence, the role of contingency, and falsifiability in ways that are not yet fully understood in the discipline. More clarity on such questions will benefit our understanding of like nuclear crises in particular.

A pesar de los grandes avances en los métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos de los últimos años, la disciplina de la ciencia política aún no ha abordado de manera explícita los desafíos y los beneficios especiales del estudio de acontecimientos históricos específicos marcados por altos niveles de contingencia. El campo de los estudios de seguridad, en el que los casos históricos concretos siempre han desempeñado una función importante en el desarrollo del subcampo, debería prestar especial atención a los desafíos y los beneficios específicos del estudio de tales acontecimientos. Sin embargo, para aprovechar al máximo lo que la investigación de acontecimientos específicos puede enseñarnos, será necesario pensar en la generalización, la evidencia, la función de la contingencia y la falsabilidad en formas que aún no se comprenden en su totalidad dentro de la disciplina. Una mayor claridad en estas cuestiones nos permitirá comprender mejor las crisis nucleares, en particular.

Malgré les progrès considérables qui sont à la fois intervenus dans les méthodes quantitatives et qualitatives ces dernières quelques années, la discipline des sciences politiques doit pourtant encore aborder explicitement les avantages et défis particuliers inhérents à l’étude d’événements historiques spécifiques marqués par de hauts niveaux de contingence. Le domaine des études de la sécurité, dans lequel des cas historiques concerts ont toujours joué un rôle majeur dans le développement du sous-domaine, devrait accorder une attention particulière aux avantages et défis spécifiques de l’étude de tels événements. Pour tirer pleinement profit de ce que les recherches spécifiques à des événements peuvent nous enseigner, il faudra cependant réfléchir à la généralisabilité, aux preuves, au rôle de la contingence et à la falsifiabilité de manières qui n'ont pas encore été pleinement comprises dans la discipline. Une plus grande clarté sur ces questions sera en particulier bénéfique pour notre compréhension de crises nucléaires similaires.

In the 2000s,  political science underwent a “credibility revolution.” Drawing on innovations first introduced by economists, the field now pays close attention to the exact conditions needed for a causal interpretation of quasi-experiments and natural experiments ( Angrist and Pischke 2010 ). This step forward means we can now much more reliably measure an average treatment effect. Recently, political scientists also have begun to pay more attention to a different set of questions—how can we explain specific cases and what can we learn from them? Yamamoto and Lam have suggested quantitative techniques for determining how many past events can be explained by a particular cause or how to measure individual causal effect ( Yamamoto 2011 ; Lam 2013 ). Goertz and Mahoney argue that Mill's methods, which identify necessary and/or sufficient conditions using cross-case variation, make more epistemological sense for explaining individual cases than an average treatment effect. Political scientists have also made breakthroughs on understanding what can be learned through “process-tracing” within individual cases ( Goertz and Mahoney 2012 , 87).

However, political scientists have not sufficiently moved onto ground that would fully justify looking at specific, concrete historical events or provide complete answers for how they should be studied. Within the subfield of security studies, where qualitative case studies have historically played a foundational role, thinking explicitly about the advantage of event-specific research is a crucial task. Crucially, fully extracting what we can and should learn from individual moments requires analytical priors different from those methods that seek to find an average treatment effect, necessary/sufficient conditions, or links in a chain. In this paper, I both make the case for studying individual events and explain what methodological assumptions are most useful for such research.

Average treatment effects and necessary/sufficient conditions are variables that have a probabilistic or deterministic effect, respectively (“determinative” here refers to the epistemology shaping the method, not the idea that political scientists can or should seek to find perfect determinative relations) ( Goertz and Mahoney 2012 ). These methods by their nature contain a tradeoff—the power we gain by looking at numerous cases together forces our results into an inherently ambiguous relationship with specific events. Causal chains, on the other hand, present challenges for generalizability, easily confuse chronology with causality, make problematic assumptions about how “determined” the links on the chain may be, include causes not interesting from a social-scientific perspective, and risk oversimplifying an iterative, contingent, and rapidly evolving situation.

As this article proposes, finding driving forces that have a gravitational pull on events, such as nuclear crises, is the most scholars can hope for when explaining individual cases. The point of the investigation is not to link cause and effect by coding and operationalizing variables but to conceptualize driving forces that pushed or pulled the outcome in a particular direction and how they worked. While this way of thinking excludes prediction, it does include a form of explanation that helps reduce perplexity in both the case at hand and other similar events as well. This differentiation may sound subtle, but it demands a different way of thinking about a host of methodological issues. Although focusing on individual events in this way does not preclude the use of other methods to gain further insights into a topic under investigation, it does proceed from priors different enough that it cannot be seamlessly included into an integrated multi-method approach.

Section I describes why quantitative methods, Mill's methods, and most forms of process-tracing are only partially useful for understanding specific historical events. Section II explains why we should be interested in individual events but that such a focus demands a special way of thinking about (1) generalizability, (2) research design, (3) the evaluation of evidence, (4) the role of contingency, and (5) falsifiability. Section III applies these ideas to the study of nuclear crises.

Political scientists have made serious breakthroughs in theorizing about the strengths of case study research. Yet the field has still not fully provided a complete case for the inherent benefits of rigorously investigating specific events on their own. As this section demonstrates, despite claims to have moved away from the “quantitative” worldview, the field still usually proceeds from a Hume-ean view that prevents an approach that fully and properly extricates what we can from such research.

Approaches that seek to identify an average treatment effect (described by some as statistics, a term not accepted by most practitioners) adopt a probabilistic, correlational conception of causality and seek to measure the average treatment effect for a theoretical case (or, to be more precise, the average over individual estimates). In 1994, King, Keohane, and Verba famously argued that these same principles of inference applied to both quantitative and qualitative methods ( King, Keohane, and Verba 1994 ).

A few years later, Goertz and Mahoney argued that Mill's methods, also known as set theory or nominal analysis, were based on fundamentally different principles. Set theory uses variables that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive to explain outcomes. The method of agreement eliminates necessary causes by showing that the causal variable is always present when the outcome is present, while the method of difference eliminates sufficient causes by showing that the outcome is always present when the causal variable is present ( Ragin 1987 , 2000 ; Goertz and Mahoney 2012 ).

Standard quantitative causal inference methods’ analysis and set theory both establish general relationships between variables using comparison, not within-case analysis ( Brady 2008 ). The cross-case element in set theory is evident in the fact that “necessary and sufficient” conditions are not intended to explain every single case. For example, although Ertman's cases do not predict every single one of his cases correctly, the theory's usefulness remains ( Ertman 1997 ). As Mahoney himself recognizes, there can be a “probabilistic” understanding of necessary and sufficient conditions ( Mahoney 2003 ). Therefore, both quantitative causal inference methods and Mill's methods are rooted in the theories of causality posited by David Hume, in which causation is “understood in terms of regular patterns of X: Y association, and the actual process whereby X produces Y is black-boxed” ( Beach and Pedersen 2013 , 25). Hume-eans see social forces as regularities or “covering laws”: light switches that lead to automatic outcomes given certain circumstances.

Hume-ean approaches are extremely powerful. When looking at individual cases, they have abundant utility. Moreover, even the most quantitative scholars acknowledge the need to have some knowledge of specific cases. Insights from one methodological approach regularly improve the research design of another approach ( Beck 2010 ). For example, cross sectional analysis can sensitize a qualitative researcher about what types of causes may (or may not) matter. It may also point the researcher in the direction of certain cases ( Laitin 2003 ).

“Case studies and inferential statistics cannot logically mix if the definition of causality is reductionist and regularist . . . How does one know that the mechanism connecting a cause with an effect in a particular case study is the same mechanism connecting causes to effects in all the other cases? What part of the study does the causal work, the case studies or the statistical analysis? If it is the case study then the statistical analysis should not convince us, and if it is the statistical analysis then the case study should not convince us” ( Chatterjee 2009 , 11).

“where one method advances a nomothetic proposition intended to function as a ‘covering law’ while another proceeds from a phenomenological view of the world and offers a context-specific idiographic narrative. Because these approaches are predicated on fundamentally distinct ontologies and conceptions of causality, the findings they generate are ultimately incommensurable and do not serve to strengthen each other” ( Ahmed and Sil 2012 , 936).

Due to these different priors, concepts have fundamentally different meanings in a quantitative context as opposed to a qualitative one, as they are operationalized to achieve different functions ( Ahram 2013 ).

“Does Colombian history show too much of a role for terrain in light of a statistical coefficient that is significant but not substantively moderate? After all, the current civil war began in part because anti-state actors had created refuges for themselves in the mountains; a conceivable counterfactual is that less rugged terrain would have prevented these key actors from organizing in the first place. On the other hand, perhaps the case suggests that the coefficient is too large; armed factors have at times found the jungles and other regions as hospitable a refuge as the mountains, so various forms of difficult terrain may be substitutes in a way that the statistical results fail to demonstrate. Or perhaps these competing considerations are just what the [estimated coefficient] of 0.219 implies? I think it is in fact impossible to decide whether the case study and the logit coefficient agree” ( Seawright 2016 , 6–7).

“as pathways multiply, these techniques get increasingly tenuous. Under such conditions, narrative would need to stand alone, and rules of narrative coherence and completeness would help decide whether the causal structure was as theorized.”

For Laitin, narratives can be used for “residuals” that cannot be explained by variance. Laitin's own characterization of the role of narratives, therefore, points to their problematic role in the multi-method approach ( Laitin 2003 ).

When an average causal effect is identified, scholars who assume that such a finding can be easily integrated into case studies unsurprisingly often engage in qualitative work that necessarily oversimplifies or misrepresents the historic evidence. However, the unproblematic use of average causal effect findings to explain individual events is not only methodologically unsound and a recipe for poor case studies but, in policy-making terms, also occasionally dangerous. As Elster notes, “To apply statistical generalizations to individual cases is a grave error, not only in science but also in everyday life . . . The intellectual fallacy is to assume that a generalization valid for most cases is valid in each case” ( Elster 2007 , 19). Jackson illustrates this point by referring to how policymakers, shaped by democratic peace theory, failed to distinguish general frequencies connecting regime type and violence from case-specific explanations ( Jackson 2017 , 690). Statistical findings are, of course, useful because they point to average causal effects, but they cannot be unproblematically and automatically used to explain specific, individual cases.

“More substantively, following the covering-law model does not in fact enable us to give an explanation of the occurrence of an event – for all that following this model does is to show that the occurrence of Y (‘the explanandum’) was to be expected in the circumstances because ‘it always happens like that’ (or, in a diluted version, ‘it often happens like that’)” ( Suganami 2008 , 331).

Where does process-tracing fit into this discussion? Process-tracing is inherently case-specific, yet the two most common understandings of process-tracing have limited utility for the study of specific events. One form of process-tracing uses “hoop tests” to identify necessary conditions and “smoking gun tests” to identify sufficient conditions with evidence in individual cases. The crucial task is to identify intervening steps that are so proximate to one another that their connection is obvious: “The leverage gained by this kind of test derives from the fact that while X being necessary for Y is in doubt, the status of M [mechanism] being sufficient for Y and of X being necessary for M might be more readily available” ( Mahoney 2012 , 579). In other words, while set theory finds necessary and sufficient conditions by comparing across cases, process-tracing identifies these conditions by linking the original cause to the final outcome by identifying intervening variables close enough to make the causal relationship self-apparent in individual cases ( Waldner 2015 ).

This view of process-tracing has obvious commonalities with a second approach described as a comparative sequential method, comparative narrative analysis, generic narrative, or event-structure analysis. Here, the scholar seeks to formally diagram narratives so that they can be compared across cases to see if they follow the same causal logic. This approach delineates a series of events (conceptually defined) and then shows how their presence in multiple cases leads to the same outcome ( Abbot 1990 ).

Mahoney explicitly states that his conception of process-tracing is different from the Hume-ean worldview: “Scholars who use process tracing . . . reject the view that an event is explained when it can be subsumed under and predicted by a covering law model” ( Mahoney 2012 , 586). However, in crucial ways, Mahoney's understanding of process-tracing remains Hume-ean. Like Sambanis, he understands mechanisms as “variables that operate in sequence” ( Sambanis 2004 , 13; George and Bennett 2005 ). George and Bennett use the term “dominos” ( George and Bennett 2005 , 206). This “billiard-ball” view of explanation, which uses earlier events as causes, originates with David Hume ( Elster 2007 , 3).

The “billiard-ball” understanding of process-tracing suffers from several inherent problems when applied to the study of individual events. As Chatterjee perceptively recognizes, “The difficulty of defending case studies while holding this particular understanding of mechanisms stems from the fact that it implies just another version of the Hume-an definition extended to intervening variables” ( Chatterjee 2009 , 13).

First, a causal chain complicated enough to explain one crisis would almost certainly struggle with explaining another crisis given how contingent, idiographic, and iterative crises are. Second, process-tracing as “bunching” intervening variables is extremely difficult in an environment in which specific moments have an interactive effect. Third, simple sequential accounts, as their supporters admit, still often fail at “abstracting ‘causes’ out of their narrative environments” ( Abbott 1991 , 228). Instead, they accept “temporal flow as the basis of explanation and the narrator's construction of the event as the happening” ( Griffin 1993 , 1105). In other words, narratives can “often miss the distinction between chronology and causality” ( Maxwell 2012 , 45).

Fourth, process-tracing assumes a deterministic relationship. However, in events like a crisis the final outcome is almost beside the point. If counterfactuals are easily imaginable, and uninteresting for social-scientific reasons, then assuming that one outcome was more likely than another would be misleading. We have no reason to assume that if the event was re-started as an experiment, we would get the same result most of the time ( Jervis 1997 ).

Fifth, a causal chain specific enough to explain a given crisis would necessarily include highly contingent events inherent to such dynamic situations. Those events might be crucial for understanding the outcome, but their origins are uninteresting from a social-scientific point of view. Including such elements in a causal chain would complicate the theoretical message of the endeavor. As Jackson argues, “In the open system of the actual world, a causal explanation is not likely to look anything like a linear combination of discrete variables, but will likely feature case-specific sequences and interactions in ways that are difficult to capture generally or formally” ( Jackson 2017 , 691).

Sixth, this approach raises serious questions about how much we gain from the hugely complicated task of explicitly formalizing every part of a narrative and whether such a level of specificity really teaches us anything. While establishing a chronology of the event is of course crucial for the broader research project, and the more detail the better, that chronology should be used as evidence, not theory.

Seventh, process-tracing is predicated on the idea that it should adjudicate among competing hypotheses and that only one hypothesis provides the right answer. However, that viewpoint prescribes an approach to evaluating evidence in individual cases that necessarily include multiple serious pathologies. As Zaks explains in an important article, the assumption that only one hypothesis has any validity “artificially inflates the importance of one explanation at the expense of another.” If hypotheses are mutually exclusive, a researcher can claim that a hypothesis is credible after presenting even the slightest of evidence. Yet, in reality, “mutual exclusivity, however, is a strong modeling assumption; and empirically, it is more often the exception than the rule. Competing explanations may exhibit a variety of relationships to the main hypotheses, each of which has distinct implications for collecting evidence and drawing inferences” ( Zaks 2017 , 344–45).

Ultimately, then, for specific cases, the importance of context makes a covering law approach essentially meaningless. As Cartwright puts it, “At the lower level there are a very great number of laws indeed . . . The conditions are too numerous. They give us too many factors to control. Our experiments would be undoable and the laws they entitle would be narrowed in scope beyond all recognition . . . how a factor operates, at this very concrete level, is far too context-dependent” ( Cartwright 1999 , 91).

These methodological challenges raise questions about the benefits of focusing on individual events, whether as standalone projects or as part of a multi-method approach. Yet political scientists should include the study of individual events in their toolbox for several reasons.

First, people often understand historical moments as totems representing a particular type of politics, and political scientists should provide society with rigorous, serious explanations for them ( Inboden 2014 ). Without professional investigations into the past that explicitly debate what past moments should teach us about how the world works, it is more likely that policymakers and the broader public will use poor analogies to understand the present ( Khong 1992 ).

Second, if power is an iceberg, then specific events reveal more ice than usual ( Pierson 2015 , 124). As Gourevitch put it, “Hard times expose strengths and weaknesses to scrutiny, allowing observers to see relationships that are often blurred in prosperous periods, when good times slake the propensity to contest and challenge” ( Gourevitch 1986 , 9). In other words, despite the view of the “transitologists” who discounted how much we could learn from looking at moments of democratization (or its failure), if we change our methodological priors and research goals we can actually learn quite a bit ( O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986 ).

Third, a very close investigation into specific historical events has already proven deeply beneficial to political science theorizing. Capoccia and Ziblatt argue that “history sits again at center stage of the comparative study of democratization.” Episode analysis, for example, “identifies the key political actors fighting over institutional change, highlights the terms of the debate and the full range of options that they perceived, reconstructs the extent of political and social support behind these options, and analyzes, as much as possible with the eyes of the contemporaries, the political interactions that led to the institutional outcome ( Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010 , 932).” Historical institutionalists, in particular, have emphasized the implications of the political phenomenon as being deeply rooted in particular times and places ( Thelen 2002 ; Pierson 2004 ; Hall 2010 ). Hall, noting the pressures this worldview creates for the demanding assumptions necessary for both the comparative method and the standard regression models, argues that “a substantial gap has opened up between the methodologies popular in comparative politics and the ontologies the field embraces” ( Hall 2003 , 374).

Fourth, historical research has increasingly raised questions about game-theoretic approaches that use formal modeling to create parsimonious and elegant theories that conceptualize actors as utility-maximizers with stable preferences. As a deductive tool, it can play a powerful role in generating hypotheses and giving traction within individual cases ( Schelling 1966 ; Glaser 2010 ). Yet when the pursuit of parsimony is divorced from historical grounding, game theory analysis often drifts toward ahistorically homogenizing assumptions that lack empirical verification about actors like class or sector. As recent scholarship shows, evidence that would have to be identified empirically to prove many famous game-theoretic arguments, especially with regard to international crises and democratization, do not exist in the empirical record ( Kreuzer 2010 ; Morrison 2011 ; Haggard and Kaufman 2012 ; Trachtenberg 2012 ; Gallagher and Hanson 2013 ; Slater, Smith, and Nair 2014 ). Closer attention to history helps scholars avoid assuming unit homogeneity, failing to give due justice to the temporal element, or missing the right direction of causality ( Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010 ).

Fifth, looking at individual events provides a fruitful new direction within the discipline as it increasingly recognizes the constraints of other approaches. The impact of the “credibility revolution” has arrived alongside a recognition that truly persuasive findings are only possible in unique situations. For an analysis to be persuasive, a researcher has to pass many serious hurdles: ensure that all confounding variables have been identified; balance the dilemma of including too many or too few variables; have an accurate and credible idea of how data is generated to avoid unverifiable assumptions about the distribution of independent and dependent variables, error terms, and linearity; and be sure endogeneity is not a problem ( Achen 2005 ; Clarke 2005 ; Freedman 2010 ; Dunning 2012 ; Rodrik 2012 ; Narang 2014 ). Even “big data” cannot make up for problems in research design ( Titiunik 2015 , 75–76). Sekhon similarly concludes that “[w]ithout an experiment, a natural experiment, a discontinuity, or some other strong design, no amount of econometric or statistical modeling can make the move from correlation to causation persuasive” ( Sekhon 2009 , 503). Due to precisely these problems, quantitative scholars have moved in the direction of natural experiments—in which some accident of history has created a situation resembling a real experiment. Natural experiments are able to avoid the problem of confounding variables and are thus much more persuasive than multivariate regression. This comes with a catch, however: if advanced techniques will not be able to solve problems inherent to a problematic research design ( Shalev 2007 ; Freedman 2010 ; Seawright 2010 ; Dunning 2012 ), and natural experiments are by their nature confined to cases given to us by accident, some may feel that we are presented with a very limited field of academic endeavor ( Deaton 2009 ; Rodden 2009 ).

Sixth, including individual events within the field of political science can be seen as yet another approach within the broader toolbox. Political scientists should be cognizant of the analytical priors of different methodological approaches, and individual events cannot be seamlessly integrated into medium- or large- n approaches. Although these approaches cannot ask the same exact question or serve as a “crutch” for one another because they proceed from different ontologies, they can both shed light on the same broader subject in different ways.

For the study of individual events to meet their full potential, we need a very different approach than coding and identifying correlations or bunching up variables in a causal chain. It requires significantly different analytical priors with regard to generalizability, research design, evidence evaluation, contingency, and falsifiability.

The reasons why specific events should be studied, which are listed in the previous section, only tell us the benefits if such an approach is possible. But is generalizability possible with such a narrow aperture of focus? Here, we make the case that, when looking at individual events, we should not try to identify either the precise constellation of variables that led to an outcome or a causal chain. Instead, the goal should be to identify the causal forces that had a gravitational pull on the outcome and the mechanisms through which they manifested.

“are often more important for their value in clarifying previously obscure theoretical relationships than for providing an additional observation to be added to a sample . . . a good case is not necessarily a ‘typical’ case but a ‘telling case’” ( McKeown 1999 , 174).

This viewpoint also has strong intellectual affinities with the definition of a “conditioning” cause provided by Slater and Simmons: “Conditions that vary before a critical juncture and predispose (but do not predestine) cases to diverge as they ultimately do” ( Slater and Simmons 2010 , 891).

With regard to this question of generalizability, critical realists have provided useful theorizing, although not all international relations theorists, such as Chernoff, accept their tenets ( Chernoff 2009 ). Critical realists are not interested in regularities but in understanding “what an object is and the things it can do by virtue of its nature” ( Danermark et al. 2002 , 55). Cases are not “manifestations of one or another theoretically derived instance[s] in a typology” but a combination of different structural elements ( Katznelson 1997 , 99). For critical realists, the first level is what we observe (the empirical or, in other words, the evidence we collect), the second level is what actually happened in the historical record (the actual), and the third level is generative structures (the real) ( Collier 1994 , 42–44; Danermark et al. 2002 , 20). This is fundamentally different from those working in the tradition of Hume, who conflate the three domains (empirical, actual, and real) by assuming that the “real” can be reduced to what happens in the form of a relationship of two observables that can be codified operationally ( Danermark et al. 2002 , 7).

Weber and the critical realists, however, differ on the question of whether the causes they identify are “real” or not. Weber was explicit that his “ideal types” did not exist in the real world. Similarly, Elster, who defines mechanisms as “frequently occurring and easily recognizable causal patterns that are triggered under generally unknown conditions or with indeterminate consequences,” compares them to “proverbs” ( Elster 2007 , 27). Critical realists are not fully satisfied with the “ideal type/proverb” approach, as they argue that a “cause” is real. Yet they do not expect that cause to always work in the same way, as they believe that these forces are always shaped by contingencies and cannot be explained with covering laws. Here, we do not pick a side to this debate, but we do emphasize that both approaches provide a useful but non-Hume-ean approach to generalization.

Can political scientists be happy with using individual events to determine “proverbs” or “transfactual” causes that often manifest differently? One possible charge against this methodology is that it is incapable of predicting outcomes and therefore irrelevant to political science. As Kirshner notes, although political scientists rarely argue that they can accurately predict the future, prediction is still the model upon which standard approaches rely ( Kirshner 2015 , 9–10, fn 19).

Yet social scientists need not predicate useful research on whether it provides an ability to “predict” precisely. Even physics, which many political scientists see as a model, struggles with prediction. Physics theories “are severely limited in their scope. For, to all appearances, not many of the situations that occur naturally in our world fall under the concepts of these theories” ( Cartwright 1999 , 9). A series of new findings demonstrate that prediction in the social world is particularly difficult ( York and Clark 2007b ; Ward, Greenhill, and Bakke 2010 ; Ng and Wright 2013 ; Tikuisis, Carment, and Samy 2013 ; Ahir and Loungani 2014 ; Friedman 2014 ; Hasnain and Kurzman 2014 ; Bowlsby et al. 2019 ). For rare phenomena, “even weak laws of large numbers don't hold” and we have no reason to assume that one particular outcome is typical ( Bendor and Shapiro 2019 , 129). For political scientists who believe that political science should still strive to be “scientific,” of crucial importance is the fact that, even in the natural world, scientists are happy to “explain processes and outcomes but not predict them” ( George and Bennett 2005 , 130–31).

“Or, reading across multiple events and situations, one might start to develop a conceptual vocabulary of mechanisms and processes useful for organizing different cases and showing how in each case there was a unique configuration of mechanism and processes leading to a specific outcome. Instead of the manipulation of inputs, logical elaboration with a myriad of examples establishes the plausibility of each causal claim” ( Jackson 2017 , 705).

Any political scientist who has passed their general exams can explain how to conduct good case selection for research projects in the “regularist” or “frequentist” tradition. Correctly, they would know not to select on the dependent variable under any circumstances. Yet, with the understanding of generalizability described above, a scholar could justify case selection based on a wide variety of other motivations, including: the historical importance of the event, the new availability of crucial sources, policy relevance, the link between that event and a theoretical body of literature, an event whose outcome is puzzling for some theoretical or empirical reason, the ability to leverage language skills or personal experience/contacts, and/or the possibility to find evidence that can answer the theoretical question she is asking. Acknowledging these advantages strengthen the case for encouraging students to pick cases based on their ability and inclination to truly master them ( Kollner, Sil, and Ahram 2018 , 4).

However, what kind of terminology should be used to describe this kind of approach? A useful term here is “retroduction.” The origins of this term (sometimes “abduction”) come from the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, who noticed that scientists were able to derive plausible hypotheses without the use of induction or deduction. Peirce believed in “another definite state of things,” which, although no “unequivocal evidence” could prove its existence, would “shed a light of reason upon the state of facts with which we are confronted” ( Piekarinen and Bellucci 2014 , 355). Although the ultimate purpose of retroduction/abduction is sometimes viewed differently, the method is essentially about using individual cases as a fertile ground for identifying useful concepts and is distinct from the Hume-ean understanding of causality ( Friedrichs and Kratochwil 2009 ).

Inspired by Pierce, numerous types of scholars have latched onto abduction as a legitimate form of scientific inference that is not limited to deduction or induction. Interpretivists, for example, engage in abductive reasoning that “begins with a puzzle, a surprise, or a tension, and then seeks to explicate it by identifying the conditions that would make that puzzle less perplexing and more of a ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ event” ( Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012 , 27–28). For interpretivists, although abductive reasoning is the “logic,” their ultimate goal is to answer “questions about context and meaning ” ( Agar 2010 , 290). In other words, for interpretivists, “Abductive reasoning on its own does not require that one search for meaning, or that meaning be context-specific, as Agar (2010 , 20) notes. But interpretive research does!” ( Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012 , 32). They consciously depart from Pierce, who thought that retroduction should be followed by induction and deduction. For scholars who are looking for causal explanations of events, they will depart from the interpretivist focus on meaning and not causality (although, like interpretivists, they will necessarily look to the intentions and views of the actors under investigation).

In critical realist language, on the other hand, retroduction/abduction is the process by which individual cases are used to understand the domain of the real. It is “about advancing from one thing (empirical observation of events) and arriving at something different (a conceptualization of transfactual conditions)” ( Danermark et al. 2002 , 96). Although the real never appears in its pure observable form, retroduction helps us understand the generative functions of those antecedent conditions. Unlike Pierce, they do not believe that the “next step” is necessarily induction and deduction; instead, they prioritize the discovery of transfactual conditions.

Should a specific-event-centric research project still include more than one case in its research design? Certainly, such a research project would be stronger if some causes are present in some cases but not in others. In fact, that difference would be a good reason to select another case. Such a state of affairs would allow for the researcher to draw interesting insights into the implications of such a factor being present or absent. Yet, this tactic is different from “controlling” certain variables because the number of cases would be too small and idiosyncratic ( Jackson 2016 , 121). The researcher should not go beyond the number of cases that she can master, as the value of this approach is getting the individual cases right, not the number of cases. If the details are wrong, the whole argument is wrong.

“The basic technique is to take some major theoretical claim, bring it down to earth by thinking about what it would mean in specific historical contexts, and then study those historical episodes with those basic conceptual issues in mind . . . Theoretical claims are hard to deal with on a very general level. But those general claims translate, or should translate, into expectations about what you are likely to find if you study a particular historical episode” ( Trachtenberg 2006 , 32, 45; Darnton 2018 ).

The questions themselves are essentially empirical and must be concrete enough to answer with evidence. A question cannot be something like whether income inequality prevented democratization. The researcher can, however, ask questions like: were elites afraid that democratization would leave to redistribution of income? Were elites able to translate economic power into state capacity? Did elites care about issues other than income redistribution and, if so, how much? In other words, the empirical questions are a bit of a “bankshot,” as they do not answer the theoretical questions directly but they do have obvious relevance for theory.

Second, the questions should connect directly to a broader theoretical debate. For example, the idea that democratization is primarily about income distribution comes from Acemoglu and Robinson ( Acemoglu and Robinson 2006 ). Levitsky and Way, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of revolutionary legacies ( Levitsky and Way 2013 ). The task of the researcher would be to formulate questions that strengthen or weaken the purchase of those worldviews for explaining a given case. If, during a political crisis, leaders betrayed no worries about income distribution, but they did betray an obsession with defending the regime because they helped create it, then that would be theoretically meaningful for this discussion (although such a finding would not “disprove” the average causal effect determined by Acemoglu and Robinson).

What kind of evidence addresses questions like these? As Bennett and Checkel write, for case studies historical evidence is not “variables” but “diagnostic evidence,” which is further supplemented with “the ways in which actors privately frame or explain their action” (significantly, however, Bennett and Checkel still seek to identify regularities among variables at the macro-level) ( Bennett and Checkel 2015 , 7).

The key insight provided by some process-tracers is the importance of causal process observations (CPOs): “an insight or piece of data that provides information about context or mechanism and contributes . . . leverage in causal inference.” The CPOs can be contrasted with data-set observations, which are the specific pieces of information used for quantitative analysis ( Brady, Collier, and Seawright 2010 , 184).

When it comes to the nuts and bolts of methods, event-specific research has more in common with the historian, detective, or journalist. As Maxwell puts it, this “resembles the approach of a detective trying to solve a crime, an inspector trying to determine the cause of an airplane crash, or a physician attempting to diagnose a patient's illness.” Because the causal process is not directly observable, they instead search for “clues” ( Scriven 1976 , 47; Maxwell 2012 ). Therefore, creating room within the discipline for this kind of research will require a new dedication to training students on how to collect and interpret qualitative evidence—skills that unfortunately have atrophied among graduate students ( Lebow 2007 , 2).

Some scholars reject any role for contingency in political science, and indeed see the historical, inductive approach as “antitheoretical” ( Kiser and Hechter 1991 ). Yet an understanding of the nature of contingency is absolutely critical to researching specific events, especially since it focuses on those moments when “fortune” is at its most powerful. O'Donnell and Schmitter are correct to identify “the high degree of indeterminacy embedded in situations where unexpected events ( fortuna ), insufficient information, hurried and audacious choices, confusion about motives and interests, plasticity, and even indefinition of political identities, as well as the talents of specific individuals ( virtu ) are frequently decisive in determining the outcomes” ( O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986 , 5). Although Mahoney denies that outcomes are entirely random, he goes so far as to argue that some moments “cannot be explained on the basis of prior historical condition” ( Mahoney 2000 , 508). This presents a dilemma: contingent events without social scientifically interesting origins simply must be included when explaining specific outcomes because otherwise the explanation of an individual case would not make sense ( Beach and Pedersen 2013 , 51). But how do we manage the tension between driving forces and contingency?

A key insight when managing these challenges is the relative nature of contingency ( Pettit 2007 ). As Slater and Simmons point out, “even the most severe crises rarely produce blank slates” ( Slater and Simmons 2010 , 890). A purely contingent event, in the ideal sense, is one with origins whose explanation has no social-scientific value and is essentially unpredictable. However, in the real world, events only very rarely fit these qualifications. Contingency can be the precise, but not perfectly predictable, manifestation of antecedent conditions ( Slater and Simmons 2010 ). In any case, if an actor intended to achieve something, even if they failed, we can still “preserve the proffered motivational account and elaborate on it,” as “explaining means elaborating, justifying, or possibly excusing the action rather than simply ‘refuting’ the hypothesis” ( Kratochwil 1990 , 25). Moreover, if a trigger is almost completely unpredictable, the effect that such contingent events have when they occur is still shaped by antecedent conditions ( Wood 2007 ).

The relative nature of contingency means that political scientists should problematize the extent to which a certain event was likely. An inevitable, possible, or unlikely outcome are all possibilities. To what extent an outcome is determined by structural causes is an empirical question: “documents and other historical evidence can tell whether key actors in a critical juncture acted with a significant degree of freedom or not” ( Capoccia and Kelemen 2007 ). Some outcomes are more open, while others are “not just determined but overdetermined” ( Rueschemeyer 2003 , 315). Bendor and Shapiro even argue that certain types of political phenomena, like military conflicts, are shaped by relatively higher levels of chance and contingency ( Bendor and Shapiro 2019 ).

Terminology like “likelihood” for an outcome might suggest a statistical approach, but the method here is different. Instead of identifying an average causal effect across a population, to address likelihood in an individual case, the researcher can ask: how powerful were countervailing forces that ultimately did not sway the outcome? Could tiny, easily imaginable counterfactuals have fundamentally changed the event ( Lebow 2015 )?

For example, in his essay on World War I, Lebow recognizes that “underlying causes, no matter how numerous or deep-seated, do not make an event inevitable. Their consequences may depend on fortuitous coincidences in timing and on the presence of catalysts that are independent of any of the underlying causes” ( Lebow 2000 , 591–92). He argues that several independent antecedent conditions working in conjunction along with a single triggering mechanism were the cause of the war. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was an especially powerful triggering mechanism given the antecedent conditions at the time, but it was not inevitable. If it happened outside of the two-year window when states would choose war over peace when faced with the decision, the war might have been avoided. Margaret MacMillan contributes to this debate by asserting that some crisis like the assassination was bound to happen and would likely have had a similar effect sometime between 1900 and 1914 ( MacMillan 2013 ).

Can we falsify individual analyses of events? Many political scientists would argue that identifying causes in single cases is fundamentally impossible. When coming from a statistical worldview, this viewpoint makes eminent sense. However, outside of this methodological prior, such an idea is rather radical, if not almost postmodern—after all, juries make judgments in a single case without relying on statistics, induction, or deduction. Instead, they are persuaded by which lawyer better uses evidence in a specific case to make a particular claim ( Toulmin 1972 ; McKeown 2004 , 149; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 2013 ). As Kratochwil clearly explains, we do not determine whether someone is “guilty” of a crime with covering laws. Instead, explanation of an individual case draws upon facts to construct a narrative framework that provides a reason for someone's actions. In other words, “explaining an action means providing a critically vetted, plausible account of the action and its context, which has the structure of a narrative rather than a demonstration” ( Kratochwil 2018 , 414–17).

The answer to whether individual cases are falsifiable depends on whether the questions are formed in a way that can be answered meaningfully with the available evidence. As discussed above, “Does income inequality lead to democratization?” would not be an appropriate question for this type of method, but “Does speech evidence and behavior demonstrate that political leaders in country A were primarily concerned that democratization would lead to redistribution of wealth?” certainly would be.

As opposed to other forms of qualitative analysis, event-specific is probably the least vulnerable to charges of “cherry-picking” or relying on only a few biased historical accounts ( Lustick 1996 ). Event-specific research presumes a much deeper and thicker relationship with the material in order to ask the questions that make it persuasive. Every piece of evidence must be situated, which avoids the problem of overemphasizing some CPOs that look like they confirm a theory but which are taken out of context. Also, event-specific research accepts the presence of multiple powerful forces, which decreases the pressure for over-arguing the case for one particular cause.

However, this kind of research is at its best when the substantive questions are posed in a way that allows the scholar to show how much one theory explains relative to another one. In order to ensure the highest level of rigor, the scholar should investigate at least two potential causes at once, ideally the two most likely to provide a better explanation (as determined by the theoretical literature and previous historiographical accounts of the event in question). Questions can be asked in such a way that “yes” points to one theory while “no” supports another. Or, two sets of questions can be asked: one set that addresses how much one generative structure mattered and a second set centered around another theory.

This research shares a core assumption within the field about the importance of “rigor.” Rigor here stems primarily from (1) the asking of questions that can be answered meaningfully with empirical evidence, (2) the integration of those answers to broader theoretical questions, and (3) evaluation of conclusions as part of a broader academic community. Event-specific research is not a “soft” approach. If science is “a set of shared practices within a professionally trained community,” then event-specific research is scientific ( Lebow 2007 , 7).

Since they have different views of generalizability, Weber, critical realists, and interpretivists naturally differ on the question of falsifiability. For Weber, identifying ideal types through a handful of specific events was a meaningful enough exercise. For critical realists, having discovered the potential existence of a finding, they still want to determine if it is “real.” For example, if the mechanism is psychological, they might then take the finding to a “laboratory” and conduct a psychological assessment. Or, they would investigate a number of cases to see whether the cause or mechanism is present in those cases as well. If that proves to be the case, then the finding is “transfactual,” meaning that the structure in question is commonly present (although with no a priori assumptions about how it would manifest in specific cases) ( Collier 1994 ).

This article is not the place to adjudicate these different views but bracketing this question for now does not hide the basic point they all share: that a great deal of generalizable and useful information can be learned from individual cases and that social science is not constrained to the Hume-ean worldview. Ultimately, specific events matter not because they are outliers, or a crucial case, or a least likely case, or a most likely case.

Elements of the event-specific research described above have already been apparent in the study of nuclear crises. Most famously, George and Smoke, instead of seeking to identify “a frequency distribution of different outcomes,” instead attempted to discriminate “among varieties and patterns of deterrence situations” ( George and Smoke 1974 , 3, 1989 , 171). They contributed to the literature by identifying typologies that would make situations more legible to policymakers. Political scientists have thought carefully about what quantitative methods can teach us about nuclear weapons ( Sechser and Fuhrmann 2017 , 63–71). But what exactly are the particular strengths of an event-focused approach compared with other methodologies for understanding specific nuclear crises?

Based on a statistical analysis, Kroenig argues that “nuclear crises are competitions in risk taking, but that nuclear superiority—defined as an advantage in the size of a state's nuclear arsenal relative to that of its opponent—increases the level of risk that a state is willing to run in a crisis. I show that states that enjoy a nuclear advantage over their opponents possess higher levels of effective resolve” ( Kroenig 2013 , 143). In response, Gavin, using the specific case study of the Berlin 1958–1962 nuclear crisis, charged that Kroenig's argument could not “fully explain the outcomes and causal mechanisms in the most important and most representative case” ( Gavin 2014 , 16).

However, Gavin is not evaluating Kroenig by what Kroenig is actually trying to do—if Kroenig's model is accurate, he may in fact have helpfully identified an average causal effect or at least an interesting correlation. With regard to individual cases, the problem is not so much that Kroenig's finding cannot explain a key case—the issue is that his methodology is not designed to explain individual cases at all.

Drawing on Seawright's analysis of Fearon and Laitin discussed above, we can ask questions that show the meaninglessness of directly applying Kroenig's statistical finding to a single case. Was the average causal effect of nuclear arsenal size not powerful enough to sway the outcome in the Berlin nuclear crisis? In other words, is the statistical coefficient too “high” or “low” for this single case? These are unanswerable questions. Because the core of Kroenig's finding is Hume-ean, his theory for how variables work cannot be tested in a single case because it is possible that the statistical relationship is manifested in fundamentally different ways in different cases. Therefore, judging whether the statistical finding and case study “agree” is impossible.

Not all political scientists are convinced by Kroenig's empirical findings. Sechser and Fuhrmann, for example, believe that nuclear superiority is meaningless in a crisis ( Sechser and Fuhrmann 2017 ). However, if a policymaker found herself in a nuclear crisis and wanted to look at past events for guidance, assuming that either of those empirical findings could be unproblematically applied directly to specific cases would put the world in a dangerous place—regardless of which scholarship is closer to the truth. First, the policymaker would not know whether the present crisis was one of the cases that cut against the grain of the identified average causal effect. Second, that empirical finding would not equip the policymaker to “see” the potential causes or mechanisms or have a sense for how those elements actually interacted with one another in the past.

Holloway's on the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrates the advantages of an approach that (implicitly) uses retroduction ( Holloway 2010 ). Three aspects, in particular, stand out. First, Holloway demonstrates that the world came extraordinarily close to nuclear war in 1962. Although war did not happen, he shows that the forces that had a gravitational pull toward war, like the obvious benefit of going first, were extremely powerful. The fact that contingent events, such as accidents, did not activate them does not mitigate their absolutely crucial importance. The interesting finding here is not that a precise group of variables meant peace but that the structural forces present could just have easily started a world war. These forces would be meaningless or invisible to Hume-eans who seek regularities across cases.

Second, Holloway's deep dive allows him to challenge Schelling's argument that rational behavior during a crisis would be to demonstrate “madness” and cut off the ability to retreat. During the Berlin and Cuban crises, neither side behaved in that way. Instead, Holloway provides a more subtle argument. “Common knowledge” did not encourage threats because it was not only a war of nerves, but also a limiting factor, as cutting off roads meant risking preventing attack. His ability to theorize this concept, while undermining a previously prominent theory in the discipline, draws upon a close reading of the evidence.

Third, this “common understanding” is best understood as a driving force, not a variable. Because the outcome was not determined, the “common understanding” is not best understood as a “sufficient” condition, even in a probabilistic sense. Because Holloway is doing no more (or less) than identifying one previously underestimated dynamic “in the wild,” which may or may not have a similar effect in other cases, he is also not identifying a “necessary” condition. Moreover, since this “common understanding” is not visible anywhere as a specific link in a chain of events, Holloway is not engaged in process-tracing. Instead, powerful speech and behavioral evidence indicates that this dynamic had an important pull throughout the crisis.

Political scientists have reached important and enduring conclusions using standard methods such as game theory, standard quantitative methods, and Mill's methods. In this article, we presented an argument for a more explicit theorizing of what individual events can teach us. Of course, like other approaches, this method has its own built-in limitations. Most immediately, its applicability to specific moments, the inherent limitations of relevant qualitative material, and nonuniversal ambitions are significant drawbacks. This approach cannot provide a number encapsulating the average causal effect of inequality on democracy (although it might show the implications of socioeconomic cleavages in individual cases). Yet, given the importance and complicated nature of the political world, political science can only be strengthened by adding to our tool kit. Many political scientists have reached the conclusion that individual cases tell us nothing except the extent that they provide for cross-case variation. However, by being less ambitious about universal effects and understanding generalizability in a different way, scholars using qualitative source materials to investigate even single cases can shed new light on political processes.

Thank you to Stanford's CISAC and the CFR's Stanton Fellowship for providing time to write this article.

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• Class 12 Political Science...

Class 12 Political Science Case Study Questions

Table of Contents

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CBSE class 12 Political Science Case Study Questions will have one passage and 4-5 MCQs based on that passage. CBSE may give analytical paragraphs with data, charts, tables and infographics too. You can find such case study questions in CBSE model question papers. You can also download CBSE class 12 Political Science Case Study Questions from the myCBSEguide App .

Why Political Science?

Political science is the study of political behaviour, systems, and politics, as well as their analysis, description, and prediction. Students who choose Political Science in senior high school are exposed to a variety of topics in the discipline, allowing them to become global citizens and build abilities in understanding, applying, and evaluating them.

The goals of the educational program planned by the CBSE for Class 12 students expect to empower students to be know all about a portion of the critical political events and figures in the post freedom period, foster abilities of political examination through events and processes of ongoing history, empower the students to extend their viewpoint past India and get a handle on the political guide of the contemporary world.

Students are exposed to diverse streams of political science through the various courses. Class 12 Political Science is divided into two parts:

• PART A: Contemporary World Politics
• PART B: Politics in India since Independence

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has presented a couple of changes in the question paper pattern. This year Class 12 students have to solve questions based on the case study. The case studies in class 12 Political Science will carry 4-5 marks. As per the new pattern of examination, CBSE will ask only objective questions in these case study questions.

The Case Study Passages

According to Sanyam Bhardwaj (controller of examinations, CBSE), the student will solve a full passage on which analytical questions will be addressed. Before answering the questions, students must thoroughly read the passage. Meanwhile, the board is preparing to incorporate more such questions in the coming years, according to Bhardwaj.

The Case Study Questions

As discussed, CBSE will ask mostly MCQs in class 12 Political Science. You will get 4-5 questions in each passage. The question text will have four options to choose from. Out of these four options, only one option is correct. Students will get one mark each for the correct response.

Case Study Questions means Critical Thinking 

Class 12 Case Study is an excellent approach to improving students’ exam results. The reason for this is that case study questions are often descriptive, which makes it easier to obtain more information. Students are graded on many levels of ability while studying for the board exams, such as writing, reading, and so on. One of the types of questions that can be used to evaluate critical thinking is case study questions. The inclusion of such questions in the curriculum is intended to emphasize the development of problem-solving skills as well as the capacity to apply skills in real situations.

Score Good Marks with Case Studies

If you attempt them with an attentive and alert mind, the case study questions can be the highest scoring part of the paper. These are usually application-based questions that relate to the principles presented in the textbook. The plot of the question is based on a situation that people face on a daily basis.

Case Study Question Examples

CBSE is preparing a question bank on case studies for all major subjects. You can get it on CBSE official website . We are providing hundreds of case study questions for class 12 Political Science in the myCBSEguide App and Student Dashboard .

Case study 1

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: The Cold War threatened to divide the world into two alliances. Under these circumstances, many of the newly independent countries, after gaining their independence from the colonial powers such as Britain and France, were worried that they would lose their freedom as soon as they gained formal independence. Cracks and splits within the western and eastern alliances were quick to appear headed by the USA and the USSR respectively. Communist China quarreled with the USSR towards the late 1950s, and, in 1969, they fought a brief war over a territorial dispute.

• North Korea
• Which former superpower headed the eastern alliances?
• Which event of the world has threatened to divide the world into two alliances?
• Iraq Invasion
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Name two countries that had ruled over the third world countries.
• Australia and Russia
• Britain and France
• Russia and the USA
• Poland and Belgium

Case Study 2

Study the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

All India 2017 The smaller states in the alliances used the link to the superpowers for their own purposes. They got the promise of protection, weapons and economic aid against their local rivals, mostly regional neighbours with whom they had rivalries. The alliance systems led by the two superpowers, therefore, threatened to divide the entire world into two camps. This division happened first in Europe. Most countries of Western Europe sided with the US and those of Eastern Europe joined the Soviet camp. That is why these were also called the ‘Western’ and the ‘Eastern’ alliances. (i) Name one organization each related to the ‘Western’ and the ‘Eastern’ alliances. (ii) Why were the smaller states interested in joining the super alliances? (iii) How did the ‘alliance system’ threaten to divide the world?

Case Study 3

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: Just before Independence, it was announced by the British that with the end of their rule over India, the paramountcy of the British crown over the Princely States would also lapse. This meant that all these states, as many as 565 in all, would become legally independent. The British government took the view that all these states were free to join either India or Pakistan or remain independent if they so wished. This decision was left not to the people but to the princely rulers of these states. This was a very serious problem and could threaten the very existence of a united India. The problems started very soon. First of all, the ruler of Travancore announced that the state had decided on Independence. The Nizam of Hyderabad made a similar announcement the next day. Rulers like the Nawab of Bhopal were averse to joining the Constituent Assembly.

• The ruler of Hyderabad was popularly referred to as _________.
• What were not the choices given to the princely states by the British?
• Free to join Pakistan
• Free to join India
• Free to remain independent
• All of the above
• ________ was the largest princely state of India.

Attempting Case Study Questions

Students can answer these questions by reading the passages in question. Students will obtain a clear concept of what the solutions should be by reading the chapter. However, tackling Case-based questions or passage-based questions would be easier if you have a better understanding of the core concepts that can be learned from the NCERT Textbooks.

Guidelines on Case Study Questions

Concentrate on the following guidelines while answering a case study-based question:

• First, attentively read the passage, then read the questions that are based on it.
• Recognize the question’s demand.
• Read the passage and read again the question if you find it difficult or complex.
• When you’ve figured out what the question is asking, look over the possibilities and answer the question.

Tips on Case Study Questions

Tips for gaining a better understanding to solve Case Study Questions

• Keep yourself informed on current events.
• Try to connect the events with their outcomes, as well as the circumstances that led up to them. For example, look into the causes of the Cold War, what happened during it, and how it affected the world.
• Engage in debates and discussions with friends/teachers about a variety of topics, and try to comprehend the viewpoints of others.
• Download the myCBSEguide App now for better and clear insight, as well as a variety of case study questions and other study resources. It’s also available through our Student Dashboard.

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

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The article was really helpful and can prove to be a deciding factor for students….kudos..

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FOUR. Case Study and Theory in Political Science

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