Methods in Comparative and Historical Sociology

2022/2023

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Mago-Lego

Delivered by: School of Sociology

When: 3 module

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Arnab Roy Chowdhury

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 44

Full Syllabus Ask Question

Abstract

Comparative and historical sociology (CHS) tries to give causal explanation to historical outcomes. CHS employs comparative method, social scientific theories and concepts, traces large-scale trajectories and transformations and long-term historical processes for offering more holistic understanding of the origins of our times. Comparative historical methods examines historical events in order to create explanations that are valid beyond a particular time and place, either by direct comparison to other historical events, theory building or with reference to the present day. CHS is highly interdisciplinary in nature. Using readings drawn from disciplines such as sociology, history, geography, anthropology, institutional economics and political science, this course discusses the methods of comparative and historical sociology – mainly qualitative aspects and, to some extent, mixed methods. There can be no method without a theoretical base, and CHS is particularly theory-intensive and places emphasis on theory-laden narratives. These narratives include cases such as changing dynamics of state–society relations, revolutions, and other kinds of macro-transformations. Based on research and cases from western and non-western worlds and perspectives, this course covers the range of methodological and geographical aspects of comparative and diachronic studies of societies. In doing that, the course discusses various kinds of research designs, techniques, reasoning, issues of causality and methodological approaches such as single and small-N case studies, process tracing, necessary and sufficient conditions, and contingency-path dependency, which are used in CHS.

Learning Objectives

To study contemporary texts on CHS
To study the methods in CHS
To acquire updated knowledge on CHS theories and methods

Expected Learning Outcomes

Develop basic understanding of negative cases, deviant cases, outlier cases, and learn how to do counterfactual case analysis in qualitative CHS.
Develop capacity to analyse single cases (exceptional, deviant or normal) and conceptualise single case research designs, and draw inferences.
Develop methodological, conceptual, and analytical capabilities required for undertaking Small N case study analysis i.e. comparing 2-9 cases qualitatively.
Develop methodological, conceptual, and analytical capabilities required to apply process tracing and causal mechanism research design, mostly in single-N case analysis, and draw inferences.
Learn basic aspects of causality in positivism, realism, and critical realism, and learn how the notion of constitutivity is different from causality and can be used in interpretive analysis of social change.
Learn fundamentals of comparative and historical research and case study method in qualitative sociology.
Learn how the ethnographic method can be applied across large scale time and space, through the qualitative technique of extended case study method in CHS.
Learn why 'evenemential temporality' (as opposed to teleological and experimental temporality) is a crucial research design that can radically rethink events, orders, sequence, and timing in CHS, and learn the techniques of contingency-path dependency model of CHS analysis.
Learn why temporality is a crucial dimension of CHS analysis, and how to theorise interconnected spatio-temporal dimensions of social processes through periodization.
The students will learn about the impotnace of theory in CHS, to identify historical and sociological sources and evidences that can be succesfully used in CHS research and then how to use these sources to theorise and compare large scale social processes.

Course Contents

Basics of CHS and Case Study Methods
Small N Comparative Analysis
Negative Cases and Counterfactuals
Single N Cases
Causality and Constitutivity
Process Tracing of Causal Mechanisms
Temporality and Periodization
Path Dependency and Contingency
Extended Case Method
Sources, Evidences and Theories

Assessment Elements

Methods in Comparative and Historical Sociology
A 2000 word method essay + max 10 references needs to be submitted, and needs to be presented
Presentation of the essay
10 percent marks is blocked

Interim Assessment

2022/2023 3rd module
0.4 * Presentation of the essay + 0.6 * Methods in Comparative and Historical Sociology

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Beach, D. (2016). It’s all about mechanisms - what process-tracing case studies should be tracing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.F3E4458D
Emigh, R. J. (1997). The power of negative thinking: The use of negative case methodology in the development of sociological theory. Theory & Society, 26(5), 649–684. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006896217647
Hay, C., & Gofas, A. (2008). Causal, Constitutive or Constitutively Causal? The Explanatory Status of Ideas in Post-Positivist Political Analysis. Conference Papers —— American Political Science Association, 1–52. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=poh&AN=36951699
Isaac, L. (2008). Movement of Movements: Culture Moves in the Long Civil Rights Struggle. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.A1B6A9EA
John Gerring (2013) Case Study: What is and What it Does?, The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, edited by Robert E. Goodin, Online Version, DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.013.0051
Lieberson, S. (1991). Small N’s and Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.5ACBF27C
Mahoney, J. (2000). Path dependence in historical sociology. Theory & Society, 29(4), 507. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007113830879
Mariampolski, H., & Hughes, D. C. (1978). The Use of Personal Documents in Historical Sociology. American Sociologist, 13(2), 104–113. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=sih&AN=4946210
Michael Burawoy. (1998). The extended case method. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.6FB6B8B7
Sewell Jr., W. H. (1996). Historical events as transformations of structures: Inventing revolution at the Bastille. Theory & Society, 25(6), 841–881. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00159818

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Blackledge, P. (2000). Perry Anderson and the End of History. Historical Materialism, 7(1), 199–219. https://doi.org/10.1163/156920600794750801
Ebbinghaus, B. (2005). Can path dependence explain institutional change? : two approaches applied to welfare state reform / Bernhard Ebbinghaus. Köln: Max-Planck-Inst. für Gesellschaftsforschung. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edswao&AN=edswao.116880341
Eddie Murphy and the Dangers of Counterfactual Causal Thinking About Detecting Racial Discrimination. (2019). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.6E2E4D85
Eliasoph, N., & Lichterman, P. (1999). “We Begin with Our Favorite Theory …”: Reconstructing the Extended Case Method. Sociological Theory, 17(2), 228. https://doi.org/10.1111/0735-2751.00076
Ermakoff, I. (2015). The Structure of Contingency. Conference Papers —— American Sociological Association, 64–125. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=sih&AN=111784945
Goldstone, J. (2010). From Structure to Agency to Process: The Evolution of Charles Tilly’s Theories of Social Action as Reflected in His Analyses of Contentious Politics. American Sociologist, 41(4), 358–367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-010-9106-x
Griffin, L. J. (1993). Narrative, Event-Structure Analysis, and Causal Interpretation in Historical Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 98(5), 1094. https://doi.org/10.1086/230140
Hawkins, J. R. (2014). Historicizing the state in development theory: Michael Mann’s model of social power. Progress in Development Studies, 14(3), 299–308. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464993414521333
HESS, A., & FLECK, C. (2014). Knowledge for whom? A critical note on the uses and abuses of “Public Sociology.” Irish Journal of Sociology, 22(1), 143–154. https://doi.org/10.7227/IJS.22.1.10
Jill Quadagno, & Stan J. Knapp. (1992). Have Historical Sociologists Forsaken Theory? Sociological Methods & Research, (4), 481. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.sae.somere.v20y1992i4p481.507
Jochen Glaser, & Grit Laudel. (2019). The Discovery of Causal Mechanisms: Extractive Qualitative Content Analysis as a Tool for Process Tracing. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, (3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3386
Kiser, E., & Hechter, M. (1991). The Role of General Theory in Comparative-historical Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 97(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1086/229738
Mahoney, J. (1999). Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisal in Macrocausal Analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 104(4), 1154. https://doi.org/10.1086/210139
Mahoney, J., & Goertz, G. (2004). The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research. American Political Science Review, (04), 653. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.cup.apsrev.v98y2004i04p653.669.04
Meyer, S. B. (2016). Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research. British Journal of Sociology, 67(1), 182–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12170
Palabıyık, M. S. (2019). Broadening the Horizons of the “International” by Historicizing it: Comparative Historical Analysis. All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy & Peace, 8(2), 307–325. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=poh&AN=137302380
Ronald Aminzade. (1992). Historical Sociology and Time. Sociological Methods & Research, (4), 456. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.sae.somere.v20y1992i4p456.480
Skocpol, T. (1979). STATE AND REVOLUTION: Old Regimes and Revolutionary Crises in France, Russia, and China. Theory & Society, 7(1/2), 7. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00158678
Vanhala, L. (2017). Process Tracing in the Study of Environmental Politics. Global Environmental Politics, 17(4), 88–105. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00434

Authors

ROYCHOUDKHURI ARNAB -

Course Syllabus