Abstract
The distinguished historian of the Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt, once remarked that the true use of history is not to make men more clever for the next time but to make them wiser forever. Admittedly, it is not easy to learn from history, though almost every statesman and general has professed to have done so. In the first place, people often disagree as to the correct lesson to be drawn from a particular historical experience. For example, quite different lessons regarding military strategy for fighting limited wars were drawn from the frustrating experience of the Korean War and once again, quite ominously, from the failure of American military power in the Vietnam War. Second, even if people agree on the correct lessons to be drawn from a particular historical case, they often misapply those lessons to a new situation that differs from the past one in important respects.
This text was first published as: “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison.” In Paul Gordon Lauren, ed. Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy. New York: Free Press, 1979. The permission to republish this text was granted by the editor after Simon & Schuster reverted the copyright to Paul Gordon Lauren. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a research grant (No. SOC 75-14079) from the National Science Foundation. The author expresses his appreciation also to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where he was a Fellow during 1976–1977.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau, “The Meaning of Vietnam: Belief Systems of American Leaders,” International Journal 32 (Summer 1977): 452–474.
- 2.
For an incisive discussion of the problem see Ernest R. May, ‘Lessons’ of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); and Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), Chapter 6, “How Decisionmakers Learn From History,” pp. 217–287.
- 3.
For an incisive recent statement see Gabriel A. Almond and Stephen J. Genco, “Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics,” World Politics 29 (July 1977): 489–522.
- 4.
See, for example, Klaus Knorr and James N. Rosenau (eds.), Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969); especially Chapter 1.
- 5.
The utility of single case studies for assessing the causal status of statistical correlations has been discussed in some detail by Bruce Russett. He also recommends that investigators make greater use of an iterative research strategy, one that alternates statistical-correlational studies of large numbers of cases with intensive single case analysis. See his “International Behavior Research: Case Studies and Cumulation,” in M. Haas and H. S. Kariel (eds.), Approaches to the Study of Political Science (San Francisco: Chandler, 1970), pp. 425–443.
- 6.
These problems are discussed in Alexander L. George, “The Causal Nexus Between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision-making Behavior: The ‘Operational Code’ Belief System,” in Lawrence Falkowski (ed.), Psychological Models and International Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1970).
- 7.
Sidney Verba, “Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research,” World Politics 20 (October 1976): 113.
- 8.
Some writers prefer to reserve use of the word ‘variable’ for concepts that are subjected to measurement. The refinement of concepts should in any case precede measurement. For an incisive discussion see Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misinformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review 64 (December 1970): 1033–1053.
- 9.
Verba, “Some Dilemmas,” p. 114 (italics added). In this passage, it may be noted, Verba is taking issue with investigators who, in employing statistical techniques of analysis, have often been extremely reluctant to develop ‘cells’ into which only one or a few cases from their larger sample would fall, since this would provide too few numbers for statistical analysis. For this reason investigators often group their cases into larger and broader ‘cells,’ thereby providing enough instances to permit statistical analysis. Thereby, however, the investigator loses the opportunity for a more discriminating analysis of the differences among these cases and has to focus on the more general characteristics which place them in the broader ‘cell.’ This common practice in statistical analysis, dictated by technical considerations, has had adverse consequences for the development of theory. Systematic avoidance of more discriminating cells excludes development of a richer, more differentiated theory.
- 10.
See, for example, the writings on comparative history by the eminent French historian, Marc Bloch. A useful commentary is provided by William Sewell, “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History,” History and Theory 6 (1967): 208–218. As many historians have noted, the method of comparison of historical cases is their substitute for experimentation.
Of the many studies by historians which employ the comparative method, one may cite such varied ones as Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Norton, 1938); Paul Schroeder, “Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,” in Klaus Knorr (ed.), Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1976), pp. 227–262; Paul Gordon Lauren, Diplomats and Bureaucrats: The First Institutional Responses to Twentieth-Century Diplomacy in France and Germany (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1976).
- 11.
Verba, “Some Dilemmas,” p. 114. See also Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in F. I. Greenstein and N. W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), VII: 79–138.
- 12.
For example, Thomas C. Schelling, Strategy of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 163.
- 13.
For a more detailed discussion see A. L. George and R. Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), especially chapters 3, 16.
- 14.
For a sober evaluation of the earlier nonscientific, noncumulative character of case studies of foreign policy, see James N. Rosenau, “Moral Fervor, Systematic Analysis, and Scientific Consciousness in Foreign Policy Research,” Ranney (ed.), Political Science and Public Policy (Chicago: Markham, 1968), pp. 197–238. Case studies of the type that many historians and political scientists have done, Rosenau observed, are not necessarily appropriate to scientific inquiry. Most of these case studies, he held, lacked “scientific consciousness” and hence did not cumulate. Rosenau went on to make a number of suggestions for imbuing case studies with “scientific consciousness” and for making them more comparable.
Similarly, sober evaluations of case studies in other fields of political science were offered by other writers. See, for example, R. Macridis and B. C. Brown (eds.), Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings (Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press, 1955), who criticized the old ‘comparative’ politics for being, among other things, not genuinely comparative—i.e., concerned mainly with single case studies which were essentially descriptive and monographic rather than theory oriented. In the field of public administration similar concerns were expressed, for example, by Herbert Kaufmann, “The Next Step in Case Studies,” Public Administration Review 18 (Winter 1958): 52–59. And in the field of American politics an important critique of the atheoretical case study was presented by Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies and Political Theory,” World Politics 16 (July 1964): 677–715.
- 15.
For a comparison and lucid discussion of these three basic scientific methods, see for example Arend Lijphart’s two articles: “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” American Political Science Review 65 (September 1971): 682–693, and “The Comparable-Case Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies 8 (July 1975): 158–177. The latter article also refers to earlier descriptions of the comparative method.
- 16.
See, for example, Richard A. Brody and Charles N. Brownstein, “Experimentation and Simulation,” in Handbook of Political Science, VII: 211–263.
- 17.
See, for example, Donald T. Campbell, “‘Degrees of Freedom’ and the Case Study,” Comparative Political Studies 8 (July 1975): 178–193; and the same author’s “Qualitative Knowing in Action Research,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, September 1974. See also Lee Cronbach, “Beyond the Two Scientific Disciplines of Scientific Psychology,” American Psychologist 30 (February 1975): 116–127; and Richard S. Lazarus, “The Self-Regulation of Emotions,” University of California at Berkeley, unpublished manuscript, no date.
- 18.
Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” p. 684.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 685.
- 20.
Lijphart, “The Comparable-Case Strategy,” p. 171.
- 21.
Thus, the Cuban missile crisis is treated as an example of deterrence failure in George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy; as an example of coercive diplomacy in A. L. George, D. K. Hall, and W. E. Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971); as an example of crisis management in Ole R. Holsti, Crisis, Escalation, War (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972).
- 22.
H. Hugh Heclo, “Review Article: Policy Analysis,” British Journal of Political Science 2 (January 1972): 83–108.
- 23.
Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science.” An excellent discussion of critical issues in efforts to utilize case studies for theory development is provided by James F. Keeley, “Comparative Case Studies and Theory-Building,” Stanford University, unpublished manuscript, January 1976.
- 24.
The discussion of crucial cases appears on pp. 113–123 of Eckstein’s article. Earlier (p. 89), he draws a useful distinction between “experimental prediction,” “concrete prediction,” and ‘forecasting,’ and calls attention to the fact that not all are equally conclusive for theory testing: “The failure of a single forecast, for example, is generally (not always) less conclusive than that of an experimental prediction, although related forecasting failures are pretty definitive.”
- 25.
Eckstein discusses some of the specific objections raised to his brief for crucial case studies on pp. 123ff.
- 26.
The various uses and types of case studies are also discussed by Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” pp. 691–693. Lijphart’s terminology for identifying the various types differs from Eckstein’s but his discussion of the types closely parallels Eckstein’s, with two exceptions: Lijphart does not designate a separate category for Eckstein’s “plausibility probe”; and Lijphart adds a quite important type of case study, the analysis of the ‘deviant’ case, for which Eckstein does not make explicit provision. The similarities and differences between these two listings of types of case studies are as follows:
Lijphart
“atheoretical case study”
“interpretative case study”
“hypothesis-generating case study”
“theory-confirming” case study
“theory-infirming” case study
‘deviant’ case study
Eckstein
“configurative-idiographic”
“disciplined-configurative”
‘heuristic’
“plausibility probe”
“crucial case”
- 27.
If the existing literature on the problem singled out for study does not contain much by way of theoretical formulation or hypotheses, the major objective of the study may be ‘heuristic’ (rather than hypothesis testing). Hence, the investigator’s research strategy may be to examine a variety of cases—what is sometimes called “the method of differences”—in order to identify independent variables that are of possible causal significance in explaining different outcomes. The investigator’s research objective in such a study, in other words, is to formulate a theoretical framework and some hypotheses.
On the other hand, if the investigator’s research objective is to assess the causal significance of one major independent variable his research strategy may be to examine cases which are highly similar in all other respects—what is sometimes called “the method of similarities.”
- 28.
The three segments of deterrence theory are “commitment theory,” “initiation theory,” and “response-to-warning theory.” Cases which are not instances of attempted deterrence, strictly speaking, may nonetheless be included in the study if they illuminate one or another of these three segments of the theory. See chapters 17, 19, and 20 of George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy.
- 29.
As in the study by George, Hall, and Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy; see especially the Appendix, pp. 255–259.
- 30.
These questions were originally formulated in Alexander L. George, “The ‘Operational Code’: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making,” International Studies Quarterly 13 (June 1969): 199–222; reprinted as Chapter 8 in this volume. A variety of case studies have been undertaken employing these questions.
- 31.
Partial reanalysis of the case studies may be necessary, even though during the design phase the investigator familiarized himself with the phenomenon in question and examined a variety of cases before final specification of the five tasks.
It should be emphasized that to engage in this type of interaction is not to engage in ‘circularity.’ The investigator can take a preliminary look at the cases in order to improve the theoretical framework…i.e., by identifying additional independent variables and/or better ways of describing the variance in the variable (see the previous discussion of the advantages of an inductive approach for this purpose.) Thus, the preliminary look at the cases amounts to making a specific heuristic use of them to learn more about the problem and to improve the research design before proceeding with hypothesis testing and/or hypothesis development. To do so is not to engage in the indefensible practice of imposing the initial theory or hypotheses identified in Phase 1 on the explanation of the cases developed in Phase 2; nor is it to fall into the unacceptable practice of deriving explanatory hypotheses from the cases that should be used later to assess those same hypotheses.
- 32.
For an illustration of how this can be done, see “Part Three: Toward a Reformulation of Deterrence Theory,” in George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, pp. 50ff.
- 33.
On the logic of deviant case analysis and the role it can play in the development of theory see, for example, Patricia Kendall and Katherine M. Wolf, “The Analysis of Deviant Cases in Communications Research, “in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton (eds.), Communications Research, 194-8-49 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), pp. 152–157.
- 34.
Paul Diesing, Patterns of Discovery in the Social Sciences (Chicago and New York: Aldine-Atherton, 1971), p. 196.
- 35.
George, Hall, and Simons, Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, p. xvi; George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, p. 511.
- 36.
See in this connection Paul Diesing’s discussion of “particularized holistic theory,” i.e., typological theory that describes typical patterns and ranges of variation. “The holist’s primary theoretical interest,” Diesing notes in Patterns of Discovery, pp. 195–196, “is in the development of more complex and detailed types.” What Diesing refers to as ‘types’ are what I am referring to here as different causal patterns.
Another useful discussion of single case analysis from a methodological standpoint is provided by Steven R. Brown, “Intensive Analysis in Political Research,” Political Methodology 1 (Winter 1974): 1–25.
- 37.
See also Eckstein’s useful remarks on clinical studies which are associated more with action objectives than those of pure knowledge. Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory,” pp. 81–82.
- 38.
As Bruce Russett has “emphasized in reflecting on his own research experience, neither of these two research strategies is complete without the other; neither can alone provide a basis for reliable and valid generalizations about international politics of the type that will be helpful in policy making. See his “International Behavior Research: Case Studies and Cumulation.”
Of course, it may be difficult in practice for any given investigator to make use of both research strategies since the skills involved differ, but a division of labor between investigators specializing in one and the other research strategy should be feasible.
- 39.
James N. Rosenau, “Moral Fervor, Systematic Analysis, and Scientific Consciousness in Foreign Policy Research.”
- 40.
My own work, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (with Richard Smoke), best exemplifies the structured, focused method. An earlier book, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, employed an abridged variant of the method. Important elements of structured, focused comparison have also been utilized in a series of operational code belief system studies under way since 1969. (For a summary, see A. L. George and O. R. Holsti, “Operational Code Belief Systems and Foreign Policy Decision-Making,’’ research proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation, December 1974.) Exemplary use of the structured, focused method is evident in Richard Smoke’s War: Controlling Escalation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977); see particularly his careful formulation of a set of theoretically relevant general questions and his selection of historical cases in Chapter 3 and Appendix B, pp. 36–45, 316–326. Other significant uses of the structured, focused method include Joseph J. Kruzel, “The Preconditions and Consequences of Arms Control Agreements,” Ph.D dissertation, Harvard University, 1975; Dan E. Caldwell, “American-Soviet Detente and the Nixon-Kissinger Grand Design and Grand Strategy,” Ph.D., dissertation, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, May 1978.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
George, A.L. (2019). Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison. In: Caldwell, D. (eds) Alexander L. George: A Pioneer in Political and Social Sciences. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90772-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90772-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90771-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90772-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)