Configurational Comparative Methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Related Techniques

by Benoît Rihoux, Charles C. Ragin

Overview

Configurational Comparative Methods paves the way for an innovative approach to empirical scientific work through a strategy that integrates key strengths of both qualitative (case-oriented) and quantitative (variable-oriented) approaches. This first-of-its-kind text is ideally suited for "small-N" or "intermediate-N" research situations, which both mainstream qualitative and quantitative methods find difficult to address. Benoît Rihoux and Charles C. Ragin, along with their contributing authors, offer both a basic, comparative research design overview and a technical and hands-on review of Crisp-Set QCA (cs QCA), Multi-Value QCA (mv QCA), and Fuzzy-Set QCA (fs QCA).

Key Features

• Discusses existing applications in many different fields and disciplines along with state-of-the-art coverage of the strengths and limitations of these techniques
• Demonstrates further inventive ways of using QCA techniques
• Provides advice on how to develop a comparative research design (case and variable selection) as well as a specific technique called MSDO/MDSO (most similar, different outcome/most different, same outcome).
• Shows how to perform the technical operations linked to three specific QCA techniques: cs QCA, mv QCA, and fs QCA
• Includes a glossary, an extensive bibliography, and a detailed list of good practices at every stage of the research process

Intended Audience

A must for any student or researcher who wants to engage in systematic cross-case comparison in the social and behavioral sciences, the book is ideal for use in upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level social science research methods courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412942355
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/14/2008
Series:	Applied Social Research Methods , #51
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Charles C. Ragin spent most of his youth in Texas and the southeastern United States. He attended the University of Texas at Austin as an undergraduate and received his BA degree in 1972 at the age of 19. That same year he began graduate work in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his Ph D in 1975. From 1975 until 2001, he lived in the Midwest, teaching first at Indiana University and then at Northwestern University. He headed west in 2001, where he spent just over a decade at University of Arizona-Tucson. In 2012, he joined the faculty at the University of California-Irvine, where he is currently the Chancellor's Professor of Sociology. He is best known for developing a methodological alternative to conventional research methods, using formal set-theoretic techniques for comparative research. His many publications address broad issues in politics and society, with topics ranging from the causes of ethnic political mobilization to the shaping of the welfare state in advanced capitalist countries. He has written several books including Intersectional Inequality: Race, Class, Test Scores and Poverty (with Peer Fiss, 2017). Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond (2008) Fuzzy-Set Social Science (2000). His book The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies (1987) won the 1989 Stein Rokkan Prize of the International Social Science Council of UNESCO. In 2014 he received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the American Sociological Association. He is married to Mary Driscoll, and they have two sons, Andrew and Daniel.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION - Benoît Rihoux and Charles Ragin
1. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as an Approach - Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Gisèle De Meur, Benoît Rihoux & Charles Ragin
2. Comparative Research Design: Case and Variable Selection - Dirk Berg-Schlosser & Gisèle De Meur
3. Crisp-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (CSQCA) - Benoît Rihoux & Gisèle De Meur
4. Multi-Value QCA (MVQCA) - Lasse Cronqvist & Dirk Berg-Schlosser
5. Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using Fuzzy Sets (FSQCA) - Charles C. Ragin
6. A Commented Review of Applications - Sakura Yamasaki & Benoît Rihoux
7. Addressing the Critiques of QCA - Gisèle De Meur, Benoît Rihoux & Sakura Yamasaki
8. Conclusions - The Way(s) Ahead - Benoît Rihoux, Charles Ragin and Sakura Yamasaki
FURTHER RESOURCES FOR CONFIGURATIONAL COMPARATIVE METHODS - Damien Bol and Sakura Yamasaki
GLOSSARY - Sakura Yamasaki, Benoît Rihoux, Gisèle De Meur and Charles C. Ragin
THEMATIC AND AUTHOR INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A Commented Review of Applications - Sakura Yamasaki, Benoît Rihoux
Addressing the Critiques of QCA - Gisele De Meur, Benoît Rihoux, Sakura Yamasaki
Comparative Research Design: Case and Variable Selection - Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Gisele De Meur
Conclusions - The Way(s) Ahead - Benoît Rihoux, Charles Ragin, Sakura Yamasaki, Damien Bol
Crisp-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis - Benoît Rihoux, Gisele De Meur
Multi-Value QCA (mv QCA) - Lasse Cronqvist, Dirk Berg-Schlosser
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as an Approach - Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Gisele De Meur, Benoît Rihoux, Charles Ragin