Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards

Extract

Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Edited by Henry E. Brady and David Collier. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. 384p. $72.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

This essay collection is an exceptionally important book that establishes a pluralistic vision of social science methodology. Until a few years ago, the discipline equated methods with quantitative methods and formal modeling; qualitative research was often seen as lacking precision and rigor and therefore as undeserving of the “methods” label. How things have changed—and for the better! The American Political Science Association now has a flourishing section on Qualitative Methods, which has attracted a rapidly increasing membership.