Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-xtvcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-14T11:54:43.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Standards of Good Practice and the Methodology of Necessary Conditions in Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Alrik Thiem
Alrik Thiem*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, Rue de Candolle 2/Bât. Landolt, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The analysis of necessary conditions for some outcome of interest has long been one of the main preoccupations of scholars in all disciplines of the social sciences. In this connection, the introduction of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in the late 1980s has revolutionized the way research on necessary conditions has been carried out. Standards of good practice for QCA have long demanded that the results of preceding tests for necessity constrain QCA's core process of Boolean minimization so as to enhance the quality of parsimonious and intermediate solutions. Schneider and Wagemann's Theory-Guided/Enhanced Standard Analysis (T/ESA) is currently being adopted by applied researchers as the new state-of-the-art procedure in this respect. In drawing on Schneider and Wagemann's own illustrative data example and a meta-analysis of thirty-six truth tables across twenty-one published studies that have adhered to current standards of good practice in QCA, I demonstrate that, once bias against compound conditions in necessity tests is accounted for, T/ESA will produce conservative solutions, and not enhanced parsimonious or intermediate ones.

Type
Articles
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , Autumn 2016 , pp. 478 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumgartner, Michael. 2008. Regularity theories reassessed. Philosophia 36(3):327–54.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Michael, and Thiem, Alrik. 2015. Model ambiguities in configurational comparative research. Sociological Methods & Research. DOI: 10.1177/0049124115610351.Google Scholar
Beyens, Stefanie, Lucardie, Paul, and Deschouwer, Kris. 2016. The life and death of new political parties in the low countries. West European Politics 39(2):257–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braumoeller, Bear F., and Gary, Goertz. 2000. The methodology of necessary conditions. American Journal of Political Science 44(4):844–58.Google Scholar
Cooper, Barry, and Glaesser, Judith. 2016. Qualitative Comparative Analysis, necessary conditions, and limited diversity: Some problematic consequences of Schneider and Wagemann's Enhanced Standard Analysis. Field Methods 28(3):300–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duşa, Adrian, and Thiem, Alrik. 2015. Enhancing the minimization of Boolean and multivalue output functions with eQMC. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 39(2):92–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goertz, Gary. 2003. The substantive importance of necessary condition hypotheses. In Necessary conditions: Theory, methodology, and applications, eds. Gary, Goertz and Starr, Harvey, 65–94. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Goertz, Gary, and Mahoney, James. 2012. A tale of two cultures: Qualitative and quantitative research in the social sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goertz, Gary, and Starr, Harvey, eds. 2003. Necessary conditions: Theory, methodology, and applications. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hicks, Alexander. 1994. Qualitative Comparative Analysis and analytical induction: The case of the emergence of the social security state. Sociological Methods & Research 23(1):86–113.Google Scholar
Lichbach, Mark I. 1981. Regime change: A test of structuralist and functionalist explanations. Comparative Political Studies 14(1):49–73.Google Scholar
Lieberson, Stanley. 2004. Comments on the use and utility of QCA. Qualitative Methods 2(2):13–14.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, Kimball, Erin, and Koivu, Kendra L. 2009. The logic of historical explanation in the social sciences. Comparative Political Studies 42(1):114–46.Google Scholar
McCluskey, Edward J. 1965. Introduction to the theory of switching circuits. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Weingast, Barry R. 1989. Constitutions and commitment: The evolution of institutional governing public choice in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Economic History 49(4):803–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, Willard V. 1952. The problem of simplifying truth functions. American Mathematical Monthly 59(8):521–31.Google Scholar
Ragin, Charles C. 1987. The comparative method: Moving beyond qualitative and quantitative strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ragin, Charles C. 2000. Fuzzy-set social science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ragin, Charles C. 2008. Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ragin, Charles C. 2009. Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using Fuzzy Sets (fsQCA). In Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and related techniques, eds. Rihoux, Benoît and Ragin, Charles C., 87–121. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Rihoux, Benoît, and De Meur, Gisèle. 2009. Crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA). In Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and related techniques, eds. Rihoux, Benoît and Ragin, Charles C., 33–68. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Rihoux, Benoît, and Ragin, Charles C., eds. 2009. Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and related techniques. London: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Carsten Q., and Wagemann, Claudius. 2010. Standards of good practice in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and fuzzy-sets. Comparative Sociology 9(3):397–418.Google Scholar
Schneider, Carsten Q., and Wagemann, Claudius. 2012. Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: A guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Carsten Q., and Wagemann, Claudius. 2013. Doing justice to logical remainders in QCA: Moving beyond the standard analysis. Political Research Quarterly 66(1):211–20.Google Scholar
Sutton, John R. 1983. Social structure, institutions, and the legal status of children in the United States. American Journal of Sociology 88(5):915–47.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik. 2014a. Navigating the complexities of Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Case numbers, necessity relations, and model ambiguities. Evaluation Review 38(6):487–513.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik. 2014b. Unifying configurational comparative methods: Generalized-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Sociological Methods & Research 43(2):313–37.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik. 2015. Using qualitative comparative analysis for identifying causal chains in configurational data: A methodological commentary on Baumgartner and Epple (2014). Sociological Methods & Research 44(4):723–36.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik. 2016a. QCApro: Professional functionality for performing and evaluating Qualitative Comparative Analysis, R package version 1.1–1. http://www.alrik-thiem.net/software/ (Accessed August 25, 2016).Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik. 2016b. Replication data for: Standards of good practice and the methodology of necessary conditions in Qualitative Comparative Analysis. http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BCQM3Y, Harvard Dataverse.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik, and Baumgartner, Michael. 2016. Back to square one: A reply to Munck, Paine and Schneider. Comparative Political Studies 49(6):801–6.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik, Baumgartner, Michael, and Bol, Damien. 2016. Still lost in translation! A correction of three misunderstandings between configurational comparativists and regressional analysts. Comparative Political Studies 49(6):742–74.Google Scholar
Thiem, Alrik, and Duşa, Adrian. 2013a. QCA: A package for Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The R Journal 5(1):87–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thiem, Alrik, and Duşa, Adrian. 2013b. Boolean minimization in social science research: A review of current software for Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Social Science Computer Review 31(4):505–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomann, Eva. 2015. Is output performance all about the resources? A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of street-level bureaucrats in Switzerland. Public Administration 93(1):177–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagemann, Claudius, and Schneider, Carsten Q. 2015. Transparency standards in Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Qualitative & Multi-Method Research 13(1):38–42.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Thiem Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Thiem Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 39.2 KB
Supplementary material: File

Thiem Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Thiem Supplementary Material(File)
File 18.1 KB