Comparative Historical Methods

This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Centre training programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methods skills that are relevant across the social sciences.

These four sessions will introduce students to comparative historical research methods, emphasizing their qualitative dimensions. In the first session, we will analyze some contemporary classics within this genre. In the second and third sessions, we will review and distinguish among a variety of intellectual justifications for this genre as a methodology. In the final session, we will focus on a "state of the art" defence of qualitative and comparative-historical research, both in theory and practice

• Mphil and PhD students from participating departments taking the Social Science Research Methods Centre training programme as part of their research degree

Number of sessions: 4

• Session 1: Classics
• Session 2: Justifications I
• Session 3: Justifications II
• Session 4: State of the Art

• To introduce students to the qualitative dimension of comparative historical research methods
• To analyse some contemporary classics within this genre
• To review and distinguish among the variety of intellectual justifications for this genre as a methodology
• To focus on a 'state-of-the-art' defence of qualitative and comparative-historical research in theory and practice.

Presentation only

S1:Classics

• Moore, B.(1966) The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
• Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

S2: Justifications I

• MacIntyre, M. (2001). “Is a science of comparative politics possible?” In Flyvberg, B. (2001). Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails, and How It Can Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brady, H.& Collier, D. (eds). (2004). Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

S3:Justifications II

• Pierson, P. (2004) Positive feedback and path dependence [AND] Institutional Development. In Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. (pp.17-53, 133-166).Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Thelen, K. (2003) How institutions evolve: insights from comparative historical analysis. In Mahoney, J. & Rueschemeyer, D.Comparative-Historical Analysis: Innovations in Theory and Methods. (pp.208-240).

S4: State of the Art

• Dietrich Rueschemeyer, "Analytical Tools for Social and Political Research." In Usable Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009: 1-26.
• Mahoney, J. (2004) Comparative-historical methodology. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 30:81–101.
• Mahoney, J.(2006). On the second wave of historical sociology, 1970s-Present. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 47(5):371-377.
• Mahoney, J. (2007). Qualitative methods and comparative politics. Comparative Political Studies 40(2):122-144.
• Mahoney, J. (2010) After KKV: the new methodology of qualitative research. World Politics 62(1):120-147.

• To gain maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking.
• Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Four sessions of one and a half hours each.

Once a week for four weeks.