Skip to main content
Log in

If Similarity is the Challenge – Congruence Analysis Should be Part of the Answer

  • Debate
  • Published:
European Political Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This contribution to the debate on the challenges to comparative politics largely focuses on the issue of differences versus similarities, the issue that has been raised by both authors: Caramani and Van Kersbergen. I share their concern that too much research focuses on differences between countries and I also join them in locating the sources of this bias in methodological considerations. I do not agree however with some of Caramani's points, in particular his fundamental claim that explanation necessarily demands variations across cases; a claim that seems also to be made at least implicitly by Van Kersbergen. I argue that the validity of an explanation rather depends on the degree to which empirical evidence is congruent with observable implications of this explanation and is not congruent with implications of rival explanations. It is irrelevant whether these theoretical expectations concern differences or similarities between countries. I therefore advocate a theory-driven rather than a case-driven analysis of national political systems in order to meet the challenge to explain similarities between them.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In fact, almost all of my own research is informed by puzzles of variation.

  2. Perhaps Przeworski and Teune's two level version of the mdsd get around this (1970). But in comparative politics, in particular in small ‘n’, the mdsd is used on one level of analysis only.

  3. Empirically, the focus on national political systems distinguishes this empirical sub-discipline of political science from its counterpart, international relations.

  4. Yin calls this ‘pattern matching’ (Yin, 2003).

  5. To be sure, Allison splits the Cuban Missile Crisis into three decisions. The point here, however, is that these three decisions are not taken as three cases that are compared with each other following for instance a most similar system design. Rather, for each of the three decisions observable implications of the three models are compared with empirical reality. Rogowski (2004) runs through a number of very influential studies in comparative politics that show no variation in the dependent variable, including the single case study on the Netherlands by Lijphart (1968) and Katzenstein's study of small states all having the same outcome, economic success (1985).

References

  • Achen, C.H. (2006) ‘Evaluating Political Decision Making Models’, in R. Thomson, F.N. Stokman, C.H. Achen and T. König (eds.) The European Union Decides, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 264–298.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Allison, G.T. (1971) Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blatter, J. and Blume, T. (2008a) ‘Co-variation and causal process tracing revisited. clarifying new directions for causal inference and generalization in case study methodology’, Qualitative Methods, 6 (Spring): 29–34.

  • Blatter, J. and Blume, T. (2008b) ‘In search of co-variance, causal mechanisms or congruence? Towards a plural understanding of case studies’, Swiss Political Science Review 14: 315–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D.T. (2003) ‘Foreword’, in R.K. Yin (ed.) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. ix–xi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caramani, D. (2010) ‘Of differences and similarities: Is the explanation of variation a limitation to (or of) comparative analysis?’, European Political Science 9 (1): 34–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, T.D. and Campbell, D.T. (1979) Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freindreis, J.P. (1983) ‘Explanation of variation and detection of covariation. The purpose and logic of comparative analysis’, Comparative Political Studies 16: 252–272.

    Google Scholar 

  • George, A.L. and Bennett, A. (2005) Case Study and Theory Development, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerring, J. (2007) Case Study Research: Principles and Practices, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, P.A. (2003) ‘Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Politics’, in J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer (eds.) Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 373–405.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Haverland, M. (2006) ‘Does the EU cause domestic developments? Improving case selection in Europeanisation research’, West European Politics 29: 134–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haverland, M. (2007) ‘Methodology’, in P. Graziano and M. Vink (eds.) Europeanization: New Research Agendas, Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 59–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katzenstein, P.L. (1985) Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, G., Keohane, R.O. and Verba, S. (1994) Designing Social Inquiry. Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landman, T. (2000) Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics, London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, E.S. (2001) ‘Causal inference in historical and institutional analysis. A specification of periodization strategies’, Comparative Political Studies 34: 1011–1032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lijphart, A. (1968) The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands, Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, G.B. (1998) Comparative Politics. Theory and Method, New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Przeworski, A. and Teune, H. (1970) The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogowski, R. (2004) ‘How Inference in the Social (but not the Physical) Sciences Neglects Theoretical Anomaly’, in H.E. Brady and D. Collier (eds.) Rethinking Social Inquiry. Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 75–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skocpol, T. and Somers, M. (1980) ‘The uses of history in macro-social inquiry’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 174–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, R., Stokman, F.N., Achen, C.H. and König, T. (2006) The European Union Decides, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Van Kersberqen, K. (2010) ‘Comparative politics: Some points for discussion’, European Political Science 9 (1): 49–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yin, R.K. (2003) Case Study Research. Design and Methods, 2nd edn, London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Haverland, M. If Similarity is the Challenge – Congruence Analysis Should be Part of the Answer. Eur Polit Sci 9, 68–73 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2009.47

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2009.47

Keywords

Navigation