Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: a guide to qualitative comparative analysis

Book Review of: Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: a guide to qualitative comparative analysis, by C. Q. Schneider and C. Wagemann, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 367 pp., £60.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-107-01352-0, £23.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-107-60113-0. Since its launch in 1987 by Ragin as a methodology intended to bridge the gap between quantitative variable-based and qualitative case-based research approaches, social science researchers have increasingly turned to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for conducting comparative empirical social science research. Throughout the years, QCA has become an umbrella term for a set-theoretic configurational research approach encompassing a number of variants and techniques for systematically comparing cases (Rihoux & Ragin, 2009). This textbook by Schneider and Wagemann is ‘dedicated to explaining QCA’ (p. 9), where the ‘focus will be more on the technical aspects’ (p. 11). They concentrate on the most popular variants: crisp sets (csQCA) and fuzzy sets (fsQCA). The book is aimed ‘to cater to both beginners and very advanced readers’ (p. 19).

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