Emerging scholars bring the case study approach back-in
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Emerging scholars bring the case study approach back‑in Jennifer Fredette1 Accepted: 1 October 2020 / Published online: 20 October 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract This introduction to the special issue on case study research, which showcases cutting edge research by emerging scholars on France, describes the connection between these articles and current developments in political science methodology. SI contributors situate their analyses in thick description of France itself, demonstrating how modernity, rationality, common sense, citizenship, and democracy are inherently abstract concepts that only take on political meaning and significance within a specific national context. Simultaneously, these essays flesh out mid-level theories that are more amenable to cross-national generalization without losing rigor in the process, contributing to broader political science literature on experience versus reason, the European and Christian roots of secularism and how this contributes to contemporary discrimination, welfare state development, and political lawyering and the judicialization of politics. Keywords Case study · Thick description · “French touch”
Situating the special issue in political science and the study of French politics As David Collier noted 9 years ago, “Political science is in a period of major innovation in refining tools for quantitative analysis, and in particular, quantitative tools for causal inference” (2011: 829). Scholarship on France has reflected these innovations, and the pages of French Politics have been no exception.1 Collier himself, however, is one of the many faces representing a disciplinary shift as political scientists return to qualitative research. Collier and Elman (2008) describe this shift in the following way: “After two decades of relative quiescence, with a fairly stable canon consisting mainly of works published in the 1970s, this branch of methodology has been experiencing a resurgence” (779).2 1
See, for example, Adams et al. (2005), Foucault (2006) and Lewis-Beck et al. (2008). See also Goertz (2017), Mahoney and Goertz (2006), McBride and Mazur (2010), Wedeen (2010) and Yanow and Schwartz-Shea (2006). 2
* Jennifer Fredette [email protected] 1
Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA Vol.:(0123456789)
350 J. Fredette
The emergence of APSA’s Organized Section on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research in 2003 has been a considerable force in this shift. The Organized Section has sponsored APSA short courses on qualitative methodology, variously defined; it has hosted methods cafés; and it has led APSA working groups on qualitative methodology. Each of these initiatives has contributed to the training, encouragement, and professional support of political scientists who employ qualitative approaches in their research. These initiatives have avoided generating inflexible definitions about qualitative and multi-method research and have opted instead to provide space for debate and discussion aimed at improving the rigor of our studies and, ultimately, o
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