Collaborative Research: Robust and Reliable Research Workshop Proposal: Rethinking Comparison in the Social Sciences

摘要比较是社会科学研究的重要工具。学者们通过对不同时间和地点的比较来更好地理解广泛的政治和社会现象。社会科学家经常使用的核心技术之一是控制比较，即学者们在不同的情况下保持潜在的解释因素不变，以帮助他们评估他们对特定结果的贡献。这种方法一直是一些最有影响力的社会科学著作的核心。它帮助学者们解释了从为什么有些国家富有而有些国家贫穷到为什么有些国家民主而有些国家专制的一切。然而，尽管受控比较产生了持久的见解，但它们并不是学者用来回答有关社会和政治生活的重要问题的唯一比较形式。然而，对于如何开发和执行不依赖于受控案例模型的比较，以及替代比较模型可以提供哪些类型的见解，几乎没有指导。这个项目的目标就是列出这样的指导方针。为此，本项目将探讨政治学研究中两个最基本的问题：(1)学者如何以及为什么决定他们比较的内容，以及(2)学者对他们为什么和如何比较的方法论假设如何塑造他们产生的知识。通过回答这些问题，该项目将为未来的学生和研究人员创造新的资源，以促进他们的知识。本项目旨在重新构想比较方法的三个核心组成部分，以便为超越传统对照比较设计的比较研究设计开发新的逻辑。首先，它将鼓励政治学家通过挑战主流规范，鼓励学者将过程、实践、意义和概念作为案例进行比较，从而批判性地思考一个案例是什么。其次，该项目将扩展“比较”的概念。它的目的是推动学者们将比较概念化为一种方法，包括超越受控比较的方法，包括更多地关注被研究对象的经历以及这些经历重新排序社会世界的方式。最后，该项目建议扩大比较研究的解释目标，不再强调结果的变化，而是将政治过程、意义和概念的变化作为相似性或差异性进行解释。为了实现这些目标，该项目将召开一个比较方法研讨会，并根据研讨会上的贡献制作一本编辑过的卷，这将为希望进行非受控比较的学者提供资源，以指导未来的学者进入新的研究方向。

General AbstractComparison is an important research tool in the social sciences. Scholars make comparisons across time and place to better understand a wide range of political and social phenomena. One of the central techniques that social scientists often use is the controlled comparison, whereby scholars hold potential explanatory factors constant across different cases to help them assess their contribution to particular outcomes. This approach has been central to some of the most influential works of social science. It has helped scholars explain everything from why some countries are rich and some are poor to why some countries are democratic and some are authoritarian. Yet even as controlled comparisons have produced lasting insights, they are not the only form of comparison that scholars utilize to answer important questions about social and political life. There is little guidance, however, on how to develop and execute comparisons that do not rely on the controlled case model, and what types of insights alternative comparison models can offer. The goal of this project is to lay out just such guidelines. To do so, this project will explore two of the most fundamental questions in the study of politics: (1) how and why scholars decide on what they compare, and (2) how the methodological assumptions scholars make about why and how they compare shape the knowledge they produce. By answering these questions, the project will create new resources for future students and researchers to draw upon in their efforts to advance knowledge.Technical AbstractThis project aims to reimagine three central components of the comparative method in order to develop new logics for comparative research designs that move beyond traditional controlled comparison designs. First, it will encourage political scientists to think critically about what a case is by challenging dominant norms and encouraging scholars to think of processes, practices, meanings, and concepts as cases to be compared. Second, the project will expand the notion of what it means to compare. It aims to push scholars to conceptualize comparison as a method that includes approaches beyond controlled comparison, including greater attention to the experiences of subjects being studied and the ways those experiences re-order social worlds. Finally, the project proposes to expand the explanatory goals of comparative research by de-emphasizing variations in outcomes and opening up variations in political processes, meanings, and concepts as similarities or differences to be explained. To achieve these goals, this project will convene a workshop on comparative methods, and produce an edited volume based on contributions emerging from the workshop that will serve as a resource for scholars looking to conduct non-controlled comparisons to guide future scholars in new research directions.