The article “Resolving empirical controversies with mechanistic evidence” discusses the potential of using evidence about mechanisms to resolve statistical disagreements and aid in choosing the correct quantitative model. While there are challenges and uncertainties in this approach, it emphasizes the value of theorizing about mechanisms and collecting evidence about them, especially in disciplines like economics.

This post summarizes some (late) thoughts on the short article The data revolution in social science needs qualitative research by Grigoropoulou and Small, published in Nature Human Behavior. This is an excellent article that systemizes the ways in which qualitative research should complement big data/computational social science (CSS) and gives example of work that has done this already (I understand big data/CSS to be the focus here).

Continuing the chapter-by-chapter review of Seawright’s book on Multi-Method Social Science took me longer than I imagined and it should have, but here we go again.

Review of the first chapter of the book “Multi-Method Social Science” by Jason Seawright, published with Cambridge University Press in 2016.

In Finding Pathways: Mixed-Method Research for Studying Causal Mechanisms , Weller and Barnes seek to explain “how the small-N component of multi-method research can meaningfully contribute and add value to the study of causal mechanisms” (quote from blurb). The book contains nine chapters, including the introduction and concluding chapter.

Most multi-method research (MMR) studies with which I am familiar start with regression analysis (or, in recent years, QCA) and perform the case studies afterward. This is the order recommended by Lieberman in his nested analysis article which, in turn, most probably reflects the widely held view that case studies are only worth doing in MMR when something is going on at the cross-case level.