TY  - BOOK
AU  - Coppedge,Michael
TI  - Democratization and research methods 
T2  - Strategies for social inquiry
SN  - 9780521537278
AV  - JC423 .C7173 2012
U1  - 321.8 22
PY  - 2012///
CY  - Cambridge 
PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - Democratization
KW  - Research
KW  - Methodology
KW  - Comparative government
KW  - Political Science / General
KW  - bisacsh
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index; Machine generated contents note: 1. Research methods and democratization; 2. Defining and measuring democracy; 3. Criteria for evaluating causal theories; 4. Checklists, frameworks, and Boolean analysis; 5. Case studies and comparative history; 6. Formal models and theories; 7. Rigor in extensive and intensive testing; 8. Political culture and survey research; 9. Quantitative testing; 10. An agenda for future research
N2  - "Democratization and Research Methods is a coherent survey and critique of both democratization research and the methodology of comparative politics. The two themes enhance each other: the democratization literature illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of various methodological approaches, and the critique of methods makes sense of the vast and bewildering democratization field. Michael Coppedge argues that each of the three main approaches in comparative politics - case studies and comparative histories, formal modeling and large-sample statistical analysis - accomplishes one fundamental research goal relatively well: 'thickness', integration and generalization, respectively. Throughout the book, comprehensive surveys of democratization research demonstrate that each approach accomplishes one of these goals well but the other two poorly. Chapters cover conceptualization and measurement, case studies and comparative histories, formal models and theories, political culture and survey research, and quantitative testing. The final chapter summarizes the state of knowledge about democratization and lays out an agenda for multi-method research"--
ER  -