Encyclopedia of Sociology

COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY

to explicit decision rules, permitting others to
replicate, critically judge, and constructively cri-
tique the research. To help ensure the validity and
reliability of measures in this sort of inquiry, and
while also maintaining the needed flexibility to
improve key concepts and measures during the
analysis, for instance, Stryker (1996) has shown
how researchers can adapt traditional content-
analytic coding techniques to capture time and
space as explanatory context. Context can be con-
ceptualized and measured as a conjunction of
‘‘values’’ on general theoretical constructs, and, at
the same time, researchers can develop what she
terms ‘‘action coding’’ to construct more system-
atically the who, what, when, where, how, and why
of action and event sequences. With enhanced
systematization—that is, the use of precise con-
cepts, measures, and coding techniques, and the
clear communication of these—comes enhanced
reliability and replicability (Stryker 1996).

THE FUTURE OF COMPARATIVE-

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Jack Goldstone (1997, p. 119) has stated that com-
parative-historical inquiry has produced ‘‘many of
the greatest achievements of macro-sociological
scholarship.’’ At the end of the twentieth century,
these achievements were severely tested by a series
of interdependent, large-scale social transforma-
tions of every bit the historical magnitude and
moral significance of those motivating sociology’s
founders: economic and cultural globalization;
the growth of transnational ‘‘super states’’ brought
about by strategic military and economic alliances
among sovereign nation-states; post-communist
marketization and democratization in former So-
viet-bloc nations; and armed nationalist struggles
and resurgent ethnic conflicts. Broad interest in,
and need for, illuminating comparative-historical
analysis therefore is only likely to increase.

The utility of research in this tradition rests
more on the creative use of good theory than it
does on its methodology. But ‘‘creative use’’ of
theory is itself largely a matter of how theory is
combined with research strategy. On this score,
the future of comparative-historical sociology would
seem bright.

One encouraging trend is the increasing use
of statistical techniques developed explicitly to

analyze temporal (Tuma and Hanna 1984; Isaac

and Griffin 1989; Abbott 1992; McCammon 1998)

and spatial processes (Deane et al. 1998). Time-

series and spatial analyses are not always subject to

the same limitations as are cross-national statistical

analyses, and quantitative spatial techniques are

particularly apt given heightened global interde-

pendence. Spatial analysis, for instance, can un-

cover how historical processes move from place to

place (country, region, etc.), and it can ascertain

whether structures or practices in one country are

diffused into other countries or deterred from

entering them (Deane et al. 1998).

Another very positive trend that probably will

become more widespread is combining and syn-

thesizing different kinds of comparative logics.

Both Jeffrey Paige (1975) and John Stephens (1980)

combined cross-national quantitative analysis of a

large number of nation-states with qualitative, case-

oriented work on a small, but theoretically strate-

gic subset of their cases. Paige combined his statis-

tical generalizations with three parallel case stud-

ies, finding differences in the nature of agrarian

revolts. Stephens, on the other hand, systematical-

ly compared a subset of four countries to show

how the historical processes of welfare-state devel-

opment differed from one nation to another. He

therefore used both generalizing and individualiz-

ing comparative logics. Goldstone (1991) followed

a similar strategy, combining ‘‘within-case’’ quanti-

tative analyses with case-oriented comparisons to

show how long-term population growth contribut-

ed to state breakdown in the early modern world.

Combining diverse comparative-historical approaches

in this way, and synthesizing analytical formalism

and interpretation in causal interpretivism, yield

insights that simply are not possible with any single

methodological strategy.

Even if the differences among diverse approach-

es prove too great to overcome completely—a

possibility suggested by the debate over the utility

of highly deductive explanatory schemas such as

rational choice theory in comparative-historical

research (Quadagno and Knapp 1992; Kiser and

Hechter 1991, 1998; Somers 1998)—diversity in

goals, strategies, and procedures has spurred meth-

odological innovation and the cross-fertilization of

scholarship from divergent methodological strate-

gies (Beer 1963; Rueschemeyer and Stephens 1997;

Goldstone 1997). It thereby provides the contin-

ued promise of enhanced knowledge and richly