comparative history case study

Comparative Case Studies: Methodological Discussion

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• Marcelo Parreira do Amaral 7  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning ((PSAELL))

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Case Study Research has a long tradition and it has been used in different areas of social sciences to approach research questions that command context sensitiveness and attention to complexity while tapping on multiple sources. Comparative Case Studies have been suggested as providing effective tools to understanding policy and practice along three different axes of social scientific research, namely horizontal (spaces), vertical (scales), and transversal (time). The chapter, first, sketches the methodological basis of case-based research in comparative studies as a point of departure, also highlighting the requirements for comparative research. Second, the chapter focuses on presenting and discussing recent developments in scholarship to provide insights on how comparative researchers, especially those investigating educational policy and practice in the context of globalization and internationalization, have suggested some critical rethinking of case study research to account more effectively for recent conceptual shifts in the social sciences related to culture, context, space and comparison. In a third section, it presents the approach to comparative case studies adopted in the European research project YOUNG_ADULLLT that has set out to research lifelong learning policies in their embeddedness in regional economies, labour markets and individual life projects of young adults. The chapter is rounded out with some summarizing and concluding remarks.

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Introduction to the Book and the Comparative Study

Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Main findings and discussion.

• Case-based research
• Comparative case studies

1 Introduction

Exploring landscapes of lifelong learning in Europe is a daunting task as it involves a great deal of differences across places and spaces; it entails attending to different levels and dimensions of the phenomena at hand, but not least it commands substantial sensibility to cultural and contextual idiosyncrasies. As such, case-based methodologies come to mind as tested methodological approaches to capturing and examining singular configurations such as the local settings in focus in this volume, in which lifelong learning policies for young people are explored in their multidimensional reality. The ensuing question, then, is how to ensure comparability across cases when departing from the assumption that cases are unique. Recent debates in Comparative and International Education (CIE) research are drawn from that offer important insights into the issues involved and provide a heuristic approach to comparative cases studies. Since the cases focused on in the chapters of this book all stem from a common European research project, the comparative case study methodology allows us to at once dive into the specifics and uniqueness of each case while at the same time pay attention to common treads at the national and international (European) levels.

The chapter, first, sketches the methodological basis of case-based research in comparative studies as a point of departure, also highlighting the requirements in comparative research. In what follows, second, the chapter focuses on presenting and discussing recent developments in scholarship to provide insights on how comparative researchers, especially those investigating educational policy and practice in the context of globalization and internationalization, have suggested some critical rethinking of case study research to account more effectively for recent conceptual shifts in the social sciences related to culture, context, space and comparison. In a third section, it presents the approach to comparative case studies adopted in the European research project YOUNG_ADULLLT that has set out to research lifelong learning policies in their embeddedness in regional economies, labour markets and individual life projects of young adults. The chapter is rounded out with some summarizing and concluding remarks.

2 Case-Based Research in Comparative Studies

In the past, comparativists have oftentimes regarded case study research as an alternative to comparative studies proper. At the risk of oversimplification: methodological choices in comparative and international education (CIE) research, from the 1960s onwards, have fallen primarily on either single country (small n) contextualized comparison, or on cross-national (usually large n, variable) decontextualized comparison (see Steiner-Khamsi, 2006a , 2006b , 2009). These two strands of research—notably characterized by Development and Area Studies on the one side and large-scale performance surveys of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) type, on the other—demarcated their fields by resorting to how context and culture were accounted for and dealt with in the studies they produced. Since the turn of the century, though, comparativists are more comfortable with case study methodology (see Little, 2000 ; Vavrus and Bartlett 2006 , 2009 ; Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 ) and diagnoses of an “identity crisis” of the field due to a mass of single-country studies lacking comparison proper (see Schriewer, 1990 ; Wiseman & Anderson, 2013 ) started dying away. Greater acceptance of and reliance on case-based methodology has been related with research on policy and practice in the context of globalization and coupled with the intention to better account for culture and context, generating scholarship that is critical of power structures, sensitive to alterity and of other ways of knowing.

The phenomena that have been coined as constituting “globalization” and “internationalization” have played, as mentioned, a central role in the critical rethinking of case study research. In researching education under conditions of globalization, scholars placed increasing attention on case-based approaches as opportunities for investigating the contemporary complexity of policy and practice. Further, scholarly debates in the social sciences and the humanities surrounding key concepts such as culture, context, space, and place but also comparison have also contributed to a reconceptualization of case study methodology in CIE. In terms of the requirements for such an investigation, scholarship commands an adequate conceptualization that problematizes the objects of study and that does not take them as “unproblematic”, “assum[ing] a constant shared meaning”; in short, objects of study that are “fixed, abstract and absolute” (Fine, quoted in Dale & Robertson, 2009 , p. 1114). Case study research is thus required to overcome methodological “isms” in their research conceptualization (see Dale & Robertson, 2009 ; Robertson & Dale, 2017 ; see also Lange & Parreira do Amaral, 2018 ). In response to these requirements, the approaches to case study discussed in CIE depart from a conceptualization of the social world as always dynamic, emergent, somewhat in motion, and always contested. This view considers the fact that the social world is culturally produced and is never complete or at a standstill, which goes against an understanding of case as something fixed or natural. Indeed, in the past cases have often been understood almost in naturalistic ways, as if they existed out there, waiting for researchers to “discover” them. Usually, definitions of case study also referred to inquiry that aims at elucidating features of a phenomenon to yield an understanding of why, how and with what consequences something happens. One can easily find examples of cases understood simply as sites to observe/measure variables—in a nomothetic cast—or examples, where cases are viewed as specific and unique instances that can be examined in the idiographic paradigm. In contrast, rather than taking cases as pre-existing entities that are defined and selected as cases, recent case-oriented research has argued for a more emergent approach which recognizes that boundaries between phenomenon and context are often difficult to establish or overlap. For this reason, researchers are incited to see this as an exercise of “casing”, that is, of case construction. In this sense, cases here are seen as complex systems (Ragin & Becker, 1992 ) and attention is devoted to the relationships between the parts and the whole, pointing to the relevance of configurations and constellations within as well as across cases in the explanation of complex and contingent phenomena. This is particularly relevant for multi-case, comparative research since the constitution of the phenomena that will be defined, as cases will differ. Setting boundaries will thus also require researchers to account for spatial, scalar (i.e., level or levels with which a case is related) and temporal aspects.

Further, case-based research is also required to account for multiple contexts while not taking them for granted. One of the key theoretical and methodological consequences of globalization for CIE is that it required us to recognize that it alters the nature and significance of what counts as contexts (see Parreira do Amaral, 2014 ). According to Dale ( 2015 ), designating a process, or a type of event, or a particular organization, as a context, entails bestowing a particular significance on them, as processes, events, and so on that are capable of affecting other processes and events. The key point is that rather than being so intrinsically, or naturally, contexts are constructed as “contexts”. In comparative research, contexts have been typically seen as the place (or the variables) that enable us to explain why what happens in one case is different from what happens another case; what counts as context then is seen as having the same effect everywhere, although the forms it takes vary substantially (see Dale, 2015 ). In more general terms, recent case study approaches aim at accounting for the increasing complexity of the contexts in which they are embedded, which, in turn, is related to the increasing impact of globalization as the “context of contexts” (Dale, 2015 , p. 181f; see also Carter & Sealey, 2013 ; Mjoset, 2013 ). It also aims at accounting for overlapping contexts. Here it is important to note that contexts are not only to be seen in spatio-geographical terms (i.e., local, regional, national, international), but contexts may also be provided by different institutional and/or discursive contexts that create varying opportunity structures (Dale & Parreira do Amaral, 2015 ; see also Chap. 2 in this volume). What one can call temporal contexts also plays an important role, for what happens in the case unfolds as embedded not only in historical time, but may be related to different temporalities (see the concept of “timespace” as discussed by Lingard & Thompson, 2016 ) and thus are influenced by path dependence or by specific moments of crisis (Rhinard, 2019 ; see also McLeod, 2016 ). Moreover, in CIE research, the social-cultural production of the world is influenced by developments throughout the globe that take place at various places and on several scales, which in turn influence each other, but in the end, become locally relevant in different facets. As Bartlett and Vavrus write, “context is not a primordial or autonomous place; it is constituted by social interactions, political processes, and economic developments across scales and times.” ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 14). Indeed, in this sense, “context is not a container for activity, it is the activity” (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 12, emphasis in orig.).

Also, dealing with the complexity of education policy and practice requires us to transcend the dichotomy of idiographic versus nomothetic approaches to causation. Here, it can be argued that case studies allow us to grasp and research the complexity of the world, thus offering conceptual and methodological tools to explore how phenomena viewed as cases “depend on all of the whole, the parts, the interactions among parts and whole, and the interactions of any system with other complex systems among which it is nested and with which it intersects” (Byrne, 2013 , p. 2). The understanding of causation that undergirds recent developments in case-based research aims at generalization, yet it resists ambitions to establishing universal laws in social scientific research. Focus is placed on processes while tracking the relevant factors, actors and features that help explain the “how” and the “why” questions (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 38ff), and on “causal mechanisms”, as varying explanations of outcomes within and across cases, always contingent on interaction with other variables and dependent contexts (see Byrne, 2013 ; Ragin, 2000 ). In short, the nature of causation underlying the recent case study approaches in CIE is configurational and not foundational.

This is also in line with how CIE research regards education practice, research, and policy as a socio-cultural practice. And it refers to the production of social and cultural worlds through “social actors, with diverse motives, intentions, and levels of influence, [who] work in tandem with and/or in response to social forces” (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 1). From this perspective, educational phenomena, such as in policymaking, are seen as a “deeply political process of cultural production engaged in and shaped by social actors in disparate locations who exert incongruent amounts of influence over the design, implementation, and evaluation of policy” ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 1f). Culture here is understood in non-static and complex ways that reinforce the “importance of examining processes of sense-making as they develop over time, in distinct settings, in relation to systems of power and inequality, and in increasingly interconnected conversation with actors who do not sit physically within the circle drawn around the traditional case” (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 11, emphasis in orig.).

In sum, the approaches to case study put forward in CIE provide conceptual and methodological tools that allow for an analysis of education in the global context throughout scale, space, and time, which is always regarded as complexly integrated and never as isolated or independent. The following subsection discusses Comparative Case Studies (CCS) as suggested in recent comparative scholarship, which aims at attending to the methodological requirements discussed above by integrating horizontal, vertical, and transversal dimensions of comparison.

2.1 Comparative Case Studies: Horizontal, Vertical and Transversal Dimensions

Building up on their previous work on vertical case studies (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 ; Vavrus & Bartlett, 2006 , 2009 ), Frances Vavrus and Lesley Bartlett have proposed a comparative approach to case study research that aims at meeting the requirements of culture and context sensitive research as discussed in this special issue.

As a research approach, CCS offers two theoretical-methodological lenses to research education as a socio-cultural practice. These lenses represent different views on the research object and account for the complexity of education practice, policy, and research in globalized contexts. The first lens is “context-sensitive”, which focuses on how social practices and interactions constitute and produce social contexts. As quoted above, from the perspective of a socio-cultural practice, “context is not a container for activity, it is the activity” (Vavrus and Bartlett 2017: 12, emphasis in orig.). The settings that influence and condition educational phenomena are culturally produced in different and sometimes overlapping (spatial, institutional, discursive, temporal) contexts as just mentioned. The second CCS lens is “culture-sensitive” and focuses on how socio-cultural practices produce social structures. As such, culture is a process that is emergent, dynamic, and constitutive of meaning-making as well as social structuration.

The CCS approach aims at studying educational phenomena throughout scale, time, and space by providing three axes for a “studying through” of the phenomena in question. As stated by Lesley Bartlett and Frances Vavrus with reference to comparative analyses of global education policy:

the horizontal axis compares how similar policies unfold in distinct locations that are socially produced […] and ‘complexly connected’ […]. The vertical axis insists on simultaneous attention to and across scales […]. The transversal comparison historically situates the processes or relations under consideration (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 : 3, emphasis in orig.).

These three axes allow for a methodological conceptualization of “policy formation and appropriation across micro-, meso-, and macro levels” by not theorizing them as distinct or unrelated (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 4). In following Latour, they state:

the macro is neither “above” nor “below” the intersections but added to them as another of their connections’ […]. In CCS research, one would pay close attention to how actions at different scales mutually influence one another (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 13f, emphasis in orig.)

Thus, these three axes contain

processes across space and time; and [the CCS as a research design] constantly compares what is happening in one locale with what has happened in other places and historical moments. These forms of comparison are what we call horizontal, vertical, and transversal comparisons (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 11, emphasis in orig.)

In terms of the three axes along with comparison is organized, the authors state that horizontal comparison commands attention to how historical and contemporary processes have variously influenced the “cases”, which might be constructed by focusing “people, groups of people, sites, institutions, social movements, partnerships, etc.” (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 53) Horizontal comparisons eschew pressing categories resultant from one case others, which implies including multiple cases at the same scale in a comparative case study, while at the same time attending to “valuable contextual information” about each of them. Horizontal comparisons use units of analysis that are homologous, that is, equivalent in terms of shape, function, or institutional/organizational nature (for instance, schools, ministries, countries, etc.) ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 53f). Similarly, comparative case studies may also entail tracing a phenomenon across sites, as in multi-sited ethnography (see Coleman & von Hellermann, 2012 ; Marcus, 1995 ).

Vertical comparison, in turn, does not simply imply the comparison of levels; rather it involves analysing networks and their interrelationships at different scales. For instance, in the study of policymaking in a specific case, vertical comparison would consider how actors at different scales variably respond to a policy issued at another level—be it inter−/supranational or at the subnational level. CCS assumes that their different appropriation of policy as discourse and as practice is often due to different histories of racial, ethnic, or gender politics in their communities that appropriately complicate the notion of a single cultural group (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 73f). Establishing what counts as context in such a study would be done “by tracing the formation and appropriation of a policy” at different scales; and “by tracing the processes by which actors and actants come into relationship with one another and form non-permanent assemblages aimed at producing, implementing, resisting, and appropriating policy to achieve particular aims” ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 76). A further element here is that, in this way, one may counter the common problem that comparison of cases (oftentimes countries) usually overemphasizes boundaries and treats them as separated or as self-sustaining containers, when, in reality, actors and institutions at other levels/scales significantly impact policymaking (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 ).

In terms of the transversal axis of comparison, Bartlett and Vavrus argue that the social phenomena of interest in a case study have to be seen in light of their historical development (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 93), since these “historical roots” impacted on them and “continues to reverberate into the present, affecting economic relations and social issues such as migration and educational opportunities.” As such, understanding what goes on in a case requires to “understand how it came to be in the first place.” ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 93) argue:

history offers an extensive fount of evidence regarding how social institutions function and how social relations are similar and different around the world. Historical analysis provides an essential opportunity to contrast how things have changed over time and to consider what has remained the same in one locale or across much broader scales. Such historical comparison reveals important insights about the flexible cultural, social, political, and economic systems humans have developed and sustained over time (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 94).

Further, time and space are intimately related and studying the historical development of the social phenomena of interest in a case study “allows us to assess evidence and conflicting interpretations of a phenomenon,” but also to interrogate our own assumptions about them in contemporary times (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 ), thus analytically sharpening our historical analyses.

As argued by the authors, researching the global dimension of education practice, research or policy aims at a “studying through” of phenomena horizontally, vertically, and transversally. That is, comparative case study builds on an emergent research design and on a strong process orientation that aims at tracing not only “what”, but also “why” and “how” phenomena emerge and evolve. This approach entails “an open-ended, inductive approach to discover what […] meanings and influences are and how they are involved in these events and activities—an inherently processual orientation” (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 7, emphasis in orig.).

The emergent research design and process orientation of the CCS relativizes a priori, somewhat static notions of case construction in CIE and emphasizes the idea of a processual “casing”. The process of casing put forward by CCS has to be understood as a dynamic and open-ended embedding of “cased” research phenomena within moments of scale, space, and time that produce varying sets of conditions or configurations.

In terms of comparison, the primary logic is well in line with more sophisticated approaches to comparison that not simply establish relationships between observable facts or pre-existing cases; rather, the comparative logic aims at establishing “relations between sets of relationships”, as argued by Jürgen Schriewer:

[the] specific method of science dissociates comparison from its quasi-natural union with resemblances; the interest in identifying similarities shifts from the level of factual contents to the level of generalizable relationships. […] One of the primary ways of extending their scope, or examining their explanatory power, is the controlled introduction of varying sets of conditions. The logic of relating relationships, which distinguishes the scientific method of comparison, comes close to meeting these requirements by systematically exploring and analysing sociocultural differences with respect to scrutinizing the credibility of theories, models or constructs (Schriewer, 1990 , p. 36).

The notion of establishing relations between sets of relationships allows to treat cases not as homogeneous (thus avoiding a universalizing notion of comparison); it establishes comparability not along similarity but based on conceptual, functional and/or theoretical equivalences and focuses on reconstructing ‘varying sets of conditions’ that are seen as relevant in social scientific explanation and theorizing, and to which then comparative case studies may contribute.

The following section aims presents the adaptation and application of a comparative case study approach in the YOUNG_ADULLLT research project.

3 Exploring Landscapes of Lifelong Learning through Case Studies

This section illustrates the usage of comparative case studies by drawing from research conducted in a European research project upon which the chapters in this volume are based. The project departed from the observation that most current European lifelong learning (LLL) policies have been designed to create economic growth and, at the same time, guarantee social inclusion and argued that, while these objectives are complementary, they are, however, not linearly nor causally related and, due to distinct orientations, different objectives, and temporal horizons, conflicts and ambiguities may arise. The project was designed as a mixed-method comparative study and aimed at results at the national, regional, and local levels, focusing in particular on policies targeting young adults in situations of near social exclusion. Using a multi-level approach with qualitative and quantitative methods, the project conducted, amongst others, local/regional 18 case studies of lifelong learning policies through a multi-method and multi-level design (see Parreira do Amaral et al., 2020 for more information). The localisation of the cases in their contexts was carried out by identifying relevant areas in terms of spatial differentiation and organisation of social and economic relations. The so defined “functional regions” allowed focus on territorial units which played a central role within their areas, not necessarily overlapping with geographical and/or administrative borders. Footnote 1

Two main objectives guided the research: first, to analyse policies and programmes at the regional and local level by identifying policymaking networks that included all social actors involved in shaping, formulating, and implementing LLL policies for young adults; second, to recognize strengths and weaknesses (overlapping, fragmented or unfocused policies and projects), thus identifying different patterns of LLL policymaking at regional level, and investigating their integration with the labour market, education and other social policies. The European research project focused predominantly on the differences between the existing lifelong learning policies in terms of their objectives and orientations and questioned their impact on young adults’ life courses, especially those young adults who find themselves in vulnerable positions. What concerned the researchers primarily was the interaction between local institutional settings, education, labour markets, policymaking landscapes, and informal initiatives that together nurture the processes of lifelong learning. They argued that it is by inquiring into the interplay of these components that the regional and local contexts of lifelong learning policymaking can be better assessed and understood. In this regard, the multi-layered approach covered a wide range of actors and levels and aimed at securing compatibility throughout the different phases and parts of the research.

The multi-level approach adopted aimed at incorporating the different levels from transnational to regional/local to individual, that is, the different places, spaces, and levels with which policies are related. The multi-method design was used to bring together the results from the quantitative, qualitative and policy/document analysis (for a discussion: Parreira do Amaral, 2020 ).

Studying the complex relationships between lifelong learning (LLL) policymaking on the one hand, and young adults’ life courses on the other, requires a carefully established research approach. This task becomes even more challenging in the light of the diverse European countries and their still more complex local and regional structures and institutions. One possible way of designing a research framework able to deal with these circumstances clearly and coherently is to adopt a multi-level or multi-layered approach. This approach recognises multiple levels and patterns of analysis and enables researchers to structure the workflow according to various perspectives. It was this multi-layered approach that the research consortium of YOUNG_ADULLLT adopted and applied in its attempts to better understand policies supporting young people in their life course.

3.1 Constructing Case Studies

In constructing case studies, the project did not apply an instrumental approach focused on the assessment of “what worked (or not)?” Rather, consistently with Bartlett and Vavrus’s proposal (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 ), the project decided to “understand policy as a deeply political process of cultural production engaged in and shaped by social actors in disparate locations who exert incongruent amounts of influence over the design, implementation, and evaluation of policy” ( Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017 , p. 1f). This was done in order to enhance the interactive and relational dimension among actors and levels, as well as their embeddedness in local infra-structures (education, labour, social/youth policies) according to project’s three theoretical perspectives. The analyses of the information and data integrated by our case study approach aimed at a cross-reading of the relations among the macro socio-economic dimensions, structural arrangements, governance patterns, addressee biographies and mainstream discourses that underlie the process of design and implementation of the LLL policies selected as case study. The subjective dimensions of agency and sense-making animated these analyses, and the multi-level approach contextualized them from the local to the transnational levels. Figure 3.1 below represents the analytical approach to the research material gathered in constructing the case studies. Specifically, it shows the different levels, from the transnational level down to the addressees.

Multi-level and multi-method approach to case studies in YOUNG_ADULLLT. Source: Palumbo et al., 2019

The project partners aimed at a cross-dimensional construction of the case studies, and this implied the possibility of different entry points, for instance by moving the analytical perspective top-down or bottom-up, as well as shifting from left to right of the matrix and vice versa. Considering the “horizontal movement”, the multidimensional approach has enabled taking into consideration the mutual influence and relations among the institutional, individual, and structural dimensions (which in the project corresponded to the theoretical frames of CPE, LCR, and GOV). In addition, the “vertical movement” from the transnational to the individual level and vice versa was meant to carefully carry out a “study of flows of influence, ideas, and actions through these levels” (Bartlett and Vavrus 2017 , p. 11), emphasizing the correspondences/divergences among the perspectives of different actors at different levels. The transversal dimension, that is, the historical process, focused on the period after the financial crisis of 2007/2008 as it has impacted differently on the social and economic situations of young people, often resulting in stern conditions and higher competition in education and labour markets, which also called for a reassessment of existing policies targeting young adults in the countries studied.

Concerning the analyses, a further step included the translation of the conceptual model illustrated in Fig. 3.1 above into a heuristic table used to systematically organize the empirical data collected and guide the analyses cases constructed as multi-level and multidimensional phenomena, allowing for the establishment of interlinkages and relationships. By this approach, the analysis had the possibility of grasping the various levels at which LLL policies are negotiated and displaying the interplay of macro-structures, regional environments and institutions/organizations as well as individual expectations. Table 3.1 illustrates the operationalization of the data matrix that guided the work.

In order to ensure the presentability and intelligibility of the results, Footnote 2 a narrative approach to case studies analysis was chosen whose main task was one of “storytelling” aimed at highlighting what made each case unique and what difference it makes for LLL policymaking and to young people’s life courses. A crucial element of this entails establishing relations “between sets of relationships”, as argued above.

LLL policies were selected as starting points from which the cases themselves could be constructed and of which different stories could be developed. That stories can be told differently does not mean that they are arbitrary, rather this refers to different ways of accounting for the embedding of the specific case to its context, namely the “diverging policy frameworks, patterns of policymaking, networks of implementation, political discourses and macro-structural conditions at local level” (see Palumbo et al., 2020 , p. 220). Moreover, developing different narratives aimed at representing the various voices of the actors involved in the process—from policy-design and appropriation through to implementation—and making the different stakeholders’ and addressees’ opinions visible, creating thus intelligible narratives for the cases (see Palumbo et al., 2020 ). Analysing each case started from an entry point selected, from which a story was told. Mainly, two entry points were used: on the one hand, departing from the transversal dimension of the case and which focused on the evolution of a policy in terms of its main objectives, target groups, governance patterns and so on in order to highlight the intended and unintended effects of the “current version” of the policy within its context and according to the opinions of the actors interviewed. On the other hand, biographies were selected as starting points in an attempt to contextualize the life stories within the biographical constellations in which the young people came across the measure, the access procedures, and how their life trajectories continued in and possibly after their participation in the policy (see Palumbo et al., 2020 for examples of these narrative strategies).

4 Concluding Remarks

This chapter presented and discussed the methodological basis and requirements of conducting case studies in comparative research, such as those presented in the subsequent chapters of this volume. The Comparative Case Study approach suggested in the previous discussion offers productive and innovative ways to account sensitively to culture and contexts; it provides a useful heuristic that deals effectively with issues related to case construction, namely an emergent and dynamic approach to casing, instead of simply assuming “bounded”, pre-defined cases as the object of research; they also offer a helpful procedural, configurational approach to “causality”; and, not least, a resourceful approach to comparison that allows researchers to respect the uniqueness and integrity of each case while at the same time yielding insights and results that transcend the idiosyncrasy of the single case. In sum, CCS offers a sound approach to CIE research that is culture and context sensitive.

For a discussion of the concept of functional region, see Parreira do Amaral et al., 2020 .

This analytical move is in line with recent developments that aim at accounting for a cultural turn (Jameson, 1998 ) or ideational turn (Béland & Cox, 2011 ) in policy analysis methodology, called interpretive policy analysis (see Münch, 2016 ).

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do Amaral, M.P. (2022). Comparative Case Studies: Methodological Discussion. In: Benasso, S., Bouillet, D., Neves, T., Parreira do Amaral, M. (eds) Landscapes of Lifelong Learning Policies across Europe. Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96454-2_3

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5 Comparative Historical Analysis

• Published: September 2014
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This chapter introduces the reader to comparative historical analysis (CHA), one of the oldest methods in the social science repertoire. CHA is characterized by its emphasis on historically contextualized comparisons explicitly aimed at producing causal arguments about the macro-sociological phenomena. After a theoretical overview that discusses the method’s nature, logic, and central concepts, the chapter turns its attention to practical matters. Thus, rather than an extended scientific discussion of what CHA is, the chapter seeks to encourage interested students by providing them with a series of tools and techniques that can be used when doing comparative historical research on social movements and revolutions. More specifically, the chapter offers a five-step approach: research design and puzzle formulation; data identification; the use of data; data analysis; and the writing process. A discussion on the use of technology in the research process is present throughout the practical part of the chapter.

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QUALITATIVE METHODS

15 Comparative Historical Analysis

Emanuele Ferragina

Comparative historical analysis combines two major methodological tools of social science, comparison (the study of similarities and differences across cases) and history (the analysis of processes of change in their temporal dimension), to help explain large scale outcomes on a variety of topics. It is particularly useful to account for the definition of public policies (policy framing and policy change).

Keywords: Mixed methods, qualitative methods, historical analysis, similarities, differences, history, macro, comparison, critical junctures, path dependency

I. What does this approach consist of?

Comparative historical analysis (CHA) is more an approach than a method, and it is rooted in a long history from old seminal works, e.g. De la Démocratie en Amérique (Tocqueville 1960) and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber 2001) to modern classics, e.g. The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Moore 1966) and States and Social Revolutions (Skocpol 1979). The historical approach in social sciences offers explanations of large-scale outcomes on a wide range of topics, such as revolutions, the advent of democratic or authoritarian rule, path dependent institutional processes, policy continuity and change in various domains. This approach has several distinctive characteristics that have fostered its extensive use in social science research and public policy.

CHA explores similarities and differences across different cases – recalling John Stuart Mill’s method of agreement and difference – with the aim to unveil causal mechanisms that determine specific outcomes (see separate chapter on case studies ). Processes of change and their temporal dimension are at the core of sociology and political science, and for this reason CHA helped the identification of the origin of specific reforms, or the point of departure for significant institutional change. The cases analysed are often nation-states, but other entities (such as regions, social movements and organisations) have also been scrutinised (for an example of regional analysis, see Ferragina 2012; 2013). This approach attributes a big role to theory, and a very interesting debate has taken place on the American Journal of Sociology, with a symposium comparing the place assigned to theory in historical sociology and rational choice theory: “we’re no angels: realism, rational choice, and relationality in social science” (see the contributions to this debate of Somers 1998; Kiser and Hechter 1998; Goldstone 1998; Calhoun 1998). The debate contrasted the use of these different perspectives, highlighting that CHA helps to test and generate theory through a macro-configurational, case-based and temporally-oriented approach.

The macro component concerns large-scale outcomes, i.e. state building, democratic transitions, societal patterns of inequality, war and peace. Researchers focus on large-scale causal factors, including both political-economic structures (e.g. colonialism) and complex organisational institutional arrangements (e.g. social policy regimes). This macro approach can also explain micro-level events and processes that should (or should not) be present within particular cases if the macro theory is correct. The configurational component refers to the way in which researchers consider how multiple factors combine to form coherent causal packages. One for example cannot study revolutions without analysing how various events and underlying processes constitute these social phenomena. Even when CHA scholars are interested in studying the effects of a specific variable they care a lot about the context and other potential causes.

Differently from other techniques commonly used in social science, CHA does not shy away from complex questions for which data are not readily available. One of the most regrettable trends in social sciences is the selection of questions on the basis of available data. As in the Nietzschean metaphor, it is as if researchers are like drunk people who search their lost keys only under the lamppost. For this reason, CHA focuses on real world puzzles and uses mechanisms-based explanations, following questions of this kind: why do cases that are similar on many key dimensions exhibit different outcomes on a dependent variable of interest? Or alternatively, why do seemingly disparate cases all have the same outcome? Moreover, real world puzzles may also be formulated when particular cases do not conform to expectations from existing theory or large-N research. CHA places emphasis on developing a deep understanding of the cases to adjudicate competing hypotheses.

Without the pretension of being exhaustive, it is important to mention here the most used conceptual tools in CHA, that is critical junctures, path dependency and other devices to capture gradual change. Collier and Collier (1991: 29) have defined critical junctures as periods of significant change that occur producing durable effects. Critical junctures unsettle previous institutional patterns and open to a new period of path dependency. Path dependency indicates that when a nation or another macro-unit of analysis has started to move in one direction, the costs to revert the trajectory are very high and this contributes to a sort of inertia that can be broken again only with a new critical juncture (Pierson 2004). In simple terms: history matters.

While critical junctures and path dependency are used to describe the succession of radical change and stability, other conceptual tools indicate the presence of a gradual change that can progressively produce conspicuous change. Streeck and Thelen (2005) classified this form of change into five categories: Displacement, that is when a traditional institutional structure is progressively discredited and put at the margins in favour of those that are more apt to satisfy present needs. Layering, that is when new elements are progressively added to the old structure. This form of institutional change is often observed in social policy, for example in the field of labour market and family policy (Daly and Ferragina 2018). Institutional change can also happen just because an institution becomes obsolete to respond to its original aims as it has not been adequately updated over time (this form of institutional change is called drift (Hacker 2004). Another form of institutional change is that of conversion, that is when an existing institution is redirected towards new objectives. A last form is that of exhaustion, that brings the institution to a progressive disappearance.

II. How is this approach useful for policy evaluation?

CHA can be employed to understand how to set up a policy evaluation study, recognize the origins of specific policies, better understand the context within which policies and outcomes change, and observe an institutional trajectory in the long run. In a nutshell, a CHA can help to situate specific policy evaluations within a context, illustrating for example the concatenation of policy changes that bring to a fundamental institutional change in the long run (in this respect see the example below about ‘selective neoliberalism’). Major works that absolve these functions in the literature include The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping-Andersen 1990), Development and Crisis of the Welfare State (Huber and Stephens 2001), Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment (Pierson 1994), and Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Skocpol 1992).

III. Disentangling the direction of social policy reforms in the long run: the case of ‘selective neoliberalism’

CHA can be employed to disentangle how several reforms might lead to specific outcomes, linking a theoretical concept to the exploration of policy change. This is the case of a study published in New Political Economy that explores how Italy progressively liberalised pension and labour market policies in different steps (Ferragina and Arrigoni 2021); if one analyses reforms in isolation, one cannot correctly observe the comprehensive design of the liberalisation process. This means that an historical analysis might allow us to discern the entire reform process. The study, although only analysing the Italian case, is based on the comparison with other European countries through the framing of the passage from the Fordist to the neoliberal phase of capitalism. More specifically this research illustrates the Italian process of neoliberal institutional adaptation in the main social policy reforms, and suggests that over three decades this process took place selectively. Selective neoliberalism is defined as a modality of institutional adaptation which started from the margins and then expanded to the rest of society.

Selective neoliberalism resulted from a reform process begun in the early 1990s when a neoliberal turn was set in motion (Ferragina et al. 2022). The reform process, with continuity between centre-right and centre-left coalitions, circumvented the resistance of trade unions against an overall social policy liberalisation, hitting first social groups without sufficient power resources to defend their social entitlements and rights. This modality of institutional adaptation can be observed in both labour market and pension reforms.

Through the concept of selective neoliberalism, the initial dualization of social entitlements and rights in the Italian case is interpreted as an intermediary step toward liberalisation (for a discussion see Streeck 2009, Emmenegger 2014). This argument is substantiated with an analysis of the continuity in the social policy reforms, and through insights from comparative historical analysis. Neoliberal ideas, promoted originally by Einaudi in the first part of the twentieth century and kept alive in intellectual circles in the post WWII period, re-emerged like a subterranean river when the international political economy context had turned globally away from Keynesianism. The spread of neoliberal ideas influenced Italian technocratic elites at the Bank of Italy and the Treasury, and also the internal debate of the Socialist (PSI) and Christian Democratic (DC) parties since the 1980s.

The research sequences the ‘roll back’ of Fordism and the ‘roll out’ of neoliberalism, and through this historical institutional analysis, it identifies a neoliberal turn in 1992. Different streams of literature have emphasised this year’s importance for Italy – which can be regarded as a sliding door on the institutional, economic, and political levels. The notion of critical juncture is used to illustrate how after 1992, the institutional equilibrium was broken; and this gave way to a series of reforms very much at odds with the past. From a methodological perspective ‘junctures are “critical” because they place institutional arrangements on paths or trajectories, which are then very difficult to alter’ (Pierson 2004: 135). This analytical tool helps to identify a transition from Fordism to neoliberalism as portrayed in the international political economy literature. Then, the concept of selective neoliberalism helps to interpret the labour market and pension reforms holistically. This notion can be applied to other countries and policy contexts, in particular where a strong resistance of veto players is undermined through an incremental reform process that contributes to a neoliberal adaptation.

IV. What are the strengths and limitations of this approach compared to others?

CHA presents advantages and disadvantages in comparison to other methods and approaches. It is unique in helping to address big questions and the analysis of political processes, allowing it to systematically disentangle complex reform processes as we have shown with the example of selective neoliberalism. The application of an historical approach allows one to consider with care the specificity of cases, observe their long term development, proposing in the end contingent generalisations. However, CHA also presents several limits. The approach does not propose a systematic way to approach problems as other methods of analysis. It is difficult to select cases when testing theories, and generalisation, although possible, has to be contingent and limited (because of the small-N). Moreover, this approach can be criticised from a historical point of view, because it is often based on secondary sources rather than archival material.

Other big questions remain open for scholars and students who are willing to employ this approach in the future. How to deal with the tension between structure and agency? Approaching big questions is very important, but CHA does not offer much space to the role of actors and is prevalently concerned with structural change. There are also epistemological questions regarding the tension between the contingent generalisation and the respect of the cases analysed. Almost sixty years ago, Moore (1966: XIV) described this problem with acumen:

Nevertheless there remains a strong tension between the demands of doing justice to the explanation of a particular case and the search for generalisations, mainly because it is impossible to know just how important a particular problem may be until one has finished examining all of them.

Cited references

Calhoun, Craig. 1998. Explanation in historical sociology: Narrative, general theory, and historically specific theory. American journal of sociology , 104(3): 846-871.

Collier, Ruth Berins. and Collier, David. 1991. Shaping the political arena: Critical junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Daly, Mary. and Ferragina, Emanuele. 2018. Family policy in high-income countries: Five decades of development.  Journal of European Social Policy , 28(3): 255-270.

Emmenegger, Patrick. 2014. The power to dismiss: trade unions and the regulation of job security in Western Europe . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Esping-Andersen, Gosta. 1990. Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism . Cambridge: Polity.

Ferragina, Emanuele. 2012.  Social capital in Europe: A comparative regional analysis . Edward Elgar.

Ferragina, Emanuele. 2013. The socio-economic determinants of social capital and the mediating effect of history: Making Democracy Work revisited. International Journal of Comparative Sociology , 54(1): 48-73.

Ferragina, Emanuele. and Arrigoni, Alessandro. 2021. Selective neoliberalism: How Italy went from dualization to liberalisation in labour market and pension reforms. New Political Economy , 26(6): 964-984.

Ferragina, Emanuele. and Arrigoni, Alessandro. and Spreckelsen, Thees. 2022. The rising invisible majority: Bringing society back into political economy. Review of International Political Economy, 29(1): 114-151.

Goldstone, Jack. 1998. Initial conditions, general laws, path dependence, and explanation in historical sociology. American journal of sociology , 104(3): 829-845.

Hacker, Jacob. 2004. Privatizing risk without privatizing the welfare state: The hidden politics of social policy retrenchment in the United States. American Political Science Review , 98(2): 243-260.

Huber, Evelyne. and Stephens, John. 2001. Development and crisis of the welfare state. Parties and policies in global markets . Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Kiser, Edgar. and Hechter, Michael. 1998. The debate on historical sociology: Rational choice theory and its critics. American Journal of Sociology , 104(3): 785-816.

Moore, Barrington, Jr. 1966. Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World . Boston: Beacon Press.

Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pierson, Paul. 2004. Politics in time: history, institutions, and social analysis . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and social revolutions. A Comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting soldiers and mothers: The political origins of social policy in the United States . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Somers, Margaret. 1998. Symposium on Historical Sociology and Rational Choice Theory “We’re No Angels”: Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in Social Science. American journal of sociology , 104(3): 722-784.

Streeck, Wolfgang. 2009. Re-forming capitalism: Institutional change in the German political economy . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Streeck, Wolfgang. and Thelen, Kathleen. 2005. Beyond continuity: Institutional change in advanced political economies . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tocqueville, Alexis De. 1960. De la démocratie en Amérique . London: MacMillan & Co Ltd.

Weber, Max. 2001. The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism . Chicago: Fritzroy Dearborn Publishers.

Some bibliographical references to go further

Capoccia, Giovanni. and Kelemen, R. Daniel. 2007. The study of critical junctures: Theory, narrative, and counterfactuals in historical institutionalism. World politics , 59(3): 341-369. This article provides a complete analysis of critical junctures. Critical junctures place institutional arrangements on paths or trajectories, which are very difficult to alter.

Mahoney, James. and Thelen, Kathleen. (Eds.). 2015. Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This edited book covers multiple uses of comparative historical analysis in political science. It includes contributions from leading authors in the field and discusses the broad agenda of CHA through an analysis of fundamental works, the tools for temporal analysis (such as path dependence and critical junctures), and important methodological developments.

Moore, Barrington. Jr. 1966. Social Origins of D emocracy and Dictatorship: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World . Boston: Beacon Press. This seminal book explains the varied political roles played by the landed upper class and the peasantry in the transformation from agrarian societies to modern industrial ones. From a methodological perspective Moore highlights the strong tension between the demands of doing justice to the explanation of a particular case and the search for generalisations. A starting point for all those interested in CHA.

Pierson, Paul. 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis . Princeton: Princeton University Press. The book presents a detailed analysis of the importance of time to understand institutional and social change, providing a methodological backing to the classic statement that history matters. Pierson suggests using comparative historical analysis to move beyond a static view of institutional change.

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and social revolutions: A comparative analysis of France, Russia and China . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. According to Skocpol, social revolutions deserve special attention because of their extraordinary significance for the history of nations and their distinctive pattern of socio-political change. What is unique to social revolutions is that basic changes in social and political structure occur together in a mutually reinforcing fashion. To analyse these important historical events Skocpol set a comparative historical analysis of France, Russia and China. This book is a reference for those who want to apply comparative historical analysis to large scale social phenomena.

Policy Evaluation: Methods and Approaches Copyright © by Emanuele Ferragina is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Comparative-Historical Methods

This book reviews the main methods used by comparative-historical sociologists.

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The second section of this book compares places, systems, times, and a variety of other units of analysis. This chapter also focuses on a comparison – of quantitative and qualitative approaches to research on issues in comparative education. The chapter begins with a description of the characteristics of these two approaches and how they differ with regard to purposes, structure and theory. It also addresses questions of objectivity, values, and relationships between researcher and researched. The chapter next turns to quantitative and qualitative approaches to research on one prominent topic within the field, that of literacy. It first reviews how researchers on literacy coming from the two traditions present the advantages of their respective approaches. It then argues that among the goals of both quantitative and qualitative research on literacy is to seek answers to the same four fundamental questions while differing in their approaches to doing so. The questions are how literacy can be accurately defined and depicted; where variations in literacy lie; what leads to literacy; and what the consequences of literacy are. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches to answering these questions are compared, using specific examples from published research. Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods in Education In his Educational Research Primer, Picciano (2004) provided a simple comparison of quantitative and qualitative research methods in education. He defined quantitative research as relying on " the collection of numerical data which are then subjected to analysis using statistical routines " (p.51). By contrast, he suggested, qualitative research relies on " meanings, concepts, context, descriptions, and settings " (p.32). Quantity refers to amounts, while quality refers to the essence of things. Among quantitative types of research, Picciano mentions descriptive studies, correlational research, causal comparative research, and experimental studies. Qualitative research methods include ethnography, historical research and case study research. To explain the differences between these methods, Picciano compared them along the lines of purpose, data sources, methods of data collection, data analysis, and reporting. For example, the purpose of a quantitative correlational study is to use numerical data to describe relationships between variables and to predict consequences following from these relationships, whereas the purpose of a qualitative ethnographic study is to describe and interpret a phenomenon observed in its natural setting. Different purposes are accompanied by specific sources of data. The correlational study relies on quantitative data from school databases, test scores, surveys and questionnaires, while the ethnographic study is based on observations, field notes, and even photographs and videos.

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Outcomes of an integrated knowledge translation approach in five African countries: A mixed methods comparative case study

Preprint from Research Square , 09 May 2024 https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4312132/v1   PPR: PPR850451 

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Abstract 

Background : Integrated knowledge translation (IKT) aims to enhance evidence-informed decision-making in public health and healthcare by establishing continuous relationships between researchers and knowledge users, in particular decision-makers. The Collaboration for Evidence-based Healthcare and Public Health in Africa (CEBHA+) undertook research on non-communicable diseases in Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda. Alongside the research activities, we implemented an IKT approach, which entailed training and the development and implementation of site-specific IKT strategies. We evaluated these strategies according to a pre-defined programme theory. Methods : Drawing on our published protocol (https://rdcu.be/dyfBP), we interviewed and surveyed CEBHA+ researchers and their decision-making counterparts during two project stages (3/2020-2/2021; 9/2022-5/2023) and collected IKT-related documents. Transcripts and documents were analysed using qualitative content analysis and surveys were analysed descriptively, with subsequent integration, cross-case analysis, and revision of the programme theory. Results : A total of 36 researchers and 19 decision-makers participated in surveys, focus groups and/or interviews, and we collected 92 documents. Relationship-building, capacity-building, and collaborative research were the most proximal intervention outcomes: CEBHA+ researchers and their counterparts built mutual appreciation and partnerships, accessed contacts and networks, and expanded skills in conducting and using research and in IKT. The level of trust between partners varied. Intermediate outcomes were changes in attitudes and knowledge; beyond the conceptualisation in our initial programme theory, researchers substantially increased their understanding of the decision-making context and developed a vision for ‘research impact’. While it was challenging to evaluate distal outcomes, the IKT approach was linked to the production of research perceived as addressing local priorities and being highly applicable and contextualised; and some consideration of evidence among decision-makers. Unintended effects included high opportunity costs associated with undertaking IKT. An unanticipated outcome was the heightened interest of the research funder in policy engagement. Our updated programme theory constitutes a low-level theory for IKT. Conclusion : Whilst this study faced many challenges common to the evaluation of knowledge translation interventions, it presents rich, theory-informed insights into IKT outcomes. These are based on documented IKT activities and participants’ views, particularly in-depth insights of researchers’ experiences with implementing the CEBHA+ IKT approach.

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