Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards

by David Collier (Editor), Henry E. Brady

When it was first published, Designing Social Inquiry , by political scientists Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, at once struck chords of controversy. As it became one of the best-selling methodology books in memory, it continued to spark debate in journal articles, conference panels, and books.

Rethinking Social Inquiry is a major new effort by a broad range of leading scholars to offer a cohesive set of reflections on Designing Social Inquiry 's quest for common standards drawn from quantitative methodology. While vigorously agreeing to the need for common standards, the essays in Rethinking Social Inquiry argue forcefully that these standards must be drawn from exemplary qualitative research as well as the best quantitative studies. The essays make the case that good social science requires a set of diverse tools for inquiry.

Key additions to the seminal pieces gathered here include an original overview of Designing Social Inquiry , a new essay on evaluating causation, and a concluding chapter that draws together basic issues in the ongoing methodological debate.

Published in cooperation with the Berkeley Public Policy Press.

Genres: Political Science, Nonfiction, Politics, Research, Social Science, Science, Philosophy

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2004

About the author

David Collier is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He works in the fields of comparative politics, Latin American politics, and methodology. His co-authored and co-edited methodological work includes Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards; Statistical Models and Causal Inference: A Dialogue with the Social Sciences; and The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Collier is engaged in ongoing projects on the challenges of integrating quantitative and qualitative methods and of using this integrated perspective to gain new leverage in conceptualization, measurement, and causal inference.

Reviews

[Jacqualine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Partially useful

I read this book as part of a university course. The sections felt more like a collection of essays, presenting different views and defences on those views. It would have been more useful if it could draw more across the different social inquiry domains to discuss the interesting viewpoints that cross-cut these domains e.g. Psych, poli science. The enjoyment of the different sections also varied, depending on the writing styles.

[Matt Davenport · Rating 2 out of 5]

Completed for PSCI 6350 at UT Dallas

[Patrick Sauriol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who knew you could put together a 400 page book just knocking another book

[Matt Giebert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for grad school. Commentary on prior work