Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards

by Henry E. Brady (Editor), David Collier (Editor)

With innovative new chapters on process tracing, regression analysis, and natural experiments, the second edition of Rethinking Social Inquiry further extends the reach of this path-breaking book. The original debate with King, Keohane, and Verba_now updated_remains central to the volume, and the new material illuminates evolving discussions of essential methodological tools. Thus, process tracing is often invoked as fundamental to qualitative analysis, but is rarely applied with precision. Pitfalls of regression analysis are sometimes noted, but often are inadequately examined. And the complex assumptions and trade-offs of natural experiments are poorly understood. The second edition extends the methodological horizon through exploring these critical tools. A distinctive feature of this edition is the online placement of four chapters from the prior edition, all focused on the dialogue with King, Keohane, and Verba.

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

428 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2004

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