Conclusion innovative comparative methods for policy analysis: Milestones to bridge different worlds

Innovative Comparative Methods for Policy Analysis: Beyond the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide

Volumn , Issue , 2006, Pages 287-296

  Rihoux, Benoît ^a   Grimm, Heike ^b  

^a UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN   (Belgium)

^b University of Erfurt and Max Planck Institute of Economics ^*  (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84882028141     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1007/0-387-28829-5_13     Document Type: Chapter

References (4)

1. Here the term "outcome" is used in the generic sense, with reference to QCA terminology. Needless to say, different types of phenomena (not only 'policy outcomes') may be of interest for policy analysts.
2. Some of the points discussed below stem from the collective discussion at the end of the Erfurt ESF exploratory workshop, on 28 Sept. 2004. We thank all participants to this final discussion for their contribution in these reflections.
3. In this respect, see the innovative attempt by Dumont and Back (forthcoming), who demonstrate on "real-life" data (governmental coalition formation)'that, indeed, QCA does bring some additional insights as compared with conditional logic analysis.
4. In fact, quite often the substantial interest of such cases lies precisely in the fact that they appear to be « outliers » which may be embarrassing for, say, some political decisionmakers (e.g. because these cases contradict their political discourse, etc.).