This course covers topics in comparative methods for studying social structures. It is an optional advanced methods course in JHU Sociology Graduate Program. We will consider issues in the philosophy of social science, theory construction, concept formation, qualitative and quantitative methods, units of analysis, variation across time and space, etc. Grading will be based on class participation, an in-class essay exam on April 11, and a research exercise due on May 2.

Books available in the Hopkins Bookstore are:
Charles Ragin, Constructing social research : the unity and diversity of method
Alex Inkeles and Masamichi Sasaki (eds.), Comparing Nations and Cultures
Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy
Gil J. Stein, Rethinking World-Systems: Diasporas, Colonies and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia

Required readings are marked with an asterisk (*) and are on Reserve. Other readings are recommended. Required readings should be read prior to the time of the relevant seminar meeting.

January 25  First Class meeting.

An overview of macrocomparative methods

February 1
Relevant issues in the philosophy of social science: Explanation vs. interpretation; induction and deduction, nomothetic vs. ideographic approaches; subject and object problems; methodological individualism, values and social science, teleology and scientific explanation.
 
*Charles Ragin, Constructing social research : the unity and diversity of method  Chapters 1-3.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Introduction, "The method of political economy"
Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method.
Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Stephen Sanderson, Social Evolutionism.

February 8
Theory construction, concept formation and theoretical research programs.
*Arthur Stinchcombe, Constructing Social Theories, Chapter 2 "The logic of scientific inference" (on reserve)
*Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation, Chapter 14, "Theory construction"
Imre Lakatos, 1978 The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Vol. 1. Edited by John Worral and Gregory Currie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bernard P. Cohen, Developing Sociological Knowledge. Chapter 7, "Concepts, definitions and concept formation."
Joseph Berger and Morris Zelditch, Jr. 1993 Theoretical Research Programs: Studies in the Growth of Theory.

February 15

Historiography, ethnography, historical sociology and comparative methods
Qualitative methods: fieldwork, case studies, qualitative variables.

*Philip Abrams, "Explaining events: a problem of method" (on reserve).
*Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons
Robert M. Emerson (ed.) Contemporary Field Research
Griffin, Larry 1993 "Narrative, event structure analysis and causal interpretation in historical sociology" American Journal of Sociology 98:1094-133.
Ronald Aminzade, "Historical sociology and time." Sociological Methods and Research 20,4:456-480 (May), 1992.
Aletta Biersack (ed.) Clio in Oceania: Toward a historical anthropology.
Roberto Franzosi, "The press as a source of socio-historical data: issues in the methodology of data collection from newspapers." Historical Methods 20,1:5-16 (Winter) 1987.
Arthur Stinchcombe, Theoretical Methods in Social History

February 22
The logic of comparison: what is the comparative method?, research design (non-experimental methods), units of analysis, conceptual equivalence, comparable measures, Galton's problem, attributes and relations, multilevel models
 

*Charles Ragin, Constructing social research : the unity and diversity of method  Chapters 4-6.
*C. Chase-Dunn, Global Formation, Chapter 15, "Research Methods".

Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry
Raoull Naroll, 1968 "Some thoughts on comparative method in cultural anthropology" Chapter 7 in Hubert M. Blalock, Jr. And Ann B. Blalock (eds.) Methodology in Social Research. (Galton's problem)
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, Book III, Chapter 8, "Of the four methods of experimental inquiry,"
Donald T. Campbell and Julian C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research.
Methodologists's Toolchest module on Research Design
February 29 The logic of comparison: variation across space and time

*Beverly Silver, "Time, space and labor unrest" (on reserve)
*Morris Zelditch, Jr. "Intelligible comparisons," Pp. 267-308 in Ivan Vallier (ed.) Comparative Methods in Sociology (on reserve)
*Morris Zelditch, Jr. "Can you study an army in the laboratory," in Pp. 528-39 in A. Etzioni (ed.) Complex Organizations (2nd edition) 1969. (on reserve)
Philip McMichael, "Incorporating comparison within a world-historical perspective," American Sociological Review 55,3:385-397, June 1990.
March 7

The logic of comparison: combining qualitative and quantitative methods

*Charles Ragin, Constructing social research : the unity and diversity of method Chapter 5 (programs)

Charles Ragin, The Comparative Method
Nigel Fielding and Jane L. Fielding, Linking Data, Chapter 4, "Linking qualitative and quantitative data"
Jeffrey Paige, Agrarian Revolution

March 14

Cross-national research in which nation is the context

*Melvin Kohn, "Cross-national research as an analytic strategy" Chapter 4 in Inkeles and Sasaki.
*Melvin Kohn and Kazymierz Slomczynski, Social Structure and Self-Direction, Chapter 2, "The methodology of the research" (on reserve)
http://coleman.soc.jhu.edu/cd/courses/650/melchap2.htm
 

March 21- Spring Vacation

March 28

Cross-national analysis using the national society as unit of analysis: Case studies, time-series, and cross-sectional comparisons.

*Stein Rokkan, "Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research" Chapter 3 in Inkeles and Sasaki

*Erik Olin Wright, "The comparative project on class structure and class consciousness" Chapter 10 in Inkeles and Sasaki.
Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, "The comparative study of national societies," in Amitai Etzioni and Frederic Dubow (eds.) Comparative Perspectives: Theories and Methods
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, Pp. 33-40 "A comparative historical method"
Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, "Preface to the English edition."
Georg P. Muller, Comparative World Data: A Statistical Handbook for Social Science, Johns Hopkins Press, 1988.
 
 

Exercise Report Due May 2

April 4(study questions for midterm handed out today)

Secondary data analysis , the ratio problem, reciprocal causation, the ecological fallacy and the aggregation problem, and measurement error models. Cross-lagged panel analyses, event history analysis, structural equation modeling (LISREL), multilevel research design (hierarchical linear models) and network analysis.
*Jeffrey Kentor, 1998"The long term effects of foreign capital penetration on economic growth, 1940-1990" American Journal of Sociology (January)(LISREL) (on reserve)
* Francisco O. Ramirez, Yasemin Soysal and Suzanne Shanahan 1997 "The changing logic of political citizenship:cross-national acquisition of women's suffrage rights, 1890 to 1990" American Sociological Review 62:735-745. (event history) (on reserve)
Dale Wimberley, "Investment dependence and alternative explanations of Third World mortality: a cross-national study," American Sociological Review 55:75-91, 1990. (panel analysis)
Michael T. Hannan, "Issues in panel analysis of national development: a methodological overview," Pp. 17-36 in John W. Meyer and Michael T. Hannan (eds.) National Development and the World System: Educational, Economic and Political Change, 1950-1970
David Strang, "From dependency to sovereignty: an event history analysis of decolonization 1870-1987," American Sociological Review 55,6:846-860 December, 1990.
John Bynner 1994 "Analyzing change over time using LISREL" Chapter 5 in Angela Dale and Richard B. Davies, Analyzing Social and Political Change: A casebook of Methods
Nancy Tuma 1994 "Event History Analysis" Chapter 7 in Angela Dale and Richard B. Davies, Analyzing Social and Political Change: A casebook of Methods.
Michael Hannan 1971 "Problems of aggregation," Chapter 27 in Hubert M. Blalock (ed.) Causal Models in the Social Sciences.
Gregory B. Markus, Analyzing Panel Data
Paul D. Allison, Event History Analysis: Regression for Longitudinal Event Data
Gary King, A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data http://gking.harvard.edu
Geoffrey M. Maruyama, Basics of Structural Equations Modeling
John Scott, Social Network Analysis.
Alain Degenne and Michel Forse, Introducing Social Networks
Anthony Bryk and Stephen Raudenbush, Hierarchical Linear Models.
Ita Kreft and Jan De Leeuw, Introducing Multilevel Modeling
 

April 11 Midterm

April 18

The world-system as unit of analysis: historical interpretation, time-series analysis, network analysis and geographical information systems.

*Chase-Dunn, Global Formation Chapter 13 "World-System Fluctuations"
*Chase-Dunn, Kawano and Brewer, "Trade globalization since 1795: waves of integration in the world-system" American Sociological Review, Feb. 2000. (on reserve)
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System. Vols. 1-3
Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century
Christian Suter, "Long waves in the international financial system: debt-default cycles of sovereign borrowers," Review 12,1:1-49 (Winter) 1989.
Christian Suter, Debt Cycles in the World-Economy
Joshua Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age
David Kowalewski, "Periphery praetorianism in cliometric perspective, 1855-1985." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 32,3-4:289-303, 1991.
Terry Boswell, "Colonial empires and the capitalist world-system: a time-series analysis of colonization, 1640-1960," American Sociological Review 54,2: 180-196, 1989.
Roger J. Nemeth and David A. Smith, "International trade and world-system structure: a multiple network analysis," Review 8,4:517-560 (Spring) 1985.
David Snyder and Edward Kick, "Structural position in the world-system and economic growth, 1955-1970: a multiple network analysis of transnational interactions," American Journal of Sociology 84,5:1096-1126, 1979.
Scott L. Hershberger, Peter C.M. Molenaar and Sherry E. Corneal 1996 "A hierarchy of univariate and multivariate structural time series models." Chapter 6 in George A. Marcoulides and Randall E. Schumacker (eds) Advanced Structural Equation Modeling.
Charles W. Ostrum, Time Series Analysis: Regression Techniques
Jeff B. Cromwell, Michael J. Hannan, Walter C. Labys and Michel Terraza, Multivariate Tests for Time Series Models
David Knoke and James H. Kuklinksi, Network Analysis
G. David Garson and Robert S. Biggs, Analytic Mapping and Geographic Databases

Exercise Report Due May 2

April 25

Comparing world-systems

*Chase-Dunn and Hall, Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems. Chapters 3, 10 and 12. (on reserve)
*Gil J. Stein, Rethinking World-Systems: Diasporas, Colonies and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia
Guillermo Algaze, The Uruk World System.
David Wilkinson 1991. "Cores, Peripheries and Civilizations." Pp. 113-166 in Core/Periphery Relations in Precapitalist Worlds, edited by Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. gopher://csf.Colorado.EDU:70/00/wsystems/books/chase-dunn%26hall/chap4
Kasja Ekholm and Jonathan Friedman, " 'Capital' imperialism and exploitation in ancient world-systems," Review 6,1:87-110, 1982

Exercise Report Due May 2