#nested analysis

Recently, I came across the open access article Resolving empirical controversies with mechanistic evidence. I have some thoughts on the arguments made in the article, but first a disclaimer: This is not meant to be a disciplinary beauty contest. The article raises a valuable point: Two or more quantitative models may produce contradictory results. Depending on the research question at hand, it…

Review of “Multi-Method Social Science” (Seawright, CUP): Chapter 1

Over the next weeks, I will give a chapter-by-chapter review of the new book Multi-Method Social Science: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Tools by Jason Seawright. To my knowledge, it is the first book on nested analysis/multimethod research in the social sciences that is not an edited volume. A debate about mixed methods has been going on in adjacent disciplines for decades, but the…

Review of “Finding Pathways”, by Weller/Barnes

In Finding Pathways: Mixed-Method Research for Studying Causal Mechanisms, Weller and Barnes seek to explain “how the small-N component of multi-method research can meaningfully contribute and add value to the study of causal mechanisms” (quote from blurb). The book contains nine chapters, including the introduction and concluding chapter. The second chapter lays a foundation by discussing the…

Most multi-method research (MMR) studies with which I am familiar start with regression analysis (or, in recent years, QCA) and perform the case studies afterward. This is the order recommended by Lieberman in his nested analysis articlewhich, in turn, most probably reflects the widely held view that case studies are only worth doing in MMR when something is going on at the cross-case level.…