Collaborative Research: Robust and Reliable Research Workshop Proposal: Rethinking Comparison in the Social Sciences

合作研究：稳健可靠的研究研讨会提案：重新思考社会科学中的比较

• 批准号: 1713766
• 负责人: Erica Simmons
• 金额: $ 4.16万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-06-01 至 2021-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1713766&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Robust; Reliable; Workshop

General AbstractComparison is an important research tool in the social sciences. Scholars make comparisons across time and place to better understand a wide range of political and social phenomena. One of the central techniques that social scientists often use is the controlled comparison, whereby scholars hold potential explanatory factors constant across different cases to help them assess their contribution to particular outcomes. This approach has been central to some of the most influential works of social science. It has helped scholars explain everything from why some countries are rich and some are poor to why some countries are democratic and some are authoritarian. Yet even as controlled comparisons have produced lasting insights, they are not the only form of comparison that scholars utilize to answer important questions about social and political life. There is little guidance, however, on how to develop and execute comparisons that do not rely on the controlled case model, and what types of insights alternative comparison models can offer. The goal of this project is to lay out just such guidelines. To do so, this project will explore two of the most fundamental questions in the study of politics: (1) how and why scholars decide on what they compare, and (2) how the methodological assumptions scholars make about why and how they compare shape the knowledge they produce. By answering these questions, the project will create new resources for future students and researchers to draw upon in their efforts to advance knowledge.Technical AbstractThis project aims to reimagine three central components of the comparative method in order to develop new logics for comparative research designs that move beyond traditional controlled comparison designs. First, it will encourage political scientists to think critically about what a case is by challenging dominant norms and encouraging scholars to think of processes, practices, meanings, and concepts as cases to be compared. Second, the project will expand the notion of what it means to compare. It aims to push scholars to conceptualize comparison as a method that includes approaches beyond controlled comparison, including greater attention to the experiences of subjects being studied and the ways those experiences re-order social worlds. Finally, the project proposes to expand the explanatory goals of comparative research by de-emphasizing variations in outcomes and opening up variations in political processes, meanings, and concepts as similarities or differences to be explained. To achieve these goals, this project will convene a workshop on comparative methods, and produce an edited volume based on contributions emerging from the workshop that will serve as a resource for scholars looking to conduct non-controlled comparisons to guide future scholars in new research directions.

概述 比较是社会科学的重要研究工具。学者们进行跨时间和地点的比较，以更好地理解广泛的政治和社会现象。社会科学家经常使用的核心技术之一是受控比较，学者们通过这种方法在不同案例中保持潜在的解释因素不变，以帮助他们评估这些因素对特定结果的贡献。 这种方法一直是一些最具影响力的社会科学著作的核心。它帮助学者们解释了一切，从为什么有些国家富裕，有些国家贫穷，到为什么有些国家民主，有些国家独裁。然而，尽管受控比较产生了持久的见解，但它们并不是学者用来回答有关社会和政治生活的重要问题的唯一比较形式。然而，关于如何开发和执行不依赖于受控案例模型的比较，以及替代比较模型可以提供哪些类型的见解，几乎没有指导。该项目的目标就是制定这样的指导方针。为此，本项目将探讨政治研究中两个最基本的问题：(1) 学者如何以及为何决定他们比较的内容；(2) 学者如何做出关于他们比较的原因和方式的方法论假设他们产生的知识。通过回答这些问题，该项目将为未来的学生和研究人员创造新的资源，供他们在努力推进知识的过程中利用。技术摘要该项目旨在重新构想比较方法的三个核心组成部分，以便为比较研究设计开发新的逻辑，超越传统的受控比较设计。首先，它将鼓励政治科学家通过挑战主导规范来批判性地思考案例是什么，并鼓励学者将过程、实践、意义和概念视为可供比较的案例。其次，该项目将扩展比较的概念。它旨在推动学者将比较概念化为一种方法，其中包括超越受控比较的方法，包括更多地关注所研究对象的经历以及这些经历重新排序社会世界的方式。最后，该项目建议通过不再强调结果的差异并开放政治过程、含义和概念的差异作为需要解释的相似性或差异来扩大比较研究的解释目标。为了实现这些目标，该项目将召开一个关于比较方法的研讨会，并根据研讨会的贡献编写一本编辑卷，为希望进行非对照比较的学者提供资源，以指导未来的学者走向新的研究方向。