Module 16: Comparative Historical Methods

This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Course programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research

Mphil Students from participating departments taking the Social Science Research Methods Course as part of their research degree

Number of sessions: 4

• Session 1: Classics
• Session 2 : Justifications I
• Session 3 : Justifications II
• Session 4 : State of the Art

The objective of the course is to introduce students to comparative historical research methods

• To introduce students to the qualitative dimension of comparative historical research methods

Presentation only

S1:Classics

• Moore, B.(1966) The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
• Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

S2: Justifications I

• MacIntyre, M. (2001). “Is a science of comparative politics possible?” In Flyvberg, B. (2001). Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails, and How It Can Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brady, H.& Collier, D. (eds). (2004). Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

S3:Justifications II

• Pierson, P. (2004) "Positive feedback and path dependence" [AND] Institutional Development. In Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. (pp.17-53, 133-166).Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Thelen, K. (2003) How institutions evolve: insights from comparative historical analysis. In Mahoney, J. & Rueschemeyer, D.Comparative-Historical Analysis: Innovations in Theory and Methods. (pp.208-240).

S4: State of the Art

• Mahoney, J. (2001) Path-dependent explanations of regime change: central America in comparative perspective. Studies in Comparative International Development. 36(1):111-141.
• Mahoney, J. (2004) Comparative-historical methodology. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 30:81–101.
• Mahoney, J.(2006). On the second wave of historical sociology, 1970s-Present. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 47(5):371-377.
• Mahoney, J. (2007). Qualitative methods and comparative politics. Comparative Political Studies 40(2):122-144.
• Mahoney, J. (2010) After KKV: the new methodology of qualitative research. World Politics 62(1):120-147.

• To gain the maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking. Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Four sessions of 1.5hours

Four times in Michaelmas term

• JISC Digital Proficiency
• Qualitative Methods