Recent critiques of modernization theory have questioned the comparability of its central organizing concept, the "national society." The logic of comparative inquiry requires independent or independent uniform "cases" and formal quasi-experimental designs for comparative generalization. Global conceptions of social change violate formal comparative requirements, necessitating an alternative form of "incorporated comparison," that takes both multipleldiachronic and singularlsynchronic forms. Incorporated comparison is used to conceptualize variation across time and space when time and space dimensions are neither separate nor uniform. The fixed units of analysis employed by modernization and world-system theories yield to an alternative strategy of grounding the analytical units of comparison in the world-historical processes under investigation. Recent studies illustrate this alternative to formal comparison and incorporate comparison into the process of substantive inquiry.

Incorporating Comparison within a World-Historical Perspective: An Alternative Comparative Method

Recent years have witnessed the beginnings of a renaissance in the field of comparative urban studies. The paper discusses this body of work’s history, drawing on contributions from across the social sciences. Following this it highlights some of the work’s limits, namely its weak theorization of place, scale and causality. The paper then offers a relational comparative approach to the study of cities as a means of attending to these limits. This acknowledges both the territorial and relational geographies behind the production of cities.

Towards a relational comparative approach to the study of cities

Cross-national face-to-face selling has thus far received very little scholarly treatment in marketing literature. With few notable exceptions, most existing research in this area has been fragmentary and opportunistic. These problems are largely because of the lack of a broad, generalizable framework within which to conceptualize and execute research studies. In offering such a conceptual framework, this article looks at buyer-seller interactions from a communication perspective.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/palgrave_jibs_8490261.pdf?abstractid=1806861&mirid=4

Understanding the Domain of Cross-National Buyer-Seller Interactions

In this essay, I discuss some of the uses and dilemmas of cross-national research. I argue that cross-national research is valuable, even indispensable, for establishing the generality of findings and the validity of interpretations derived from single-nation studies. In no other way can we be certain that what we believe to be social-structural regularities are not merely particularities, the product of some limited set of historical or cultural or political circumstances. I also argue that cross-national research is equally valuable, perhaps even more valuable, for forcing us to revise our interpretations to take account of cross-national differences and inconsistencies that could never be uncovered in single-nation research. My thesis is that cross-national research provides an especially useful method for generating, testing, and further developing sociological theory. As with any research strategy, cross-national research comes at a price. It is costly in time and money, it is difficult to do, and it often seems to raise more interpretive problems than it solves. Yet it is potentially invaluable and, in my judgment, grossly underutilized. This is hardly a radically new thesis. As Stein Rokkan (1964) long ago pointed out, to do cross-national research is to return to the preferred analytic.strategy of the forefathers of sociology, a strategy that was nearly abandoned in sociology's quest for methodological rigor but now can be pursued anew with the much more powerful methodological tools available today. I A sensible discussion of the uses and dilemmas of cross-national research requires that I first define the domain and delineate the principal types of cross-national research. Then I illustrate some of these uses and dilemmas by scrutinizing the body of cross-national research I know best, namely my own, my rationale being William Form's (1979) cogent observation that "probably no field has generated more methodological advice on a smaller data base with fewer results than has [cross-national] comparative sociology." Using my research as a source of illustrations makes it possible to discuss the issues concretely. I review this research in sufficient detail to highlight its accomplishments and its failures, my concern being only in part with the substance of the research for its own sake; I also want to extrapolate from this concrete example, to make some more general observations. Finally, I discuss some fundamental issues about the conduct of cross-national research. In so doing, I bring in studies dealing with quite different substantive problems from those that I have addressed in my own research, and using quite different methods, to see whether my conclusions apply as well to a much broader range of studies.

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CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH AS AN ANALYTIC STRATEGY* American. Sociological Association, 1987 Presidential Address

We examine the comparative strategies of Durkheim and Weber and link them to specific presuppositions. While both are compatible with goals of explanation and generalization in sociological analysis, they use different types of explanation and different degrees of generalization to produce variable-based (Durkheimian) and case-based (Weberian) studies. Several authors (e.g., Kapsis; Smelser, b) suggest that these two strategies converge. We show that these strategies are neither congruent nor convergent in their (1) units of analysis, (2) conception of causality, (3) conception of adequate explanation, or (4) logic of analysis. We examine contemporary comparative studies and trace lines of filiation between them and the strategies of Durkheim and Weber. Finally, we suggest how these strategies can be combined in complementary ways to take advantage of the unique strengths of each. One of the few priorities Durkheim and Weber shared was to establish a balance between competing claims of complexity and generality in sociological analysis. They both saw comparative research as the means to do this because such research avoided problems associated with older styles of inquiry. Comparative analysis separated sociology from traditional historical research with its atheoretical attention to detail; it also separated sociology from social philosophy and the philosophy of history with their emphasis on sweeping generalizations (see Zaret, a). These concerns shape Weber's conception of sociology as a science of historical reality. According to Weber, sociology uses ideal types to enable limited generalization about historical divergence (see Zaret, b). Limited

/pdf/theory-and-method-in-comparative-research-two-strategies-4nb2g1wisi.pdf

J W Elder

Papers

Comparative Cross-National Methodology