The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

In this innovative approach to the practice of social science, Charles Ragin explores the use of fuzzy sets to bridge the divide between quantitative and qualitative methods. Paradoxically, the fuzzy set is a powerful tool because it replaces an unwieldy, "fuzzy" instrument—the variable, which establishes only the positions of cases relative to each other, with a precise one—degree of membership in a well-defined set. Ragin argues that fuzzy sets allow a far richer dialogue between ideas and evidence in social research than previously possible. They let quantitative researchers abandon "homogenizing assumptions" about cases and causes, they extend diversity-oriented research strategies, and they provide a powerful connection between theory and data analysis. Most important, fuzzy sets can be carefully tailored to fit evolving theoretical concepts, sharpening quantitative tools with in-depth knowledge gained through qualitative, case-oriented inquiry. This book will revolutionize research methods not only in sociology, political science, and anthropology but in any field of inquiry dealing with complex patterns of causation.

Fuzzy-Set Social Science

The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

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Democracy and Its Critics

4. Modelling Survival Data in Medical Research

Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life

Komparativ metod : Förståelse genom jämförelse

This article presents a new methodology for multilevel analysis using a small number of cases, named Comparative Multilevel Analysis (CMA). A classic problem in comparative studies has been the presence of too many variables and too few cases. One traditional solution to this problem has been to study subsystems within a system. However, the approach has fundamental limitations: it cannot analyse subsystems from different contexts, nor can it determine how conditions on the system level influence subsystems. By proposing four additions to traditional methodology, this article offers a new method of comparing subsystems from different contexts in order to analyse the effect of context on subsystems. The author also illustrates how CMA can be combined with Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy‐set, thereby enabling these methods to be used in the study of subsystem and context effects.

Comparative multilevel analysis: proposal for a methodology

Contextual analyses are essential in comparative research, as they investigate the importance of contextual conditions for causal relationships. During the last decades, an increasing number of comparative studies have also focused on how contextual conditions affect causal relationships. At the same time, new comparative methods have been developed based on set-theoretical logics. Two of the most prominent methods are csQCA and fsQCA, which are used in comparative studies with increasing frequency. However, the conventional design for contextual analysis is still based on quantitative methods and the use of interaction-factors. This article discusses why the use of interaction-factors is not suitable together with QCA-methods. Instead of the conventional design, the article presents an alternative design for contextual analyses with QCA-methods grounded on subgroup-design. Based on one recently-developed methodology comparative multilevel analysis (CMA), some guidelines for performing contextual analyses with two set-theoretical methods (csQCA and fsQCA) are presented. As illustrated with examples, the combination of CMA and QCA provides opportunities to use QCA for contextual analysis.

Contextual analyses with QCA-methods

Research on citizen participation has been guided by two core issues: first, the observation of a widening repertory of modes of participation, and second, the argument that participation is not an undifferentiated phenomenon, but must be conceived as an inherently multidimensional reality. In this article, we argue that conventional participation research has focused too one-sidedly on quantitatively expanding the range of types of activities, while the complex dimensionality is not reflected in the measures used. We formulate a methodological critique by using the metaphor of the ‘black box’, which refers to the implicit and unquestioned assumption that distinct types of activities and associations represent homogeneous and consistent realities that do not warrant further analytical decomposition. Surveys of participation allocate individuals to different ‘participation boxes’ by means of a binary logic, leaving a void of what is actually happening inside the boxes. To conclude, we reflect upon the fund...

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The ‘Black Box’ Problem in the Study of Participation

What are the challenges to future democratization in states regarded as democratic? This study shows that some states that are traditionally regarded as democratic consist of political institutions in need of further democratization. On average, states that are classified as democratic have one or two institutional dimensions in need of further democratization. The main institutional dimensions in need of democratization are functions of government, rule of law, personal autonomy and individual rights. In order to investigate challenges to future democratization, the study presents a methodology that uses Freedom House Index and Polity Index in a new innovative way.

Thomas Denk

Papers

Komparativ metod : Förståelse genom jämförelse

Comparative multilevel analysis: proposal for a methodology

Contextual analyses with QCA-methods

The ‘Black Box’ Problem in the Study of Participation

Problems in paradise? Challenges to future democratization in democratic states