Designing social research is often a blood, toil, sweat and tears experience, with the road to pu... more Designing social research is often a blood, toil, sweat and tears experience, with the road to publication usually long and winding. Constantly, the researcher has to weigh different options, and case selection is often considered a particularly delicate and demanding step. For King and colleagues (1994, p. 115), ‘poor case selection can vitiate even the most ingenious attempts, at a later stage, to make valid causal inferences.’ In small-n as well as in large-n approaches ‘the cases you choose affect the answers you get’ (Geddes, 1990). However, case selection usually differs between those two approaches — and for good reasons. Whilst large-n studies generally seek representativeness, for example by random sampling, case selection in small-n research usually follows an intentional logic. Intentional does not, however, mean arbitrary. In the end, the types of cases you select determine which inferences you can draw.
Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has focused on the causes,... more Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has focused on the causes, conditions, and patterns of differentiation in European integration. By contrast, we know less about its effects on institutional outcomes and public support; moreover, alternatives to de jure DI in providing flexibility are still rarely accounted for. This introduction to the special issue takes stock of, and discusses omissions, in the current literature on DI. We propose an analytical framework, centering on efficiency and legitimacy, to study the effects of different types of DI. We use this framework to motivate the choice and assess the contributions of the articles selected for this special issue.
Designing social research is often a blood, toil, sweat and tears experience, with the road to pu... more Designing social research is often a blood, toil, sweat and tears experience, with the road to publication usually long and winding. Constantly, the researcher has to weigh different options, and case selection is often considered a particularly delicate and demanding step. For King and colleagues (1994, p. 115), ‘poor case selection can vitiate even the most ingenious attempts, at a later stage, to make valid causal inferences.’ In small-n as well as in large-n approaches ‘the cases you choose affect the answers you get’ (Geddes, 1990). However, case selection usually differs between those two approaches — and for good reasons. Whilst large-n studies generally seek representativeness, for example by random sampling, case selection in small-n research usually follows an intentional logic. Intentional does not, however, mean arbitrary. In the end, the types of cases you select determine which inferences you can draw.
Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has focused on the causes,... more Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has focused on the causes, conditions, and patterns of differentiation in European integration. By contrast, we know less about its effects on institutional outcomes and public support; moreover, alternatives to de jure DI in providing flexibility are still rarely accounted for. This introduction to the special issue takes stock of, and discusses omissions, in the current literature on DI. We propose an analytical framework, centering on efficiency and legitimacy, to study the effects of different types of DI. We use this framework to motivate the choice and assess the contributions of the articles selected for this special issue.
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