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This chapter discusses quantitative and qualitative practices of case-study selection when the goal of the analysis is to evaluate causal hypotheses. More specifically, it considers how the different causal models used in the qualitative and quantitative research cultures shape the kind of cases that provide the most leverage for hypothesis testing. The chapter examines whether one should select cases based on their value on the dependent variable. It also evaluates the kinds of cases that provide the most leverage for causal inference when conducting case-study research. It shows that differences in research goals between quantitative and qualitative scholars yield distinct ideas about best strategies of case selection. Qualitative research places emphasis on explaining particular cases; quantitative research does not.

The Introduction discusses the practical, as well as theoretical, relevance of studying selection mechanisms for heads of state in parliamentary systems. It briefly reviews the relevant constitutional debates in a variety of democracies. This chapter then introduces the main concerns with presidential elections: Do direct elections enhance presidents' legitimacy thereby increasing their activism and encouraging authoritarian tendencies? Are direct elections more heavily contested, partisan, polarizing, and divisive? Do direct elections help decrease voter alienation and apathy? This chapter concludes with an overview of the cases and methodologies used throughout this book.

Part One sets up the analytical framework which informs the analysis in the rest of the book. It begins by bringing together key elements from relevant bodies of literature. The first section discusses key concepts from the gender and politics literature, looking at women as political actors and how political institutions and policies are gendered. The second section considers some of the key elements of the democratization literature that are useful for any gendered analysis of transitions. It divides processes of democratization into stages, and then examines central themes such as institutional choice, political parties, economic reform and the international environment. On the basis of the preceding discussions, the final section of this part outlines the framework of analysis and the case selection operationalized in subsequent parts.

Provides a discussion of issues relating to research design and experimental methods in political science. Issues are elaborated relating to control and random case selection, internal and external validity, identification of mediating variables, and replication. Examples of experimental contributions in political science are outlined in the fields of public opinion research, decision‐making and information processing, collective action, public choice, and public policy. Experimentation represents a burgeoning cutting‐edge approach in the future of political science research.

The previous chapter proposed that biologic studies comparing cases with controls often correspond well to the case-control design. This chapter shows how this perspective can be useful for advancing biological psychiatry, focusing on the selection and the definition of cases in biologic studies. It argues that in biological studies comparing cases and controls, the principles developed by epidemiologists for the selection of cases in ordinary case-control studies can often be put in practice and substantially strengthen the design. However, these practices would impose unnecessary constraints on some biological studies in psychiatry, and their application must always be tailored to yield a net advantage.

This chapter considers the dynamic process of case selection and its role in generating the different patterns of change of legal remedies in various areas of the law. It examines the importance of the win-loss ratios (essentially, what a plaintiff stands to win if litigation is successful versus what he stands to lose if it is not) and the prospect of success of legal claims for the resulting process of legal change. Section 1 briefly assesses existing explanations of the process of legal change and reviews the seminal papers that evaluate the process of selection of disputes as an ingredient of the efficient evolution of legal rules. Section 2 proposes a model that evaluates the impact of case selection on legal evolution in different litigation contexts, highlighting the interaction among selection of disputes, litigation stakes in the case, and litigation costs, as well as their impact on legal change.

This chapter defines important concepts such as ‘party funding regime’ and ‘private’, ‘public’, and ‘illegal’ sources of income of political parties. The differentiation of significant/insignificant and of public/private sources of income leads to four different cases being relevant for an examination of the politics of party funding: Germany is selected as a case where both public and private contributions play a significant role for the funding of political parties. Sweden is selected as a case where only public funding plays a significant role, whereas in Britain parties rely almost exclusively on private contributions. France is selected as a case where, at least up to 1988, neither public nor private, but illegal contributions (i.e. political corruption) were the only significant source of parties' income. The chapter concludes by analysing the conceptual problems that arise from the attempt to link highly complex phenomena such as party or party system change to developments in party funding regimes. Party funding regimes, it is argued, are a dependent rather than an independent variable.

In common law systems, top-level appellate courts hear argument and give full judgements in only a relatively small proportion of cases brought to them. In 2001, the House of Lords disposed of 269 petitions for leave to appeal, allowing 68 to go forward to a full hearing (25%). The US Supreme Court was presented with 7,924 petitions for criterion and heard argument in 88 cases (1%). This chapter argues that we must take the process and product of case selection seriously. Choosing cases is far more than just a way to limit the workload of the court to a manageable size. The main significance of case selection is that it enables a court to define its constitutional role and power. As such, it is vital that case selection be carried out in accordance with relevant constitutional principles, notably that it is a transparent procedure with opportunities for scrutinizing outcomes.

Comparative constitutional law’s methodological matrix is fuzzy and amorphous. A close look at social science methods suggests a toolkit of considerations to be addressed in conducting comparative constitutional inquiry, thus supporting various types of comparative constitutional studies. The meanings, purposes, and modes of comparative inquiry in contemporary comparative constitutional studies are identified; some basic principles of case selection and research design employed in inference-oriented small-N studies are presented; and the emerging world of multivariate, large-N studies is explored. It is argued that no research method enjoys an a priori advantage over another without taking into account the scope and nature of the studied phenomenon or the question the research purports to address. Thus, attempts to outline an “official” comparative method are not only unrealistic but also unwise. Comparative constitutionalists should settle instead on a set of several more sensible guiding principles, common rules of casuality, and a multi-method approach.

The Comparative Agendas Project is among other things a retrieval system and as such can be leveraged for qualitative case-oriented research. This chapter aims to demonstrate CAP’s usefulness for such qualitative analysis, starting from case selection, going through familiarization with the case of interest and ending with a collection of the needed evidence. After explaining each phase in case-oriented research and the role CAP can play, each use is demonstrated using CAP data from Spain and the United States. The case selection procedure is demonstrated using the concept of policy drift, and the familiarization and evidence collection through childcare policy.

This chapter examines the relationship between gravity and global adjudicative authority—the global community’s right to create adjudicative institutions, and for those institutions to adjudicate crimes. It argues that such authority is justified when two conditions are met: first, there must be a globally shared norm proscribing the conduct and subjecting violators to criminal sanction; and, second, the global community’s adjudicative goals must be sufficiently important to outweigh any countervailing goals, particularly those of relevant national communities. Additionally, to best promote the regime’s legitimacy, the situations and cases adjudicated must be those that achieve the global community’s most important goals most efficiently. The chapter proposes a reconceptualization of gravity to help ensure these conditions are met.

The chapter concludes the book, revisiting the framework of “constituting” rights as a construction that allows us to recognize the practical importance of law, reason and social fact in bringing economic and social rights into reality. It examines the interchangeability of constitutional and human rights, in light of their normative emphasis on individual freedom and dignity, and their shared conceptual treatment of the state. It also suggests that extensive links between international human rights and constitutional rights are established through transjudicial dialogue, borrowing, common structures of reasoning and interpretation, and transnational movements. It argues that norm divergence, and democratic concerns are not sufficient to warrant a separate analysis. This chapter also notes the areas of private law that demand further attention in light of economic and social rights. Finally, it offers a justification for the broad selection of comparative examples offered in the book.

Scholars often pay insufficient attention to bridging the research divide between different world regions. The authors argue that structured qualitative comparisons across world regions offer a sound middle ground for the integration of universal approaches and context knowledge. The chapter puts forward suggestions about how to deal with challenges in cross-area comparisons at the conceptual, methodological, and practical level. First, scholars should integrate region-centered academic discourses to foster conceptual advancement and empirical research, thereby overcoming the restricted horizons of specific knowledge communities. Second, systematic research designs and case-selection criteria should be aligned with area awareness to reap the benefits of cross-regional CAS. Third, the authors’ notion of “applied CAS” implies that practical considerations for successful comparative research must be understood as an important constituent of any successful research strategy. Cross-area comparisons are indispensable if social science aims to provide truly universal explanations in touch with the diverse realities of a globalized world.

To develop arguments about international law we often must study how different countries act. International courts, casebook and textbook authors, and other scholars often reference the practices of foreign states. International lawyers are well aware of the need of comparison. What we lack is the toolkit to select and develop these comparative analyses. As a result, comparisons often focus on countries that share strong linguistic, cultural, legal, and political ties, which is not always analytically ideal. This chapter synthesizes key findings to the following questions, and applies them to fundamental questions in international law: How can we know whether we are cherry-picking examples that favor our preferred conclusions? When is it best to develop examples from countries that are very different from one’s own, and when should one focus on similar ones? How should one define similarity? And finally, which aspects of foreign systems are most relevant for particular inquiries?

This chapter demonstrates the significance of this book’s research questions, provides definitions of key concepts, summarizes major arguments, lays out research methodology, describes case selection and empirical data, and previews each of the subsequent chapters. Using some empirical cases from rural China with varying quality and institutional foundations of governance, this chapter shows the significance of this book’s research questions. After briefly reviewing contemporary literature on local governance, institutional performance, and institutional change, this chapter provides definitions for two key concepts: indigenously developed institutions and externally imposed institutions. This chapter then summarizes this book’s key arguments and describes the research methodology, case selection, and empirical data. This chapter also presents a diagram to summarize this book’s multilevel system of propositions and to illustrate the role of each empirical chapter in testing this book’s arguments. This chapter concludes with a preview of subsequent chapters.

The chapter proposes a two-step research design that combines systematic process-tracing of individual policy processes inside the European Commission with a focused comparison structured along the analytical framework in Chapter 2. It outlines a systematic sampling procedure that results in a set of 48 legislative proposals from the Prodi and Barroso I Commissions (1999–2009) which fall into the three policy areas (intersection of social and market policies, research and innovation policy, as well as consumer policy). The chapter then outlines the major data sources used to re-construct the legislative process inside the European Commission. Here, particular emphasis is given to the 153 semi-structured expert interviews with involved Commission officials. Taken together, the chapter supplies the reader with all the necessary information on the empirical basis for the subsequent chapters.

Discussing several methods of comparative legal research and emphasizing upon the point that the two or more systems to be compared should not either be so similar that there is nothing for the one to learn from the other, nor should they be so dissimilar that there is no relationship whatsoever between them. Following this principle, this chapter finds that there is enough similarity as well as dissimilarity between the Indian legal system and the legal system of the European Union. Acknowledging that fact, the chapter then proceeds to compare some of the aspects of European and Indian legal systems from which both of them may benefit.

This introduction begins by noting that migrants are effecting political change in their country of origin and then sets the book’s agenda, which aims to document the circumstances under which a change is most likely to occur. This chapter also provides statistics of the phenomenon and particularly compelling cases of individuals. The chapter provides a map for the reader of how the book will proceed and explains the author’s case selection and how he came to choose Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador for the case studies. It also sets out the relationship of the current work to the scholarly literature and underlines the ways in which this book is different.