Between Complexity and Parsimony: Limited Diversity, Counterfactual Cases, and Comparative Analysis
Counterfactual analysis has a long and distinguished history in comparative research. To some, counterfactual analysis is central to comparative inquiry because such research typically embraces only a handful of empirical cases If there are only a few instances (e.g., of revolution), then researchers, of necessity, must compare empirical cases to hypothetical cases. The affinity between counterfactual analysis and comparative research, however, derives not from its focus on small 1s, but from its configurational nature. Caseoriented explanations of outcomes are often combinatorial in nature, stressing specific configurations of causal conditions. Rather than focus on the QHW HIIHFWV of causal conditions, case-oriented explanations emphasize their FRPELQHG HIIHFWV.