Applied Social Science Methodology

John Gerring is Professor of Government at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of several books, including Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework, 2nd edition (Cambridge, 2012) and Case Study Research: Principles and Practices, 2nd edition (Cambridge, forthcoming, 2017). He is also co-editor of the Cambridge series, Strategies for Social Inquiry. Dino Christenson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston University and a Faculty Affiliate at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering at Boston University. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior and Social Networks, among other publications.

• Preface; Part I. Building Blocks: 1. A unified framework; 2. Arguments; 3. Concepts and measures; 4. Analyses; Part II. Causality: 5. Causal frameworks; 6. Causal hypotheses and analyses; 7. Experimental designs; 8. Large-N observational designs; 9. Case study designs; 10. Diverse tools of causal inference; Part III. Process and Presentation: 11. Reading and reviewing; 12. Brainstorming; 13. Data gathering; 14. Writing; 15. Speaking; 16. Ethics; Part IV. Statistics: 17. Data management; 18. Univariate statistics; 19. Probability distributions; 20. Statistical inference; 21. Bivariate statistics; 22. Regression; 23. Causal inference; 24. Appendix; References; Index.

'An excellent guide to the main approaches and issues of social science research design. It offers a clear guide through the thicket of terms and concepts with effective use of examples. A valuable work for students of any level.' Kenneth Benoit, London School of Economics and Political Science