Patrick A. Mello is a visiting scholar at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt and privatdozent at the TUM School of Governance of the Technical University of Munich. He is the author of Democratic Participation in Armed Conflict: Military Involvement in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, winner of the 2015 Dissertation Award from the German Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in journals such as Foreign Policy Analysis, European Journal of International Security, and the British Journal of Politics and International Relations.

• List of Boxes, Figures, and TablesPrefaceAcknowledgments1. IntroductionWhat Is Qualitative Comparative Analysis?How To Use This BookThe QCA Research CycleA Brief History of QCATrends in QCA ApplicationsBook OutlineNotes 2. Research DesignResearch QuestionsUses of QCACase SelectionCondition SelectionMulti-Method Research DesignsA Survey of Empirical ApplicationsNotes3. Set TheoryCrisp and Fuzzy SetsSet OperationsTruth TablesNecessary and Sufficient ConditionsAssessing Set RelationsNotes 4. Causation and Causal ComplexityTheories of Causation in the Social SciencesCausal ComplexityCausal AnalysisNotes5. Calibrating SetsMeasurement and CalibrationCalibration ProceduresTypes of DataThe Direct Method of CalibrationCalibration: Applied ExamplesCommon Misconceptions about CalibrationGood Practices of CalibrationNotes 6. Measures of FitSet-Theoretic ConsistencySet-Theoretic CoverageProportional Reduction in InconsistencyRelevance of NecessityNotes7. Set-Theoretic AnalysisAnalyzing Necessary ConditionsTruth Table ConstructionTruth Table AnalysisSolution TermsCounterfactual AnalysisNotes8. QCA VariantsMulti-Value QCATemporal QCATwo-Step QCAFuzzy Set Ideal Type AnalysisRelated Methods and ApproachesNotes9. QCA and Its CriticsAnalytical RobustnessComparisons with Other MethodsFormalization and AlgorithmsCausal Analysis and Solution TermsRecognizing QCA’s Strengths and LimitationsNotes10. ConclusionGood Research PracticeDocumenting and Communicating QCA ResultsQCA ResourcesThe Way AheadNotesAppendix: Link to Online R ManualGlossaryReferencesIndexAbout the Author

Mello’s book especially stands out from other publications on QCA in three different areas: the chapters on research design (Chapter II), QCA and its critics (Chapter IX) and the online ‘R Manual’ that accompanies the publication. These elements are especially interesting given the fact they are not discussed in many texts on QCA, thus filling an additional gap in the literature on the method.