| Methodology |
Méthodologie |
| The comparative method is – together with the experimental method, the statistical method and the case study approach – one of the four fundamental scientific methods which can be used to test the validity of theoretical propositions, often with the use of empirical data i.e. to establish relationships among two or more empirical variables or concepts while all other variables are held constant.[6] |
La méthode comparative est - avec les méthodes expérimentale et statistique et l'étude de cas - une des 4 méthodes scientifiques fondamentales pouvant être utilisées pour tester la validité de propositions théoriques, souvent par l'utilisation de données empiriques, c'est-à-dire pour établir des relations entre deux ou plusieurs variables empiriques ou concepts pendant que les autres variables restent constantes. |
| In particular, the comparative method is generally used when neither the experimental nor the statistical method can be employed: on the one hand, experiments can only rarely be conducted in political science;[7] on the other hand the statistical method implies the mathematical manipulation of quantitative data about a large number of cases, while sometimes political research must be conducted by analyzing the behavior of qualitative variables in a small number of cases. |
En particulier, la méthode comparative est généralement utilisée quand ni la méthode expérimentale, ni la méthode statistique ne peuvent être employées : d'un côté les expériences peuvent rarement être menées en sciences politiques et de l'autre la méthode statistique implique une manipulation mathématique de données quantitatives sur un large nombre de cas, tandis que les recherches peuvent parfois être conduites par l'analyse du comportement des variables quantitatives dans un petit nombre de cas. |
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| Comparative strategies |
Stratégies comparatives. |
| Two major strategies are used in comparative research. |
Deux stratégies majeures sont utilisées en recherche comparative. |
| [9] |
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| Most Similar Systems Design/Mill's Method of Difference: it consists in comparing very similar cases which only differ in the dependent variable, on the assumption that this would make it easier to find those independent variables which explain the presence/absence of the dependent variable. |
La méthode de différenciation Design/Mill's des systèmes les plus ressemblants : elle consiste a comparer deux cas très similaires qui ne diffèrent qu'en des variables indépendantes sur la supposition qu'il serait plus simple de trouver ces variables indépendantes qui expliquent la présence ou l'absence de variables dépendantes. |
| Most Similar Systems Design, or MSSD, is very helpful since it compares similar objects, it keeps many otherwise confusing and irrelevant variables in the research constant. |
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| In a basic sense, MSSD starts out with similar variables between subjects and tries to figure out why the outcome is different between the subjects. |
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| The main shortcoming that is said about this method is that when comparing countries, since there are such a limited number of them, all potential factors of explanation can never be kept altogether constant. |
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| As such, despite many possibilities of variables, there are only a limited number of cases to apply them to. |
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| There are two methods of applying MSSD, the first being a stricter application and the second being a more loose application. |
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| The stricter application implies that a researcher would choose various countries that have a number of similar variables, also called control variables, and would only different from each other by one single independent variable. |
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| The looser application uses the same general concept, but the researcher chooses countries that have similar characteristics but those characteristics are not strictly matched to a set of control variables. |
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| Because of the complications of so many variables but not enough cases, a second method was devolved to be used in conjunction with MSSD. |
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| [10] |
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| Most Different Systems Design/Mill's Method of Similarity: it consists in comparing very different cases, all of which however have in common the same dependent variable, so that any other circumstance which is present in all the cases can be regarded as the independent variable. |
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| Most Different Systems Design, or MDSD, differs from MSSD with focus and the fact that it does not take a strict variable application. |
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| MDSD uses differences between countries instead of similarities between countries as variables because social scientists have found that differences between countries do not explain their possible similarities if they have any. |
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| A more basic idea of MDSD is it takes subjects with different variables within them and tries to figure out why the outcomes between them are similar in the end. |
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| When using MDSD as a comparative research method, scientists look at changing interactions between systems in countries and then after all data is collected, the results are compared between the different systems. |
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| If the results obtained from this research differ between each other, the researcher must move up to the system level and switch to the MSSD method. |
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| When using MSSD as a comparative research approach, there is the independent and depend variable that get introduced, specifically the dependent variable being something that is common in all the research subjects and the independent variable which would be the differing characteristic between the research subjects. |
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| MSSD is more precise and strict at finding the differing point along with similarities, but MDSD does not have so many variables and only focuses on finding one similarity or difference between a wide selection of systems. |
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