Kim Sass Mikkelsen

Negative Case Selection: Justifications and Consequences for Set-Theoretic MMR

The combined usage of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and process tracing (PT) in set-theoretic multi-method research (MMR) holds great potential for reaching valid inferences. Established views of case selection after QCA hold that studying negative cases provides lessons about the causes of an outcome in a limited set of circumstances. In particular, recommendations focus on negative cases only if they contradict the analysis or if suitably similar positive match cases exist to leverage comparisons. By contrast, I argue that set-theoretic MMR can gain from studying negative cases even when these conditions do not hold. First, negative cases can give insights into why an outcome fails to occur. Second, they can help guard against theoretical inconsistency between explanations for the outcome and its absence. Third, they can ensure that the mechanisms producing the outcome and its absence are not too similar to be logically capable of resulting in different outcomes. Following these arguments, I recommend that studies of negative cases in set-theoretic MMR focus on failure mechanisms in carefully bounded populations, search for theoretical inconsistency among mechanisms, and focus in part on the mechanism proposed to produce the outcome.

Fuzzy-Set Case Studies.

Contemporary case studies rely on verbal arguments and set theory to build or evaluate theoretical claims. While existing procedures excel in the use of qualitative information (information about kind), they ignore quantitative information (information about degree) at central points of the analysis. Effectively, contemporary case studies rely on crisp sets. In this article, I make the case for fuzzy-set case studies. I argue that the mechanisms that are the focal points of contemporary case study methods can be modeled as set-theoretic causal structures. I show how case study claims translate into sufficiency statements. And I show how these statements can be evaluated using fuzzy-set tools. This procedure permits the use of both qualitative and quantitative information throughout a case study. As a consequence, the analysis can determine whether one or more cases are both qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with its claims. Or whether some or all cases are consistent by kind but not by degree.

Old habits die hard, sometimes: history and civil service politicization in Europe

This article examines relationships between historical administrative systems and civil service politicization across Europe. I argue that to appreciate when and how history matters, we need to consider public service bargains struck between politicians and senior bureaucrats. Doing so complicates the relationship between historical and current administrative systems: a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century state infrastructure is necessary for the depoliticization of ministerial bureaucracies in present-day Western Europe. However, the relationship does not hold in East-Central Europe since administrative histories are tumultuous and fractured. Combining data from across the European continent, I provide evidence in support of these propositions. Points for practitioners This article addresses policymakers dealing with reforms of personnel policy regimes at the centre of government. It considers the importance of history for politically attractive reforms, as well as the limits of this importance. I argue that 18th-century state infrastructures shape the extent to which political appointments are politically attractive tools for administrative control. I show that only in countries that feature a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century infrastructure are ministerial top management occupied by a permanent, as opposed to politically appointed, staff. However, in East-Central Europe, a ruptured administrative history ensures that the distant past does not similarly shape the extent of political appointments.

Book Review: Comparative: Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies

Canada) to test his theory. In each, Jacobs examines the conditions under which governments designed, implemented and eventually reformed pension systems. This approach allows for clear parallels to emerge (both between countries and over time) in how governments systematically imposed short-term costs to ensure adequate retirement incomes and fiscal sustainability over the long term. Jacobs’ treatment of each case is comprehensive and convincing. However, one gets the sense that the theory may have been more inductively grounded had it been substantiated against other fields of reform, such as financial regulation or environmental policy. This, however, speaks to the book’s theoretical value in that it lends itself so logically to analytical generalisation across policy fields. In light of Jacobs’ empirically innovative treatment of this important topic, this book is certain to be of interest to specialists in comparative politics, students of public policy and general readers alike. Overall, Jacobs’ contribution here has been to identify the processes through which governments manage the vagaries of democratic politics when engaging in long-term policy trade-offs. In doing so, he discredits the analytically convenient conception of governments as short-term vote maximisers. True enough, democracies bear myriad social and political structures designed to obviate considerations of intergenerational equity. However, a theory of the conditions under which governments are able to work around and within these structures is a valuable contribution to our understanding of how our political leaders will continue to govern for the long term.

Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies by Petr Kopecký , Peter Mair and Maria Spirova (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 415pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 0 19 959937 0

Canada) to test his theory. In each, Jacobs examines the conditions under which governments designed, implemented and eventually reformed pension systems. This approach allows for clear parallels to emerge (both between countries and over time) in how governments systematically imposed short-term costs to ensure adequate retirement incomes and fiscal sustainability over the long term. Jacobs’ treatment of each case is comprehensive and convincing. However, one gets the sense that the theory may have been more inductively grounded had it been substantiated against other fields of reform, such as financial regulation or environmental policy. This, however, speaks to the book’s theoretical value in that it lends itself so logically to analytical generalisation across policy fields. In light of Jacobs’ empirically innovative treatment of this important topic, this book is certain to be of interest to specialists in comparative politics, students of public policy and general readers alike. Overall, Jacobs’ contribution here has been to identify the processes through which governments manage the vagaries of democratic politics when engaging in long-term policy trade-offs. In doing so, he discredits the analytically convenient conception of governments as short-term vote maximisers. True enough, democracies bear myriad social and political structures designed to obviate considerations of intergenerational equity. However, a theory of the conditions under which governments are able to work around and within these structures is a valuable contribution to our understanding of how our political leaders will continue to govern for the long term.