Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework

Citation

Gerring, J. (2012). Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The second edition has fifteen chapters in about 400 pages, followed by a short note on style, a glossary of roughly forty pages and a bibliography of almost fifty. The chapters fall into five groups: an opening overview, three chapters titled Beginnings, Arguments and Analyses, three on concepts, description and measurement, five on causation, and three closing chapters on unity, standards and justification. The publisher presents it as a one-volume introduction to social science methodology for anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology, covering qualitative and quantitative methods, and as an argument about how methodological problems should be conceptualized.

Chapter 1: A Unified Framework

The overview, about twenty-five pages. It presents the book's idea that methodology across the social sciences can be organized in one framework. The first edition, published in 2001 as Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework, already used criteria as its organizing device, and this edition revises and extends it.

Chapters 2–4: Beginnings; Arguments; Analyses

The first group after the overview, about eighty pages in all. The titles suggest a progression from the starting points of a project to the arguments and analyses built on them, before the book turns to specific tasks.

Chapters 5–7: Concepts; Descriptive Arguments; Measurements

The descriptive half of the book. Concepts are treated first, then descriptive arguments, then measurement. The publisher lists conceptualization and measurement among the essential elements that the new edition treats thoroughly.

Chapters 8–12: Causal Arguments; Causal Analyses; Causal Strategies: X and Y; Causal Strategies: Beyond X and Y; Varying Approaches to Causal Inference

The longest section, with five chapters. It moves from what a causal argument is to how causal claims are analysed and then to strategies for establishing them, first for a single cause and an outcome, then beyond that simple pair, and ends with a chapter on different approaches to causal inference.

Chapters 13–15: Unity and Plurality; Setting Standards; Justifications

The closing chapters step back to the question in the book's title. They ask how far social science methodology is a single enterprise or a plurality of approaches, what standards research should meet, and how those standards can be justified.

Back matter: A Few Words on Style; Glossary; References

A short note on style, a glossary of roughly forty pages and references. The glossary is a useful feature for a reader who meets new terms.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: Framework and arguments

• Unified framework: the idea that one set of criteria can organise methodology across qualitative and quantitative work.
• Arguments and analyses: the topics of the second and third chapters of the group that follows the overview.

Chapters 5–7: Concepts and description

• Concepts and conceptualization: how the terms of a theory are formed and defined.
• Descriptive arguments: claims that characterise the world, treated in a chapter of their own before causation.
• Measurement: how concepts are made observable.

Chapters 8–12: Causation

• Causal arguments and analyses: how claims about cause are formulated and examined.
• Causal inference strategies: approaches to establishing that one thing causes another, including those that go beyond a simple cause-and-outcome pair.

Chapters 13–15: Standards

• Unity and plurality: the question whether social science methodology is one thing or many.
• Standards and justifications: how criteria for good research are set and defended.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Breadth of scope. The publisher describes a one-volume introduction relevant to six disciplines and covering both qualitative and quantitative methods, so it can serve students whose subjects use different evidence.
• A task-based organisation. Chapter titles follow the steps of a research project: concepts, description, measurement and several chapters on causation. A reader can find the chapter for a particular problem without reading everything.
• Description given its own place. Descriptive arguments have a chapter of their own, with concepts and measurement before and after it, ahead of the five chapters on causation.
• Reference aids. The glossary of about forty pages and the long bibliography support use as a reference book.
• A revised, extended edition. The publisher says the second edition has been thoroughly revised with new material on conceptualization, measurement, causality and research design.

Limitations

• An argument as well as a survey. The publisher says the book is also an argument about how methodological problems should be conceptualized. Students should treat its framework as one position and compare it with other accounts of research design.
• Organised by tasks, not by techniques. The contents list has no chapters devoted to specific procedures such as fieldwork or a particular statistical method, so readers who need step-by-step instruction will need other texts.
• Long and dense. About 400 pages of text plus glossary and bibliography make it a book for a methods seminar rather than for a quick introduction.
• Dated 2011. Methods developed since then, including later work on causal inference, are not covered.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the broadest book in the research methods list. The Craft of Political Research is a short, nontechnical introduction concentrating on the choices researchers make, and The Fundamentals of Political Science Research teaches causal theories and then statistics up to multiple regression; Political Research: Methods and Practical Skills moves from philosophy of social science to practical collection and analysis. Any of these is a gentler first step before Gerring.

Designing Social Inquiry is the closest companion: its authors argue that qualitative and quantitative research share one logic of inference, and Gerring likewise seeks common standards, addressing six disciplines and giving separate chapters to concepts, description and measurement. Analyzing Politics by Shepsle is different in kind, an introduction to rational choice and formal theory rather than to research design. Read Gerring after one of the introductions and alongside King, Keohane and Verba.

How to Use This Book

It suits graduate students and advanced undergraduates preparing a thesis or taking a methods seminar, and anyone who needs a map of how social science research hangs together. Some acquaintance with an introductory methods course will make the chapters on causation easier.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapter 1, then Chapters 5–7 on concepts, description and measurement, then Chapters 8–12 on causation.
• Skim or defer: Chapters 2–4 if you already work comfortably with arguments and analyses, and Chapters 13–15 until you have a project of your own to apply them to.
• Reference: use the glossary whenever a term is unfamiliar, and the references to locate the literatures behind each chapter.
• Apply: take a paper from your field and map it onto the book's categories: its concepts, its descriptive and causal arguments, its measurements and its strategy of inference.