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Relationships Among Rivals (RAR): A Framework for Analyzing Contending Hypotheses in Process Tracing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2017

Sherry Zaks
Sherry Zaks*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Political Science, 210 Barrows Hall #1950, Berkeley, CA 94720-1950, USA
*
*Email: sherry.zaks@berkeley.edu
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Abstract

Methodologists and substantive scholars alike agree that one of process tracing’s foremost contributions to qualitative research is its capacity to adjudicate among competing explanations of a phenomenon. Existing approaches, however, only provide explicit guidance on dealing with mutually exclusive explanations, which are exceedingly rare in social science research. I develop a tripartite solution to this problem. The Relationships among Rivals (RAR) framework (1) introduces a typology of relationships between alternative hypotheses, (2) develops specific guidelines for identifying which relationship is present between two hypotheses, and (3) maps out the varied implications for evidence collection and inference. I then integrate the RAR framework into each of the main process-tracing approaches and demonstrate how it affects the inferential process. Finally, I illustrate the purchase of the RAR framework by reanalyzing a seminal example of process-tracing research: Schultz’s (2001) analysis of the Fashoda Crisis. I show that the same evidence can yield new and sometimes contradictory inferences once scholars approach comparative hypothesis testing with this more nuanced framework.

Type
Articles
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 344 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. 

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Footnotes

Author’s note: I am beyond grateful to the colleagues, friends, and two anonymous reviewers who have read and commented on earlier drafts of this article. Sarah E. Parkinson, David Walder, Jack Paine, and Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor have provided invaluable feedback across many iterations of the manuscript—always pushing me to think more clearly and more boldly about the logic of process tracing. Finally, this manuscript would never have taken shape were it not for many conversations with David Collier.

Contributing Editor: Jonathan N. Katz

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