Social Science Methodology

John Gerring's exceptional textbook has been thoroughly revised in this second edition. It offers a one-volume introduction to social science methodology relevant to the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. This new edition has been extensively developed with the introduction of new material and a thorough treatment of essential elements such as conceptualization, measurement, causality and research design. It is written for students, long-time practitioners and methodologists and covers both qualitative and quantitative methods. It synthesizes the vast and diverse field of methodology in a way that is clear, concise and comprehensive. While offering a handy overview of the subject, the book is also an argument about how we should conceptualize methodological problems. Thinking about methodology through this lens provides a new framework for understanding work in the social sciences.

John Gerring is Professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he teaches courses on methodology and comparative politics. He has published several books including Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework (Cambridge, 2001), Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (Cambridge, 2007) and A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (Cambridge, 2008). He served as a fellow of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, as a member of The National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Evaluation of USAID Programs to Support the Development of Democracy, as President of the American Political Science Association's Organized Section on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research and is the current recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation to collect historical data related to colonialism and long-term development.