Comparative history research is a social science method that examines historical events to create valid explanations outside of certain times and places, either by direct comparison to other historical events, theoretical development, or references to the present day. Generally, it involves comparisons of social processes across time and place. This overlaps with historical sociology. While historical discipline and sociology are always connected, they have been connected in different ways at different times. This form of research can use several theoretical orientations. It is distinguished by the type of question it asks, not the theoretical framework it uses.
Video Comparative historical research
Primary researcher
Some commentators have identified three waves of historical comparative research. The first wave of historical comparative research concerns how societies become modern, based on individual and rational action, with precise definitions varying greatly. Some of the main researchers in this mode are Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The second wave reacts to the body of perceived theories and tries to show how the social system is not static, but evolves over time. Leading authors of this wave include Barrington Moore, Jr., Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly, Michael Mann, and Mark Gould. Some have placed Annales and Pierre Bourdieu schools in this general group, regardless of their style differences. The current wave of sociology of historical comparative research is often but not exclusively post-structural in its theoretical orientation. Current influential authors include Julia Adams, Anne Laura Stoler, Philip Gorski, and James Mahoney.
Maps Comparative historical research
Recent Studies
Studies of comparative properties have occurred in recent years. For a PhD dissertation this could be the approach used. One example is comparing minority and social communities and groups. Mordechai Zaken compares two non-Muslim minorities in Kurdistan, Judaism and Assyrian Christians in their relationship with Muslim rulers and their chiefs during the 19th and 20th centuries. His comparative study provides a clearer picture of the status of minorities and their relationship with the ruling elites in and around Kurdistan. His PhD dissertation and the online book that became the basis of his dissemination have been widespread and translated into local languages ​​in Kurdistan and beyond.
Method
There are four main methods used by researchers to collect historical data. These are archive data, secondary sources, walking notes, and recollections. Archive data, or primary sources, is usually the most reliable resource by researchers. Archive data including official documents and other items to be found in archives, museums, etc. Secondary sources are the works of other historians who have written history. Ongoing records are a set of statistical data or other data types, such as census data, vessel registration, property deeds, etc. Finally, recollections include sources such as autobiographies, memoirs or diaries.
There are four stages, as discussed by Schutt, for comparative qualitative comparative historical studies: (1) develop the premise of inquiry, identify events, concepts, etc., which may explain phenomena; (2) selecting case (location, region) to be examined; (3) using what Theda Skocpol calls "interpretative historical sociology" and examining its similarities and differences; and (4) based on the information collected, proposed a causal explanation for the phenomenon.
The key issues in methods for historical comparative research are derived from incomplete historical data, the complexity and scale of social systems, and the nature of the questions asked. Historical data is a set of data that is difficult to use due to several factors. These data sets can be highly biased, such as diaries, memoirs, letters, all influenced not only by the person who wrote it, the world view of the person but also can, logically, be associated with the individual's economic and social status. In this way data can be damaged/tilt. Historical data do not care or not or may be unbiased (diary vs official document) are also vulnerable to time. Time can crush fragile paper, ink fades to unreadable, war, environmental catastrophes can destroy data and special interest groups can destroy large amounts of data to serve specific purposes while they are alive, etc. Therefore, data is naturally incomplete and can lead social scientists to many obstacles in their research. Often historical comparative research is a broad and broad topic such as how democracy evolved in three specific areas. Tracking how democracy evolves is a daunting task for one country or region let alone three. Here the scale of the social system, which is trying to be studied, is extraordinary but also of extreme complexity. In each case there are different social systems that can influence the development of society and its political system. Factors must be separated and analyzed so that causality can be achieved. This is causality that leads us to another key problem in historical comparative research methods, the nature of the question being asked is to try to propose a causal relationship between a set of variables. Determining causality alone is a difficult task; coupled with the incomplete nature of historical data and the complexity and scale of the social systems used to examine the causality of tasks become more challenging.
Identify features
Three problems of historical comparative research identifiers are causal relationships, processes over time, and comparisons. As mentioned above the causal relationship is difficult to support even though we make a causal assumption every day. Schutt discusses five criteria, which must be met to have a causal relationship. Of the three, the first three are the most important: association, timing, and impartiality. The association means that between two variables; changes in one variable related to changes in other variables. The time sequence refers to the fact that the cause (independent variable) must be proven to occur first and the effect (dependent variable) has occurred second. Nonspuriousness says that the relationship between the two variables is not due to the third variable. The last two criteria are; identify causal mechanisms - how connections/associations between variables are suspected - and the context in which these relationships occur. Deterministic causal approaches require that in each study, independent and dependent variables have associations, and in that study each case (nation, region) independent variables have an effect on the dependent variable.
John Stuart Mill devised five methods for analyzing systematic observations and making more accurate assumptions about causality. The Mill method discusses; direct method of agreement, method of difference, joint method of agreement and difference, method of residual and method of concurrent variation. Mill methods are usually the most useful when causality is suspected and hence can be a tool to eliminate other explanations. Some methodologists argue that the Mill method can not provide evidence that variations in one variable are caused by variations of other variables.
Difficulty
There are some difficulties faced by historical comparative research. James Mahoney, one of the leading figures in historical comparative research, identified some of them in his book "Comparative Historical Analysis in Social Sciences." Mahoney highlighted key issues such as how micro-level studies can be incorporated into macro-level areas of historical comparative research, a mature problem for historical comparative research that continues to remain neglected, such as law, and the issue of whether historical comparative research should be approached as science or approached as history. This is one of the more common debates nowadays, often arguably between Theda Skocpol, which stands on a historical approach, and Kiser and Hechter, who are advocates of a scientific view who must seek general causal principles. Both Kiser and Hechter use models in the Rational Choice Theory for their general causal principles. The historian who opposes them (Skocpol, Summers, others) argues that Kiser and Hechter do not suggest many other plausible general theories, and thus it seems as though their advocacy for general theories is actually an advocate for the general theory they favor. They also raised other criticisms using rational choice theory in historical comparative research.
The role of general theory
In the last few decades, historically comparative researchers have debated the role of the general theory of the right. The two main players in this debate are Edgar Kiser and Michael Hechter. They argue that it is important to use general theory in order to test the results of research that has been done. They do not argue that a specific theory is better than any other theory that only needs to be used. The theory of their choice is a rational choice. One of the main problems is that everyone has a different concept of what theory is and what makes things into theory. Some of their opponents felt that any theory could be tested and they argued that some theories could not. Kiser and Hecter recognize that this is a growing field and their perspectives may change in the future.
The historical-comparative method can be seen in The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe . Researcher Julia Adams refers to the work of original archives and secondary sources to analyze how merchant families compete with noble families for influence in the early modern Dutch Republic. He argues that the contest resulted in political institutions becoming a modern Dutch state, often making references to Britain and France. He used feminist theory to explain elements of the Dutch Republic, such as the patriarchal kinship structure in the ruling family, expanded on earlier theories about how the modern state emerged. This is an illustration of how historical comparison analysis uses common case and theory.
See also
- Reinhard Bendix
- Comparative sociology
References
Further reading
- Mahoney, James. 2004. "Comparative-History Methodology." Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 81-101.
- Deflem, Mathieu. 2015. "Comparative Historical Analysis in Criminology and Criminal Justice." Pp. 63-73 in The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology, edited by Heith Copes and J. Mitchell Miller. London: Routledge.
- Deflem, Mathieu, and April Lee Dove. 2013. "History Research and Social Movement." pp.Ã, 560-563 in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements , edited by D.A. Snow, et al. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. "Not Useful Tilly (et al.): Teaches Comparative Sociology-History Wisely," Trajectory , Newsletter from ASA Comparative & amp; Sociology of History 19 (1): 14-17.
- Kiser, Edgar, and Michael Hechter. 1998. "The Debate on the History of Sociology: The Theory of Rational Choice and its Criticism,". American Journal of Sociology 104 (3): 785-816; (AN 2147972)
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