Cross-National Research as an Analytic Strategy: American Sociological Association, 1987 Presidential Address

Abstract

In this essay, I discuss some of the uses and dilemmas of cross-national research. I argue that cross-national research is valuable, even indispensable, for establishing the generality of findings and the validity of interpretations derived from single-nation studies. In no other way can we be certain that what we believe to be social-structural regularities are not merely particularities, the product of some limited set of historical or cultural or political circumstances. I also argue that cross-national research is equally valuable, perhaps even more valuable, for forcing us to revise our interpretations to take account of cross-national differences and inconsistencies that could never be uncovered in single-nation research. My thesis is that cross-national research provides an especially useful method for generating, testing, and further developing sociological theory. As with any research strategy, cross-national research comes at a price. It is costly in time and money, it is difficult to do, and it often seems to raise more interpretive problems than it solves. Yet it is potentially invaluable and, in my judgment, grossly underutilized. This is hardly a radically new thesis. As Stein Rokkan (1964) long ago pointed out, to do cross-national research is to return to the preferred analytic.strategy of the forefathers of sociology, a strategy that was nearly abandoned in sociology's quest for methodological rigor but now can be pursued anew with the much more powerful methodological tools available today. I A sensible discussion of the uses and dilemmas of cross-national research requires that I first define the domain and delineate the principal types of cross-national research. Then I illustrate some of these uses and dilemmas by scrutinizing the body of cross-national research I know best, namely my own, my rationale being William Form's (1979) cogent observation that probably no field has generated more methodological advice on a smaller data base with fewer results than has [cross-national] comparative sociology. Using my research as a source of illustrations makes it possible to discuss the issues concretely. I review this research in sufficient detail to highlight its accomplishments and its failures, my concern being only in part with the substance of the research for its own sake; I also want to extrapolate from this concrete example, to make some more general observations. Finally, I discuss some fundamental issues about the conduct of cross-national research. In so doing, I bring in studies dealing with quite different substantive problems from those that I have addressed in my own research, and using quite different methods, to see whether my conclusions apply as well to a much broader range of studies.