Process Tracing: From Philosophical Roots to Best Practices

Abstract

This paper has two overarching goals – to summarize recent developments on the philosophical and practical dimensions of process tracing, and to identify features common to best practices of it on different kinds of arguments, with different kinds of available evidence, in different substantive research domains. First, we define process tracing and discuss its foundations in the philosophy of social science. Next, we address its techniques and evidentiary sources, and advance ten criteria for judging its quality in particular pieces of research. Finally, we analyze the methodological issues specific to process tracing on general categories of theories, including structuralinstitutional, cognitive-psychological, and sociological. (NB: this paper is forthcoming as Chapter 1 in A. Bennett and J.T. Checkel, eds., Process Tracing in the Social Sciences: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool.) About the authors: Andrew Bennett is a professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He has written on the US foreign policy process, research methods, alliance burden-sharing, and regional conflicts and peacekeeping. He is the co-author, with Alexander L. George, of Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (MIT Press) and author of Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet–Russian Military Interventionism 1973–1996 (MIT Press). Bennett is President and co-founder of the Consortium on Qualitative Research Methods. Jeffrey T. Checkel holds the Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University and is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. He is the author of Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (Yale University Press), editor of International Institutions and Socialization in Europe (Cambridge University Press), co-editor (with Peter J. Katzenstein) of European Identity (Cambridge University Press), and editor of Transnational Dynamics of Civil War (Cambridge). About the publisher: The School for International Studies (SIS) fosters innovative interdisciplinary research and teaching programs concerned with a range of global issues, but with a particular emphasis on international development, and on global governance and security. The School aims to link theory, practice and engagement with other societies and cultures, while offering students a challenging and multi-faceted learning experience. SIS is located within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Our website is www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies. Process Tracing: From Philosphical Roots to Best Practice 5 Process Tracing: From Philosophical Roots to Best Practices