In the Fall of 2002, APSA created its 37th Organized Section, devoted to the study, development, and dissemination of qualitative methods. Since that time, I have served as the editor of this newsletter. My job, as I saw it, was to bring to the attention of our members the most interesting, innovative, and (it follows) contentious issues in the field of political methodology, regardless of whether they might be categorized conventionally as ‘qualitative’ or ‘quantitative.’ (Issues of import solely to quantitative work have been deferred to the Political Methodology section–no need to duplicate effort.) With that caveat, the mission of the newsletter was interpreted broadly to include all methodological issues of relevance to the study of politics. Symposia have ranged from broad philosophy-of-science issues to narrower debates about technique. For the most part, these topics have been chosen in response to ideas from our members and as extensions of APSA panels and roundtables. Usually, the management of a symposium was delegated to the person taking the initiative to organize a discussion on that topic

Gerring, John

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Letter from the EditorJohn GerringBoston Universityjgerring@bu.eduIn the Fall of 2002, APSA created its 37th Organized Sec-tion, devoted to the study, development, and disseminationof qualitative methods. Since that time, I have served as theeditor of this newsletter. My job, as I saw it, was to bring tothe attention of our members the most interesting, innovative,and (it follows) contentious issues in the field of politicalmethodology, regardless of whether they might be catego-rized conventionally as ‘qualitative’ or ‘quantitative.’ (Issuesof import solely to quantitative work have been deferred tothe Political Methodology section–no need to duplicate ef-fort.) With that caveat, the mission of the newsletter was in-terpreted broadly to include all methodological issues of rel-evance to the study of politics. Symposia have ranged frombroad philosophy-of-science issues to narrower debates abouttechnique. For the most part, these topics have been chosenin response to ideas from our members and as extensions ofAPSA panels and roundtables. Usually, the management of asymposium was delegated to the person taking the initiativeto organize a discussion on that topic.As editor I took a laissez-faire approach to the newsletter,asking authors to follow only a few stylistic and substantiveguidelines: contributions should be short, accessible to abroad readership, written with some flair, and encompassing arange of viewpoints on the chosen subject. The aim, whileretaining some of the intellectual rigor associated with moretraditional academic journals, was to give writers scope toopine–that is, to use the first-person pronoun and to adopt amore discursive manner than would be usual in a more formalacademic venue. In this manner, I hoped to reproduce thelively and candid views exchanged with each other in emailsand over cups of joe. “What do you really (in your heart ofhearts) think of X?” This is the sort of conversation that Iwanted to foster.During the last three years, the newsletter has covered alot of ground. In Spring 2003, we ran a symposium on teach-ing qualitative methods, which featured a comprehensive re-view of textbooks and discussions of courses and variousapproaches to the subject. In Fall 2003, our symposium ad-dressed the knotty issue of “interpretivism,” with contribu-tions from several scholars, including Clifford Geertz. In SpringSpring 2006, Vol. 4, No. 1Qualitative   MethodsNewsletter of theAmerican Political Science AssociationOrganized Section on Qualitative MethodsContents Symposium: Ethnography Meets RationalChoice: David Laitin, For Example IntroductionTed Hopf   ..............................................................................2 Theory, Data, and Formalization: The Unusual Case ofDavid LaitinYoshiko M. Herrera   ..........................................................2 Mechanisms vs. OutcomesKanchan Chandra   ..............................................................6 Understanding Rules and Institutions: Possibilities andLimits of Game TheoryDavid M. Woodruff   ........................................................13 Ethnography and Rational Choice in David Laitin:From Equality to Subordination to AbsenceTed Hopf   ..........................................................................17 Recognizing the Tradeoffs We MakeAshutosh Varshney  ........................................................20 Ethnography and/or Rational Choice:A Response from David LaitinDavid Laitin   .......................................................................26 Symposium: Alexander L. George and AndrewBennett’s Case Studies and Theory Developmentin the Social Sciences IntroductionJack S. Levy  ......................................................................34 Notes From a GeneralistDaniel W. Drezner   ...........................................................34 A Major Milestone with One Major LimitationJohn S. Odell   ...................................................................37 Well Worth the WaitJack S. Levy  ......................................................................40 Case Studies and the Philosophy of ScienceDavid Dessler   ..................................................................43 Advancing the Dialogue on Qualitative MethodsAndrew Bennett   ..............................................................45Book Notes   ........................................................................48Announcements   ...............................................................51https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.9975002Qualitative Methods, Spring 2006enormous influence on the discipline. The first examines thecareer of David Laitin, whose work incorporates ethnographyand rational choice—methods often deemed to be antitheti-cal—and the second solicits comments on the recent land-mark publication by Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett,Case Studies and Theory Development (MIT Press, 2005).The following issue (Fall 2006) will begin the tenure of anew editor, whom I am delighted to introduce. Gary Goertz haswritten widely on international relations and on methodologi-cal issues and teaches regularly at IQRM, the winter graduatetraining institute at Arizona State University. Having engagedwith both quantitative and qualitative methodological issues,he is well positioned to foster a productive debate amongscholars who utilize diverse approaches to the study of poli-tics. I know that Gary is looking forward to engaging with theQualMeth community and wishes to hear your ideas on howto maintain the newsletter as a vital part of our research com-munity. Please join me in welcoming Gary, and please acceptmy thanks for your participation in the newsletter’s ongoingactivities. Finally, let me take this opportunity to thank JoshuaYesnowitz, who has served as our assistant editor for the pastseveral years and will continue under Gary’s tenure. Josh hasdone a superb job of keeping track of the details and puttingeverything together. We are grateful for his stewardship.nographic sensitivity to contextual realities can be squaredwith the a priori simplifications necessitated by rational choiceapproaches. But, importantly, each of the authors also believesit is a combination well worth attempting.Each of the papers in this symposium was originally pre-sented as a Qualitative Methods Roundtable at the September2005 American Political Science Association meetings in Wash-ington. David Laitin’s responses to these papers concludesthis symposium, but begins a long, continuing conversationwith his many critical admirers.Theory, Data, and Formulation:The Unusual Case of David LaitinYoshiko M. HerreraHarvard Universityherrera@fas.harvard.eduIn two influential articles David Laitin laid out a tripartitemethod for comparative politics and for social science moregenerally (Laitin 2002, 2003). The three methods that Laitinadvocated were Formal Theory, Quantitative Analysis, andNarrative. In this paper I take issue with Laitin’s categorizationscheme for the methods, and I consider the criteria and con-straints on choosing methods.One of the more encouraging developments in politicalscience over the last few years has been the appearance ofwork that is self-consciously multi-methodological. An increas-ing number of dissertations and publications combine formalmodels with statistical analysis of large-n data sets and com-parative case studies.Less evident are efforts to combine ethnography, or therecovery of the intersubjective world of actors themselves,with more mainstream traditional or formal methods. David Laitinis one of the rare scholars who has engaged in serious ethnog-raphy (Hegemony and Culture), combined ethnography withother methods (Identity in Formation), and applied rationalchoice techniques, with James Fearon, to issues of identity.(“Explaining Interethnic Cooperation”) His work provides theopportunity for this symposium.Each of the authors has critically engaged Laitin’s work,with an eye toward assessing the merits and possibilities ofcombining serious ethnographic scholarship with rationalchoice. While conclusions are best left to readers themselves,it is fair to say that the authors share concerns with how eth-Symposium: Ethnography Meets Rational Choice:David Laitin, For ExampleIntroductionTed HopfOhio State Universityhopf.2@osu.edu2004, we ran two symposia, the first on techniques of fieldresearch and the second on content and discourse analysis.In Fall 2004, we tackled Charles Ragin’s complex and innova-tive technique of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA),and its recent variants.  In Spring of last year we ran symposiaon the qualitative/quantitative distinction (with contributionsfrom both sides of the divide), and on the use of necessary-condition causal propositions. This past Fall we featured adiscussion of where new hypotheses originate, by RichardSnyder, along with two symposia, one focused on Ian Shapiro’sThe Flight from Reality in the Human Sciences, and the sec-ond devoted to the subject of concept formation in the socialsciences.Every year we take notice of recent methodological pub-lications that may be of interest to our readers. (For the rea-sons mentioned above, we don’t cover work that is narrowlytailored to statistical analysis.) The Book Notes and ArticleNotes features are intended to list work that either has anexplicit methodological focus or uses an innovative techniqueto good effect. If you know of a book or article publishedsince 2000 that has not already appeared in these pages—andhas a strong methodological theme or innovation—do let usknow.  (Self-nominations are encouraged!)In this issue, we are fortunate to be able to feature tworoundtables focused on the work of scholars who have had

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