On the arguments founding mid-range comparison and the context problem

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  • 中範囲比較の論拠とコンテクスト問題
  • チュウ ハンイ ヒカク ノ ロンキョ ト コンテクスト モンダイ

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Abstract

The Context Problem is a crucial and perennial issue in comparative inquiry. This paper discusses the arguments founding an ideal-typical `middle-range' small-N comparative research approach called Mid-Range Comparison and examines how its recent style as distinguished from the old one copes with the Context Problem. Firstly, the Context Problem is considered with particular reference to the problem of comparability. Secondly, through examination of its epistemological and ontological backgrounds, it is shown that Mid-Range Comparison recently reconceptualized is the mode of comparison in which scholars analyse multiple cases in the effort to formulate causal generalizations about those cases by taking the contextuality of the phenomena into consideration. And then, drawing upon G.Sartori's `ladder of abstraction' scheme, the author demonstrates that the approach represents an ideal-typical center between nomothetic quests for universally applicable causal law and idiographic, context-bounded narratives and draws a great deal of its inferential power primarily from setting temporal and spatial scope conditions and analyzing causal mechanism. The paper concludes that there is a good possibility of Mid-Range Comparison overcoming the Context Problem through constructing concepts which allow at the same time comparison and empirical measurement and therefore the approach could contribute to the store of substantive knowledge in ways that large-N quantitative and decontextualizing approaches may not.

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