For over twenty years Charles C. Ragin has been at the forefront of the development of innovative methods for social scientists. In "Redesigning Social Inquiry," he continues his campaign to revitalize the field, challenging major aspects of the conventional template for social science research while offering a clear alternative.
"Redesigning Social Inquiry" provides a substantive critique of the standard approach to social research namely, assessing the relative importance of causal variables drawn from competing theories. Instead, Ragin proposes the use of set-theoretic methods to find...

Charles C. Ragin's The Comparative Method proposes a synthetic strategy, based on an application of Boolean algebra, that combines the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative sociology. Elegantly accessible and germane to the work of all the social sciences, and now updated with a new introduction, this book will continue to garner interest, debate, and praise.