ABSTRACT
Although policymaking research is typically presented as either in-depth research on a small number of cases (“contextualization”), or more generalizable but less intensive research on a large number of cases (“conceptualization”), Carmel (1999, p. 143) has warned fellow researchers that this distinction is really a “false dichotomy”. Small-N research can offer comparative findings which are broad in scope, while large-N research can also uncover some of policymaking’s nuances. Both methods can be used fruitfully in combination with each other. Indeed, by applying both methods, researchers can often uncover results which they would not have found if they had relied upon one method. For example, while a discussion of race and boot camps did not appear in the qualitative documents, the quantitative event history models suggested that racial demographics were associated with the diffusion of juvenile boot camps. Similarly, while the quantitative models offered little support for the geographic proximity hypothesis, the qualitative case studies suggested that neighboring states’ experiences with boot camps may have had an important but unquantifiable effect. Only through the use of both methods in this book were these complications discovered.
