Participation and Democracy: Dynamics, Causes ... - Jacobs University

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METHODS AND DATA
4. Methodological Background, Data and Measures
In order to systematically examine the dynamics, causes and consequences of elitechallenging
activities, this study adopts a comparative research design. It covers a large
number of countries, aiming to find recognizable, general patterns in elite-challenging
activities. It follows the assumption “that human or social behavior can be explained in
term of general laws established by observation” (Przeworski/Teune 1970: 4). 12 For
several reasons, comparative cross-national studies are essential for social science theory
building: They a) help to formulate clear and culturally salient concepts; b) allow to
cover the largest possible variation in the dependent and independent variable(s), which
means that several potential factors are included in the analysis, and help, therefore, c) to
determine the generality of a finding (Warwick and Osherson 1973: 8). Cross-national
studies enable us to assess whether a postulated relationship (that might be based on an
individual case) is also valid across national boundaries: “General theories of why
people participate in democratic politics should apply to citizens regardless of their
nationality” (Dalton 2002: 3). This is of course also true for the consequence dimension
of elite-challenging activities. So, only by taking up a comparative perspective, it is
possible to draw general conclusions and to distinguish factors that are system-specific
from those ones that can claim to be universal (Warwick and Osherson 1973: vi).
Among the five types of comparative studies that Peters (1998: 10) distinguishes, this
study on elite-challenging activities falls into the fifth category: statistical analyses
testing relationships or developing patterns across a whole range of countries. 13
12 Such comparative observation can address more than one social system (“synchronous comparison”), or
the same social system at more than one point in time (“diachronous comparison”), or a combination of
both (Warwick and Osherson 1973: 8; Schmidt 1995: 1001).
13 The first four types of comparative research are: (1) single case study; description of politics in a
country, region, etc.; (2) limited number of countries, selected for analytical reasons; analysis of similar
processes, institutions, etc.; (3) typologies or classification schemes; typologies for analyzing single
country’s internal politics as well as for comparisons of country groups; (4) statistical analysis for a
subgroup of the world’s countries; testing of hypotheses for sub-sample.
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