Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework

This book is an introduction to methodological issues in the social sciences that is appropriate for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and general readers with some background in social science subjects. It is a concise and readable guide to doing and evaluating work in anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology.

John Gerring (PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 1993) is Professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he teaches courses on methodology and comparative politics. His books include Party Ideologies in America, 1828–1996 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 2007), A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Concepts and Method: Giovanni Sartori and His Legacy (Routledge, 2009), Social Science Methodology: Tasks, Strategies, and Criteria (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Global Justice: A Prioritarian Manifesto (in process), and Democracy and Development: A Historical Perspective (in process). He served as a fellow of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), as a member of The National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Evaluation of USAID Programs to Support the Development of Democracy, as President of the American Political Science Association's Organized Section on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, and is the current recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation to collect historical data related to colonialism and long-term development.