Research Design in European Studies: Establishing Causality in Europeanization (Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics)

A seminal text in European studies, which addresses issues of research design and causal analysis. The chapters draw on different methodological traditions, notions of causality, and methods and use strong research design to address substantive problems in public policy, party politics, foreign policy and legislative studies. Informed by epistemological pluralism and state-of-the-art debate on research design in the social sciences, this volume combines conceptual elaboration with substantive research puzzles. Research Design in European Studies investigates different notions of causality and relates them to methods and techniques. Designed for use either in a course on European Union politics or in preparing projects on Europeanization, the book offers an applied perspective on research methods in specific areas of qualitative approaches to causality, as well as chapters introducing quantitative, critical realist, and discursive strategies. Substantively, the contributors tackle research issues in the domains of compliance, EU external relations, foreign policy, health care, party politics and urban governance. 'This edited volume addresses a broad variety of methodological challenges we may encounter when doing research on Europeanization. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on both social science methods and Europeanization as the various contributions not only discuss the difficulties in establishing causality in a complex word, they also shed light on different strategies among which students of Europeanization may choose to master these challenges.' - Tanja A. Borzel, Jean Monnet Chair and Director of the Center for European Integration, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany 'Europeanization is a major preoccupation for scholars, policymakers, and citizens. This book wrestles with the question of causal inference implied in all claims about Europeanization, namely, how can one prove that the EU causes change in behavior on the part of member states or citizens of those states? A broad range of tools for causal analysis are laid out and their utility assessed, with a wealth of examples. This is important reading.' - John Gerring, Professor of Political Science, Boston University, USA and author of Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework, 2nd edition (2012) 'The most crucial issue of Europeanization is the veracity of its methodology. This is, therefore, a very timely and informative volume that addresses this agenda in an accessible and broadly-based manner. It will be core reading for scholars and students alike.' - Kevin Featherstone, Chair of Contemporary Greek Studies and the Director of the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Front Matter....Pages i-xxiii Europeanization: The Challenge of Establishing Causality....Pages 1-16 Looking for Causality in the Literature on Europeanization....Pages 17-43 Causality in Quantitative Approaches....Pages 44-63 Europeanization: A Critical Realist Perspective....Pages 64-84 Discursive Institutional Analytical Strategies....Pages 85-104 Beyond Non-Compliance with Legal Norms....Pages 105-124 Process Tracing: Testing Multiple Hypotheses with a Small Number of Cases....Pages 125-140 The Europeanization of Health Care: Processes and Factors....Pages 141-159 How Cities Encounter Europe: Mechanisms and Modes....Pages 160-177 Understanding Causality and Change in Party Politics....Pages 178-194 Europeanization of Foreign Policy beyond the Common Foreign and Security Policy....Pages 195-220 Rival Hypotheses: Comparing the Roles of the European Union and Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization in Good Governance Reforms....Pages 221-236 Being Clear Enough to Be Wrong: Europeanization Refuted and Defended....Pages 237-254 Lessons Learned: Beyond Causality....Pages 255-264 Back Matter....Pages 265-273