Causal-Process Tracing

Abstract

In most small-N studies, the tracing of causal processes plays an important role. Very often, causal-process tracing (CPT) is used as a complementary technique to co-variational analysis (COV). Tracing the process that leads from a causal factor to an outcome makes it possible to enhance the internal validity of a causal claim that ‘x matters’ (Gerring 2007a: 173–84). This ‘added value’ is especially warranted when the compared cases are not as similar as they should be (to be ‘controlled’), when the co-variatonal analysis is indeterminate (because more than one independent variable co-varies with the dependent variable in a theoretically meaningful way), or when the measurement and classification of variables is not as clear-cut as it should be. We will provide examples for the combination of COV and CPT in Section 5.2, wherein we address overlaps and combinations of the three approaches to case study research.