‘Qualitative’ Methods?

Abstract

In this chapter, I neither present a method nor draw conclusions about the methods presented in the substantive chapters of this book. Rather, I reflect on the category around which this book is organized. The term ‘qualitative’ evokes a narrative or analytical richness, a method that brings out more detail and nuance from a case than can be found by reducing it to quantitative measures. But in practice, the term is generally used simply to mean ‘not quantitative,’ as Matthew Hoffmann notes in his discussion of agent-based modeling. Qualitative methods are, in this sense, a default category.