The comparative sequential method

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the comparative sequential method is the overarching methodology of comparative historical analysis. In comparative historical analysis, the «cases» studied can nearly always be decomposed into sequences of events. In such sequences, the researcher can study the causal links that connect events among themselves (in the type of sequences that we call causal sequences), or the causal link that connects the succession of temporal events (where either the order and/or the speed of events might consequential) with the outcome of interest (these are the sequences that we call strictly temporal). To develop our argument, in the first part of the paper we present the conceptual building blocks of our method: occurrence, event, sequence, and process. In the second part, we show that process tracing and Millian comparative methods can be applied to the analysis of different types of sequences. Thus, the article combines the literature on temporality with the literature on case-study methods of causal inference.