Surprising Causes
Propensity-adjusted Treatment Scores for Multimethod Case Selection
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2331058 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel J Galvin (0000-0002-5106-2506, Northwestern University, corresponding author), Jason N Seawright (Northwestern University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1632-1680 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Methods & Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0049-1241 • E-ISSN: 1552-8294 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00491241211004632 |
| OpenAlex | W3160246958 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 42 |
Scholarship on multimethod case selection in the social sciences has developed rapidly in recent years, but many possibilities remain unexplored. This essay introduces an attractive and advantageous new alternative, involving the selection of extreme cases on the treatment variable, net of the statistical influence of the set of known control variables. Cases that are extreme in this way are those in which the value of the main causal variable is as surprising as possible, and thus, this approach can be referred to as seeking 'surprising causes.' There are practical advantages to selecting on surprising causes, and there are also advantages in terms of statistical efficiency in facilitating case-study discovery. We first argue for these advantages in general terms and then demonstrate them in an application regarding the dynamics of U.S. labor legislation
Causal inference · Control (management) · Econometrics · Economics · Instrumental variable · Selection (genetic algorithm) · Set (abstract data type) · Variable (mathematics) · Advanced Causal Inference Techniques · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Mathematics · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research · Statistical Methods and Inference
An Introduction to Statistical Learning
The decline of organized labor in the United States
Process-Tracing Methods
What Unions No Longer Do
The Propensity Score with Continuous Treatments
The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects
A general approach to causal mediation analysis.
The logic of comparative social Inquiry
Rethinking Social Inquiry
Finding Pathways
Multi-Method Social Science
Welfare Expenditures and the Decline of Unions
Labor's Enduring Divide
From Labor Law to Employment Law
Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey
Regression Analysis
Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies
Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research
Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing
Policy Feedback as Political Weapon
Is There a (Viable) Crucial-Case Method
When Government Subsidizes Its Own
Integrating Survey and Ethnographic Methods for Systematic Anomalous Case Analysis
II. The Comparable-Cases Strategy in Comparative Research
Exceptional Cases
Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method
Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public-Sector Labor Laws
Policy Preferences and Policy Change
What Can You Do With a Single Case? How to Think About Ethnographic Case Selection Like a Historical Sociologist
Case Selection via Matching
A Careful Look at Modern Case Selection Methods
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |