Process tracing
Process Tracing is a method used to evaluate and develop theories in political science.[1]
The Method works by looking extracting all the observable implications of a theory, rather than merely the observable implications regarding the dependent variable. Once these observable implications are extracted (particularly with reference to the microfoundations of how a theory's independent variable causes the predicated change in the dependent variable) they are then tested empirically, often through the method of elite interviews but also often through other rigorous forms of data analysis.[2]
- ^ http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v43y1989i1p75-117.html
- ^ Designing Social Inquiry, Gary King, Robert O Keohane, Sidney Verba