It has come to the attention of COMPASSS that some anonymous peer reviewers have rejected empirical QCA manuscript submissions solely or primarily due to the choice of solution type presented. After discussion between the Management Team and Steering Committee, we have adopted the following statement reproving this practice: COMPASSS Statement on Rejecting Article Submissions because of QCA Solution Type.

Gary Goertz has kindly made available a pre-publication draft of his forthcoming book. Multimethod Research, Causal Mechanisms, and Case Studies: An Integrated Approach will be published by Princeton University Press this coming July.

Zotero is a free and open-source reference manager. We have created a Zotero library for the WP series. The library is public; anybody may browse and download working papers. If you use Zotero and wish to add the library to your installation, log into the Zotero website and then click the “Join” button on the group page. For more details, please see the WP Series page.

Intersectional Inequality by Charles Ragin and Peer Fiss has been released.

We are now maintaining a WorldCat list of CCM-related publications.

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Causal Modeling. The University of Bergen, Department of Philosophy is advertising a postdoctoral fellowship focusing on causal modeling and coincidence analysis, under the direction of Michael Baumgartner. For details, please see https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/131283/postdoctoral-fellowship-in-causal-modeling.

From Carsten Schneider:

As you may know, APSA’s Qualitative and Multi-Method Research section is currently running a deliberative process about research transparency for qualitative empirical scholarship. The QTD is a broadly inclusive process through which a wide range of qualitative communities are thinking through the meaning, costs, benefits, and practicalities of transparency for the types of inquiry in which they engage. At the end of the process, the QTD Working Groups will produce a set of statements that articulate understandings and practices of research transparency that are relevant for different forms and contexts of qualitative research. These statements will be an invaluable resource for a wide range of constituencies grappling with issues of research transparency, from journal editors to researchers and graduate students.

From now until Dec. 1, the QTD Working Groups — each of which is focused on a particular method or context of qualitative research — are consulting with scholars who use and are knowledgeable about that form of inquiry. I am a member of the Working Group on “Algorithmic Analytic Approaches”, which covers both QCA and automated content analysis. It would be enormously valuable to get your thoughts on some of the issues our Group is considering. We have posted some specific questions on the Group’s discussion forum, which is here: https://www.qualtd.net/viewforum.php?f=23.

To post “on the record,” if you’re not already registered on the qualtd.net site, please first fill out the very short registration form, here: “https://www.qualtd.net/ucp.php?mode=register

We are very keen to hear your thoughts. I’m also happy to have a one-on-one email exchange or Skype call about these issues if that would be more convenient for you. The main thing is to get your input as we think through the meaning and practice of transparency for set-theoretic comparative methods.

Two methodological contributions were recently published in Field Methods: Cooper and Glaesser (2016) on “Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Necessary Conditions, and Limited Diversity: Some Problematic Consequences of Schneider and Wagemann’s Enhanced Standard Analysis” with a reply by Schneider and Wagemann (2016), “Assessing ESA on What It Is Designed For.”

Dave Garson (North Carolina State University) is seeking comments on a monograph he is finalizing, “Case Study Analysis & QCA.” The monograph is 130pp, two-thirds of which is on QCA using fsQCA software with worked examples, and is intended as an introductory graduate-level text. If interested in reviewing it and commenting, please contact Dr. Garson at garson@ncsu.edu, who will send you the current draft and later the final version. Reviewers may use it in classes, as long as it is not posted to the internet. The final monograph will be distributed free in pdf form and at low cost ($5) in Kindle format.

The May 2016 issue of Comparative Political Studies is a special issue devoted to “Debating Set Theoretic Comparative Methods” and includes articles by Jack Paine; Alrik Thiem, Michael Baumgartner, and Damien Bol; Gerardo Munck; and Carsten Schneider.