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These notes are a somewhat more than random assortment of observations, clarifications, and speculations on comparative-historical sociology, taken from a variety of sources more or less well prepared for a variety of purposes in a variety of contexts in two continents over a period of several years. They provide food for thought on some methodological issues in comparative-historical sociology. I have especially emphasized some of the more practical aspects involved with implementing methods of historical inquiry in empirical sociological research and used some of my own research as example.
 

On the History of Historical Sociology

It has been remarked that "Sociology is history with the hard work left out; history is sociology with the brains left out" (Cahnman & Boskoff 1964:1). Be that as it may, history and sociology have historically developed into two distinct academic disciplines. Though there may be considerable overlap between both history’s and sociology’s material perspectives (human affairs, social interaction, society), they differ formally in manner of approach, theoretically, methodologically, and not least of all, institutionally.

Much of post-war sociology was rather skeptical towards historical inquiry (Skocpol 1985b; Burke 1980:13-23). Durkheim had introduced the distinction between causal explanation and functional analysis and Parsons and others gave preeminence to a functionalist and rather static mode of inquiry. Causal-historical research and functional-synchronic analysis were divorced and the latter was often the privileged perspective (survey research). Likewise, history was dominated by the ideal of neutral-descriptive analysis and rather hostile towards abstract conceptual work in the grand theory tradition of sociology. The German historian Leopold von Ranke had delineated history as the chronological representation of the "way things really were" ("wie es eigentlich gewesen ist").

From the late 1950s onwards, history and sociology tended to come closer to one another (Goldthorpe 1972; Lipset 1968). Historians directed attention to sociology for conceptual clarification, while sociologists began focusing on history’s sense for empirical detail in order to complement and/or rectify grand theory (Cahnman & Boskoff 1964:7-9). Influential, too, were the critique on modernization and evolutionism (Webster 1986), inter-actionism’s anti-theoretical empiricism (Burke 1980:28-29; Sztompka 1986), and the rise of historical Marxism (Skocpol 1985b:4-5). During the seventies, historical sociology more fully emerged as a distinct perspective.

The following dilemmatic dichotomies between history and sociology were central, had to be overcome, and are still relevant questions and puzzling issues today.
 

Description and analysis: doing history is making history. Writing history is an intellectual activity directed by concepts and (more or less explicit) theoretical questions rather than a registration of chronologically ordered facts (Jones 1976:295-296). Sociologists develop theories and methods in order to study empirical realities. Description and analysis are only analytically distinct (Bonnell 1980:158-160).

The unique and the general: sociology was traditionally (represented as) nomothetic (generalizing), while history was idiografic (particularizing). Historical and/or contemporary topics of inquiry are not by themselves generalizing or particularizing. Instead, data are presented within an analytically relevant model as being unique or as representing a broader pattern. Relatedly, the tension between freedom and causality (choice and determinism) can be conceived in terms of a dialectics of history as contextualized human activity. Also, sociologists as well as historians can be interested in unique causes as they can be treated as manifestations of principles of broad developments across space and time (see Tilly 1997).

Today, sociological notions of history as a unilinear evolution are generally suspect and have been largely expelled from modern sociological thought (see, e.g., Comte, Spencer; but note that others, e.g. Tönnies, rejected simple developments of progress). Historical conceptions that emphasize fluidity and contradictory currents (especially Marx’ dialectics) appear to have survived better. Then, however, a key problem concerns determinism versus activism (e.g., Althusser versus Thompson). More recently, the notion of history as such has become under attack; see, e.g., Gehlen on ‘post-histoire’ (see post-modernism versus modernism; e.g., compare Lyotard with Habermas). And discussions on the state of the marriage between history and sociology ramble on (see, e.g., Tilly 1997 and others).
 

The Multiple Methodologies of Comparative-Historical Sociology

Different levels of methodology (from epistemological principles to techniques of inquiry) and various stages in the research process can and should be distinguished.

1.    Strategies

Sociologists use historical data in at least three ways (see Chirot 1976; Skocpol & Somers 1980:176-191; Bonnell 1980:160-173; Skocpol 1985c:362-379).

1)    Parallel investigation of a theory: a theory is applied (or examined) in various historical contexts in order to demonstrate that various particular cases are but different modalities of a more general process (corresponding to natural-science conceptions of laws; see Tilly 1997).

2)    Interpretation of contrasting events: different, specific historical events are analyzed in their unique composition (typical for interpretive sociologies in the ‘Verstehen’ tradition).

3)    Analysis of causalities at the macro level: based on Mill’s method: a) principle of difference: a case with effect and cause present is contrasted with a case with effect and cause absent; and b) principle of agreement: cases with same effects are compared in terms of their (ideally identical) causes (See experiment, ex post facto experiment, and see Durkheim on historical methods). There is an important debate on the usefulness of Mill’s method for sociological research, which relates to the fact that historical research is often based on only few cases and that many sociological theories are probabilistic, not deterministic (see Lieberson 1991, 1994; Savolainen 1994).

2.    Sources

The past is present through the traces it left behind. These form the sources of historical investigations, also called historical material, documentary evidence, or historical sources (Pitt 1972:14-33). They include material remnants, written and/or otherwise recorded sources (primary and secondary), and oral history.

Depending on the theoretically informed question of research, sources are used in different contexts, but somehow the issue of accuracy is relevant.

Sources  Þ  Historical research

Historical event (the past)  Þ  Portrayal thereof (history)

3.    Investigating Historical Material

1) Identification and selection: relevant sources have to be identified and found. Problems of availability (materials are lost) and access (sources are available but cannot be accessed, e.g. classified documents). Physical and social hurdles.

2) Registration and Classification: this depends on the research needs, the form of the document (if you like), time-period, the producer of the source, method of production, contents (intended and actual), audience, etc. This is as arbitrary as it is important (cf. labor-intensive aspect of much of historical research). Indicate place where source originated. Use computer programs for classifications and indexing.

3) Critique and Confrontation: to check for the accuracy of sources. This is not always possible because usually not many sources on any one event are available. Also, this is not very exciting because it mostly centers on details, but it is relevant nonetheless. Checking for accuracy means a) questioning the source as indeed being the source, i.e. internal critique (e.g. Hitler’s diaries) and b) whether the source accurately refers to what happened (or what was thought about it), i.e. external critique (e.g., comparison of various sources of the same event). If possible, "methodological marriages" with other methods are useful.

4) Analysis: the options are wide open: qualitative or quantitative, interpretation or explanation, structured or unstructured, within the context of theory and research strategy. This relates to the various stages of research design. The most traditional model is as follows: 1) theoretical proposition, 2) conceptualization of the theoretical constructs, and formalization of a model, the relationships between variables; 3) operationalization of the variables stated in the theory, so they can be measured (indicators) and 4) observation, the actual measurement. The inquiry can be deductive, from theoretical logic to empirical observations (theory-testing), or inductive, from empirical observations to the search for theoretical understanding of the findings of the observations (theory-construction). See the "wheel of science":
 

Example: On Being Historical (and Having Fun)

It may be useful to provide a concrete example of how a comparative-historical research works in reality. In the introduction to my dissertation on the history of international policing in Germany and the United States, I discussed the theme of analysis, the theoretical framework, and the methodology. In the methods section I first discussed some recent debates in historical sociology, but then quickly turned attention to more down-to-earth aspects of my investigations. Here is the entire section.
 

Methodology
In recent years, scholars in historical sociology have been involved in methodological battles on the distinction between idiographic and nomothetic perspectives and the debate on the status of theory in historical sociology. The first debate revolves around the question whether and how history and sociology can and should be demarcated as distinct disciplines and, relatedly, concerns the status of generalization versus particularization from historical data. The second quarrel revolves around the question of whether historical sociologists should test general sociological theories or whether they should work towards the development of theoretically significant questions. I can here not address these debates to any degree of intellectually satisfying detail, but a few comments may at least situate my own work. The question on the idiographic-nomothetic distinction is as unsociological as it is a-historical, for it neglects, amongst other things, that both sociological research and historical work in effect rely on both modes of inquiry and that sociologists and historians work in different institutionalized settings. The debate, moreover, shares with the theory-testing versus theory-developing controversy an unjustified reliance on a substantivizing of analytical distinctions. The latter issue, in addition, entails a false dichotomy between facts and theory, which can only be overlooked by those who fail to acknowledge that theories are not generalizations of causal or interpretive variable chains. Lastly, most participants in both debates argue for either one approach at the exclusion of the other, where a full recognition of the richness of multiple styles of work would seem more beneficial.

In terms of the more commanding issue of data collection methods, the findings in this dissertation are based on a purposively selected sample of written documents gathered in a variety of libraries and archives. The collected documents contain primary and secondary sources, whereby primary sources refer to documents produced as part of international police practices and secondary documents offer theoretically informed interpretations thereof. The valid distinction between primary and secondary sources must be properly understood. It is not wise to assume that because primary sources are closer to the reality one wants to grasp, they are also readily reflective of that reality. As I have discovered all too often during investigations of dusty boxes of files, a primary document can be utterly incomprehensible and remain totally without meaning were it not for the information provided in the secondary literature that contextualizes the item. Therefore, I have found most valuable in methodological respects the advice that research on a neglected issue —lacking a more structured approach— should rotate from inductive to deductive strategies.

Secondary sources, furthermore, do not only present interpretations but also offer primary evidence, although these are colored by a particular analytical framework. In this respect is it fortunate, however, that much of the secondary police literature is not very theoretically informed, so that evidence and interpretation could easily be distinguished. Nonetheless, throughout the dissertation, I will regularly mention the kind of source from which I retrieved a piece of evidence or even indicate that knowledge of a certain event could not be dissociated from the interpretive context in which it was discovered. When I mention without further ado a certain event as a theoretically relevant finding, the reader may accept that the evidence is sufficiently corroborated. Detailed references to the documents used enable further falsification. Also, it should be understood that many documents which are seemingly of a secondary nature —for instance, because they are books or articles in magazines and journals— in fact form an intrinsic part of my research topic, because many of these works were written by police experts or police officials. This demonstrates that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is not intrinsic to documents but dependent on their value in research.

Finally, while it is well known that historical research cannot generate data but has the advantage of unobtrusiveness, it is less often acknowledged that there are distinct ethnographic dimensions involved with archival investigations. Although this may not contribute to the validity of the here presented findings, many practicalities, big and small, shape the data collection process of historically oriented work. These can be a source of frustration as much as of excitement and as such they did indeed inspire much of the present author's research experience. Thus, while the consulted archival sites were selected on the basis of prior knowledge, secondary sources, and published finding aides, and while documents were collected on the basis of research questions, the search procedure of purposive sampling is anything but a linear enterprise. In Berlin, for instance, knowledgeable friends informed me of the library at the Police Presidency, which turned out to be among the most valuable. In the German city of Münster, I lost an entire day because the library of the Police Academy, one of the most elaborate of its kind, was closed because of a religious holiday unknown to me. Arguably more relevant to my research were the occasions on which research topic and research experience merged. One day, for instance, I walked through the famous Brandenburg Tor in Berlin, five years to the day after it had served as a central site during the fall of the Wall, but now with not a single soul in sight. That was but few hours after I had seen a man on the street wearing a jacket of the DEA, the American drugs police, and had discovered card indexes in the Prussian State Library which, for reasons I did not understand, classified police by the entry "Socialist Countries" (When moments later I discovered the entry "Capitalist Countries," I realized that the library was located in the former East Germany).

Perhaps most apparent of the fact that the past can only be known as a history of the present, the number of documents and the volume of archival collections relevant to the selected research topic present a critical challenge in practical respects. For instance, the records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation pertaining to the surveillance of German-Americans in the period between 1915 and 1920 cover 391,901 pages. Also staggering is the ease with which information of German and American police, respectively, can actually be found in the United States and Germany. One of the most extensive collections on Nazi policing, for example, is available in the National Archives. Thus, intelligence gathering and the international distribution thereof were as much a part of my research as they are of my research topic.

During data collection, I often asked staff members of the archives and libraries I visited whether there had been other scholars consulting the same or similar documents than I did. The response I got was nearly always the same. When I was at the Police Academy in Münster, I was told to be one of the very few to peruse the library, but I was also informed that a Norwegian had been there just a week earlier. At the Police Presidency in Berlin, I was said to be one of about three visitors a year, yet one of the staff proudly told me of "another American visitor" some short time before (And she appeared rather disappointed when it turned out that I was a citizen of Belgium). Similarly, when I visited the FBI headquarters in our nation's capital, I was told to be one of only few scholars who consulted the archives, although someone else had been there just the previous week. In other words, I can be even more sure now than I was before that the novelty of my research topic cannot be questioned and that bureaucratic institutions aspire to popular legitimacy. Incidentally, when I asked at the FBI headquarters how many requests were made to receive information from the FBI, a staff member estimated the number at 10,000 or more every year. She also told me that recently a noticeable increase in requests had taken place. Apparently influenced by a popular television series, a lot of people had been asking for copies of the "X-Files."

This ended my methods section. The dissertation is currently revised into a publishable manuscript, which mostly foregoes most of the methods section. A recent publication derived from the work also has no separate methods section, but of course applies much of what was said before (Deflem 2000), as does my book, Policing World Society.
 

Three Random Conclusions

1) Every research is based on a research proposal. Good proposals lead to funding of research. Good proposals always contain various clearly connected sections, such as literature review, theoretical framework, etc., and a methods section. In the methods section, I have found, it is important to briefly mention broad methodological issues and to more fully discuss very specific issues of data collection. For instance, in the proposal for my dissertation, I mentioned a few sites (archives in Europe) and some of the items they had available (based on information provided in another study). It is useful and necessary to be theoretically sophisticated but at some point you have to get real.

2) Most empirical research in comparative-historical sociology does typically not separately discuss any of the more epistemelogical issues involved. Instead, there is a theory section, followed by a brief description of data, and then the analysis which is as in-depth as can be while staying within the frames of accepted standards of publishing (e.g., papers of 80 pages or more are always rejected).

3) Make sure that your research is driven by your interests, not by theoretical or methodological issues (unless your topic is theory or methods). At the same time, of course, your research must be theoretically informed and methodologically sound.
 

A much longer version of these notes is now available as Comparative and Historical Sociology: Lecture Notes.
 

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