Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): A pluralistic approach to causal inference

A core methodological approach in political science consists in comparing cases. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a methodology designed to do just that, in a systematic manner and exploiting strengths of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. This chapter presents QCA as a candidate methodology to go beyond the “qualitative-quantitative” divide and discusses whether, and to what extent, QCA helps address both why- and how-questions. Finally, the chapter discusses what it means to combine methods in an approach such as QCA, also implementing a mixed methods research (MMR) protocol. Using Ruphy’s approach of “foliated pluralism,” we explain that, from an epistemological perspective, the added value is that a pluralistic methodological approach such as QCA allows better and richer epistemic access to the phenomenon of interest, and also enables one to produce causal inferences.