• DOI:10.1080/09636412.2015.1070615
• Corpus ID: 131769695

Hard Thinking about Hard and Easy Cases in Security Studies

@article{Rapport2015HardTA,
  title={Hard Thinking about Hard and Easy Cases in Security Studies},
  author={Aaaron Rapport},
  journal={Security Studies},
  year={2015},
  volume={24},
  pages={431 - 465}
}

• Aaaron Rapport
• Published 3 July 2015
• Sociology
• Security Studies

The idea of “least likely” (or “hard”) and “most likely” cases with which to test theories has been addressed in many prominent works on qualitative methodology. Such research designs are especially common among those working in the field of security studies. Nevertheless, there exists considerable confusion regarding how these cases should be defined and how authors can draw sound inferences from them. At worst, such confusion leads to the impression that researchers apply the labels of least and most likely cases in an arbitrary fashion. This article advances two related rationales for categorizing cases as least or most likely, describing the necessary steps researchers should follow to employ them correctly. It incorporates literature from security studies to demonstrate the pitfalls that researchers may be vulnerable to without a precise idea of how least and most likely cases should be used.