Case study research and critical IR: the case for the extended case methodology
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117818818243 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818818243
International Relations
2019, Vol. 33(1) 67 –87
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117818818243
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Case study research and
critical IR: the case for the
extended case methodology
Daniela Lai
London South Bank University
Roberto Roccu
King’s College London
Abstract
Discussions on case study methodology in International Relations (IR) have historically been
dominated by positivist and neopositivist approaches. However, these are problematic for critical
IR research, pointing to the need for a non-positivist case study methodology. To address this
issue, this article introduces and adapts the extended case methodology as a critical, reflexivist
approach to case study research, whereby the case is constructed through a dynamic interaction
with theory, rather than selected, and knowledge is produced through extensions rather than
generalisation. Insofar as it seeks to study the world in complex and non-linear terms, take context
and positionality seriously, and generate explicitly political and emancipatory knowledge, the
extended case methodology is consistent with the ontological and epistemological commitments of
several critical IR approaches. Its potential is illustrated in the final part of the article with reference
to researching the socioeconomic dimension of transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Keywords
case studies, critical International Relations, extended case methodology, methodology
Introduction
‘What is a case study and what is it good for?’1 While asked and answered explicitly in
positivist and neopositivist literature, this question is yet to receive substantial attention
in non-positivist research in International Relations (IR).2 This article addresses this gap
Corresponding author:
Daniela Lai, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA, UK.
Email: daniela.lai@lsbu.ac.uk
818243IRE0010.1177/0047117818818243International RelationsLai and Roccu
research-article2019
Article
68 International Relations 33(1)
from the perspective of critical approaches in IR. It builds on the recent fertile season of
methodological reflections in critical IR, strategically concerned with reclaiming discus-
sions on methods and methodology from the exclusive domain of positivist scholars, and
substantively focused on making explicit the grounds for producing knowledge and eval-
uating knowledge claims.3 In the recent surge of interest towards methods and methodol-
ogy,4 much attention has been devoted to the scientific status of knowledge produced
through non-positivist approaches. This development not only contests the tight link
between positivism and methodologically sound research established in the classical lit-
erature on methods in IR,5 but it also explores new possibilities for pairing methodolo-
gies and methods in ways that expand, rather than constrain, our research possibilities.6
As Jackson argues, science is in fact ‘a pluralist endeavour’ that encompasses, following
Weber, every ‘systematic empirical analysis that aims to produce knowledge rather than
to produce innerworldly effects’.7
Despite this deeper methodological awareness, critical IR scholarship has yet to artic-
ulate its own methodological standards for justifying case selection, the role of case
studies in producing knowledge and the terms of comparison between cases.8 While
critical scholars have suggested that positivists and post-positivists may be ‘looking for
different things’ in a case study,9 critical IR practice has more often unreflectively
adopted existing approaches than reflexively articulated its own approach to case study
research. This is especially striking if we consider the attention given to other aspects of
critical methods in IR, as well as the existence of other case-based approaches (such as
ethnographies and genealogy) that could have provided a fertile ground for these discus-
sions.10 This article explicitly asks how we can conduct case study research in critical IR
in a way that is methodologically explicit and transparent about its (non-positivist)
research choices. To this end, it proposes the extended case methodology, inspired by the
work of the sociologist Michael Burawoy, as a non-positivist route to case study research
in critical IR.
More specifically, our article addresses scholars from various strands of critical IR
who, following Jackson’s categorisation, recognise themselves in the ‘reflexivist’ tradi-
tion, grounded in the ontological-epistemological belief that we cannot know the world
as an entity that is entirely separated from us, and rejecting the idea that we can only
know what we can directly experience.11 Feminist, Marxist, Bourdieusian and post-
colonial approaches are some of the traditions identified as a part of critical IR.12
Feminists are singled out as those who have made the biggest contribution to the devel-
opment of reflexivity and positionality as a cornerstone of critical methodologies in IR.13
These critical IR scholars, in their pursuit of holistic understanding and perspectival
social knowledge, can benefit from a case study methodology that can help make knowl-
edge claims about the social world in a way that systematically relates the observation of
the local context to power relations and transnational power structures. While not being
the only possible methodological choice for non-positivist case studies, and without
wanting to play down the diversity of critical IR approaches, the extended case method-
ology contributes to IR methodology debates by responding to the need for non-positiv-
ist standards for conceptualising and carrying out case study research.
Before we proceed, a terminological clarification is necessary. Concurring with
Hansen,14 and Barkin and Sjoberg, we define methods as the techniques of data
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