Narrative Explanation: An Alternative to Variable-Centered Explanation?

Author(s): Peter Abell

Source: Annual Review of Sociology , 2004, Vol. 30 (2004), pp. 287-310
Published by: Annual Reviews

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 Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2004. 30:287-310
doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100113
Copyright (?) 2004 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
First published online as a Review in Advance on March 17, 2004

Narrative Explanation: An Alternative

to Variable-Centered Explanation?

Peter Abell
The London School of Economics and Political Science, Interdisciplinary Institute
of Management, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom; email: p.abell@lse.ac.uk

Key Words causality, ethnography, historical sociology, low-frequency events

? Abstract The nature of narrative explanations is explored as an alternative to the

better established variable-centered explanations. Narratives are conceived as di-graphs
where the nodes are states of the world and the arcs are actions (causes). Comparative
narratives are understood as mappings between di-graphs. Ethnographic and historical
explanations, where the number of cases is small and causality complex, may depend
upon a narrative depiction.

INTRODUCTION

Only a couple of decades ago, scholars engaged in vigorous debates about the rel?
ative virtues of quantitative and qualitative analysis in sociological research. With
the development of statistically sophisticated models, however, which license both
exogenous and endogenous qualitative variables (Maddala 1983), the debate has
shifted toward issues about small- and large-N inquiries. Quantitative and qualita?
tive causal inferences are possible, as long as the number of observations is deemed
to be large enough. But many sociologists?particularly those of a historical bent?
still seek to analyze situations in which the number of observations is, either for
intrinsic or for cost reasons, rather small and where causality is often complex
(Abell 2001, Lieberson 1992, Skocpol 1986). Ragin (1987), among others, has
developed Boolean techniques that are appropriate when only a small number of
cases is available, techniques that hark back to Mills's methods of agreement and
difference (Dion 1998, Ni?ois 1986). These have been heavily criticized by statisti?
cally minded analysts, however, like Lieberson (1992) and Goldthorpe (2000), who
question the apparently deterministic nature of many ethnographic (Becker 1992)
and comparative historical case studies. Long-standing and unresolved debates are
currently resurfacing about the role of historical inquiry (evidence) in sociologi?
cal investigation. The distinction, if any, between "historical understanding" and
"causal explanation" is once again being discussed (Goldthorpe 2000).

0360-0572/04/0811-0287$ 14.00 287

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288 ABELL

Interspersed in the debate about the role of case studies, ethnography, an

historical comparative method in the sociological enterprise is an abiding concer
about the distinctive nature (if any) of narrative explanation or understanding.
Goldthorpe (2000) has recently promoted what he terms narrative analysis a
complementary to variable-centered analysis when the latter generates a pattern o
covariation between variables (the explanandum) inviting further explication. He
thus invites us to coin a distinctive way of combining large- and small-iV studies
He remains, however, antagonistically inclined to any independent role for either
historical or ethnographic materials.
Bates and his coworkers (1998) have endowed what they term analytical nar?
ratives with a more prominent role when adopting a game-theoretic approach to
macrohistorical case studies. Abell (1993) has also drawn attention to the connec?
tion between narrative and game-theoretic (more generally strategic) analysis.
Various conceptions of narrative have also played a significant role in many
postmodern approaches to sociological analysis (Boje 2001). They hold in common
the belief that significant intellectual continuity can be found between the literary
and the sociological uses of the term (Polkinghorne 1988). Although I later briefly
refer to this continuity, I feel unqualified to review this literature and thus it fall
beyond the scope of this review.1
The realization that some social scientists, many historians (Elton 1983), and
almost all lay actors resort to a narrative understanding of social reality has exer?
cised the minds of those who tussle with the foundational problems of the nature
of explanation in social inquiry (Kiser 1996). It is useful to distinguish between
(a) narrative as an explanatory form deployed in either history or the social sci?
ences, and (b) narrative as a mode of cognition embodied in the (social) action
of individuals and collectivities (Ricoeur 1986, Sarbin 1986). However, because
most of the analytical issues at stake arise in the former, I restrict this review to
(a). For (b) see Abell (2003).
Two positions can be determined in respect of the epistemological foundations
of "narrative explanation/understanding" (Polkinghorne 1988) (see Table 1). To
adjudicate between these two standpoints, we need a clear definition of the centra
concept itself. This is not as easily accomplished as one might suspect. Although
the word narrative (Franzosi 1998b) and cognate concepts like sequence analysis
(Abbott 1995, Griffin 1993), event structure analysis (Heise 1990), and stream
analysis (Porras 1987) are widely used, no settled definition is yet established.
Furthermore, the literature, with the notable exception of the above authors, is
remarkable for its lack of rigor. Ricoeur (1981, p. 170) is often quoted as follows:

Postmodern might be the wrong term. I also do not review what some would call post
positivist narrative theory (Riessman 1993) because I propose a concept of causality that
departs from the precepts of Humean causality, which many regard as indicative of posi?
tivism. I thus restrict my attention to the scholars for whom narratives are in some sense
designed to represent an external reality?albeit in a social constructivist spirit (Abbott
1992).

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 289

TABLE 1 Epistemol?gica! foundations of narrative explanation

Standpoint A: Narrative explanation can always, in principle, be reduced to hypothetic

deductive or inductive-probabilistic covering law precepts. Furthermore, it only ever
plays a "sketching" role (Dray 1957) in systematic investigation. Thus, it does not
occupy a distinctive explanatory position in either the social sciences or historical
inquiry.
Standpoint B: Narrative explanation is, in some sense of the term, sui generis,
constituting a distinctive form of explanation (or understanding).

[T]he story's conclusion is the pole of attraction.... But the narrative conclu?
sion can be neither deduced nor predicted. There is no story if our attention
is not moved along by a thousand contingencies_So rather than being pre?
dictable a conclusion must be acceptable. Looking back from the conclusion
to the episodes leading up to it we have to be able to say that this ending re?
quired these sorts of events and this chain of actions. But this backward look
is made possible by the teleological movement directed by our expectations
when we follow the story.

Make what you will of this, it does bring into relief a number of pertinent issues.
Narratives (i.e., stories) concern chains of events and/or actions?perhaps partially
teleologically linked?leading to a conclusion (i.e., outcome) that is not predictable
as a consequence of the interposition of a multitude of contingent events. Few
would perhaps cavil at this picture, although one might still wonder what the
social scientific relevance is of narratives, so conceived. A formal approach to the
definition of narratives, which is consistent with most uses, can be found in Abell
(1987). Here we offer a rather informal picture.2 A narrative comprises:

1. A finite set of descriptive states of the world (W). The set will include an
outcome (or final) state. In some depictions, Wmay be regarded as points in
a state space.
2. A weak order in time on set W (the chronology of states).
3. A finite set of actors (A). Actors may be individual or collective.
4. A binary causal relation between some pairs of set W. The relations will run
from earlier to later states in the chronology on W. These ordered pairs might
be referred to as events.

5. A finite set of actions (a) that transform some elements of W. The actions
transform earlier to later states in the chronology W.

2The informal picture, which follows, is slightly different from the one in Abell (1987). The
depiction of narratives varies from author to author, but most ultimately use di-graphs. The
labeling conventions vary, however. The informal presentation here is made with an eye to
the arguments about actions and causes that follow.

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290 ABELL

wM 9 9 w?h)

W3(tl) W5(t2)
Figure 1 An illustrative narrative structure; W, states of the world; t,
time; a, actions; a and ?, actors.

6. A map of set A onto set a, showing which actor performs which actio
7. The structure of the narrative can then be represented by a di-graph
the nodes are the set W, and where there are two types of arcs on e
sive subsets of (W x W) representing, respectively, causal events and
relations/transformations (to be distinguished below).
8. The narrative (di-graph) is an and graph, is acyclic, and may exhibit p
processing.3
An illustrative example is given in Figure 1.
Because narratives are constructed around three sets of entities, world
actions, and actors, various bi-partite graphs and projections can also be de
A number of authors, without using the term narrative in a systematic m
have advocated analytical approaches that are, broadly speaking, consisten
the above picture. Heise (1990) has developed event structure analysis, Ab
(1995) and Abbott & Tsay (2000) sequence analysis, Fararo & Skvoretz
generative structuralism, and Korn (1998, 2001) linguistic modeling.4 Alt
by now a little dated, the special issue of The Journal of Mathematic
?gy (Volume 18, 1993) devoted to narrative analysis gives a good impressi
the interplay of these approaches. Similarly, Griffin & Ragin (1994) draw
tions between various qualitative techniques. Ethnographic decision tree m
is also conceptually close (Gladwin 1989). Franzosi (1994; 1998a,b; 20
fashioned an approach to narratives that draws upon event counts using
analysis. Poole and his coauthors (2000) have also used narratives, among

3Some authors (see below) restrict narrative analysis to simple sequences (or cha
Abbott 1995). A broader conception allows for branching and a number of arcs
into a node (interpreted as jointly necessary and/or sufficient) for the state of the
4Needless to say, many similar techniques are advocated in disciplines other than s
(e.g., psychology, computer science, and artificial intelligence).

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 291

longitudinal methods, to study organizational dynamics. Similarly, Porras (1987)

has developed what he terms stream analysis, whereby organizational problems
are traced back to prior problems, generating a "problem story." Alongside these
developments, a literature has evolved seeking to analyze life histories and ca?
reers (Sampson & Laub 1993), which also occasionally makes use of narrative
analysis, often complementing a variable-centered (large-AT) approach. Spilerman
(1977) introduced the concept of sequential "career lines" central to the statistical,
large-N methodology (Althauser & Van Veen 1995).
This review proceeds as follows. First, the vexed issue about the nature of nar?
rative causality is addressed. I argue that a concept of singular causality, associated
with the transfomative power of human actions (individual and collective), is an
essential ingredient of any narrative explanation. With this in place, a reorder?
ing of the "positivist" trinity, whence comparative method and generalization are
both necessarily prior to any good explanation, becomes possible. Thus, causal
explanation is now before both comparison and generalization. Only after finding
an adequate singular causal account do I pose the comparative question as to the
generalizability of the explanation.
Following the section on causality, I explore the concept of narrative coherence
(i.e., how stories hold together as a whole). I briefly analyze four routes to co?
herence, namely the unity of subject, cumulative causation, instrumentally linked
actions, and generative structuralism. Some general conclusions are drawn.
Finally, I investigate various methods appropriate to narrative analyses, along
with an impression of their respective empirical achievements. The review con?
cludes with a cautious evaluation of narrative explanation.

NARRATIVE EPISTEMICS I: EXPLANATION,

UNDERSTANDING, AND CAUSALITY

Both historians (Elton 1983) and ethnographers (Becker 1992) appear to agree
that the practice of assembling the evidence for a chronology of events, actions,
and so on is relatively unproblematic. Debates do continue, though, about both
the nature and validity of historical and ethnographic evidence (Goldthorpe 2000).
Furthermore, Ricoeur (1986) makes much of the observation whereby differing
time scales, involving collectivities of one sort or another, may render the ordering
of a chronology difficult. States of the world (W), which are eventually transformed
by human actions, may persist in time and thus exhibit a weak ordering in both their
starting and termination dates (Abbott 1990). A narrative may necessarily involve
the analysis of actions by a variety of actors, individual and collective. Abell (1996,
2001) has made use of the Coleman diagram (Coleman 1990) to draw a connection
between causal and narrative analysis when multiple level situations arise.
When it comes to the insertion of the causal connections between the or?
dered states of the world, difficult (and frankly entirely controversial) epistemo
logical issues begin to arise concerning narrative explanation or understanding.
The latter term has often been used to legitimize the sui generis interpretation

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292 ABELL

(standpoint B in Table 1), although it appears to have gained no universally ac

cepted usage. The most consistent use of the term derives from Von Wright'
(1971) analysis of actions as constituents of the broader conception of t
logical and narrative explanation. I use the term narrative explanation, confin
the word "understanding" to the conceptualization and comprehension of act
themselves.
The debate about narrative explanation still harks back to Hempel's (1942)
famous essay about the function of general laws in history (Abbott 1998). The
implications of this paper still exercise and divide historians, although there is a
less discernable impact upon ethnography. However, issues about the possibility
of using causal explanations when faced with small numbers of case studies still
generate heated debates (Lieberson 1992, Ragin 1992). It is difficult for the prac?
tically minded sociologist to come to terms with the details of the philosophical
debates, which target an adjudication between standpoints A and B in Table 1,
although Danto (1985) is still probably the most helpful source.
A useful way to formulate the issues is according to the logical interplay among
the trinity of (nomic) generalization, comparative method, and explanation (Abell
1993,2001). Those who wish, following Hempel and others, to advocate standpoint
A take a positivistic stance by insisting that generalization and comparative meth?
ods are both necessary prerequisites for any causal explanation. On this count, each
and every causal link inserted into a chronology must derive from a comparative and
general understanding of causality. Thus, the hypothetico-deductive or inductive
probabilistic covering law models are invoked, whereby both generalization and
comparative method are necessary ingredients of any good explanation. There is
no explanation without comparison and generalization! Within this framework, the
causal links inserted into the chronology to create a narrative upon set W are inferred
from the (probabilistic) constant conjunction of elements of W. The issue here is
broader than narrative explanation itself, however, raising problems of causal in?
ference when N is intrinsically small and laws are not known or, some would say,
even conceivable. Small-N researchers have been roundly castigated for their fail?
ure to observe the impact of selection bias upon their putative causal claims (King
et al. 1994, Collier & Mahoney 1996). As Campell (1975) put it many years ago:

Any appearance of absolute knowledge or intrinsic knowledge about singu?

lar isolated objects is found to be illusory upon analysis. Securing scientific
evidence involves at least one comparison.

The positivistic ordering of the trinity of generalization, comparison, and ex?

planation has, of course, been subjected over the years to much critical scrutiny
by both historical sociologists and ethnographers but has never been entirely ex?
punged. It does provide an epistemological standpoint whence causal (explana?
tory) inference is uniform in nature across ethnographic, historical, and variable
centered methodologies (Dion 1998, Griffin & Ragin 1994). It is now probably
accepted that, insofar as narrative structures contain physical events, the covering
law model is appropriate for local explanatory purposes within the structures. The

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 293

transformations of elements of W by human actions, individual or collective, are

another matter (Abbott 1992, 1998).
These causal processes have been dubbed, sometimes rather implicitly, as id
iographic rather than nomothetic. Narrativists and more generally historians and
ethnographers have always been uneasy with the covering law explanatory pre?
cepts. They have not, however, provided a distinctive alternative framework, let
alone answered Lieberson's (1992) telling criticism of deterministic small-N stud?
ies (both of which narrativists usually promote). He finds no warrant for causal
inference, when N is small, without the invocation of entirely unrealistic assump?
tions (determinism, unicausality, no interaction effects, and no measurement error).
Small-iV researchers cannot effectively guard against the practice, which logically
parallels ad hoc curve fitting in large-iV studies. These arguments would seem to
stop the conversion of any chronology into a narrative dead in its tracks. For a start,
recall that narrative structures are and graphs, implying interaction. Lieberson's
approach to causality is, however, one that orders the trinity of generalization,
comparison, and explanation in the standard (positivistic) manner. We cannot, on
this reading, speak of causal explanations until we have located a secure general?
ization by comparing cases [effectively using the method of agreement (necessary
causes) and difference (sufficient causes)] and protected our conclusions against
any chance or spurious associations. We are entirely in the world of Humean causal
inference and constant conjunction. Pearl (2000) has given us the most coherent
interpretation of probabilistic necessary and/or sufficient Humean causality. Nar?
rativists, or more specifically comparativists, historians, and ethnographers, have
put themselves on the back foot by seeking to defend the standard ordering of the
trinity.
Narrative structures always contain action linkages?that is to say, those
whereby the states of W are transformed by human agency. This is the central
idea that unites narrativists. Thus, insofar as one has evidence that state Wi(t0) is
transformed into state W2(t\) through the direct or indirect evidential action(s) of
individual or collective agents, one can be said to observe the causality in the par?
ticular case (i.e., the narrative link) under investigation. One is entitled to explain
the incidence of W2(t\) hi terms of the actions from which it eventuated. There
is, at this stage, no reference to either comparative method or generalization, as
a causal explanation has been established in the particular case without any ref?
erence to other cases about its generalizability. Thus, action causality inverts the
positivist trinity. Explanation now appears to be logically prior to either compar?
ison or generalization. One might then, and only then, ask how frequently Wi(t0)
gets transformed into W2(h) by such agency. Narrativists have to propose this sort
of causal story if they wish to effectively defend standpoint B. Cartwright (1989)
defends the notion of singular causality in scientific practice.
The approach should be contrasted with the inductive-probabilistic covering law
model. The question is, do Wi(t0) and W2(t\) [and Wi(t0) and W2(h)] go together
(with suitable controls) sufficiently often to enable one to infer a causal connection
between W\ and W21 The causality is inferred with (always-contestible) controls,

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294 ABELL

from "constant conjunction." The cases of Wi(t0) W2(h) and ^1(^0)^2(^1)

dispatched by assuming, in the former case, there are other ways of becomin
W2(t\) and, in the latter, that unspecified interactions are missing. Notice that
the case of narrative analysis (causality) it is not usually the case that W\(ti)
predicted, but rather the narrative formulation takes place at a later date than
(Abbott 1998, Danto 1985). An issue remains about the place of chance in
interpretation of action and, thus, narrative causality. When posing the ques
in a particular case as to how generalizable the action (cause) is in transformi
Wo('o) into W\(ti), one must be open to the possibility that the action itself aros
chance. Even so, it was causally efficacious. Note that in the inductive-probabil
covering law model situations, when W${to) are found subsequently to eventua
W\(ti) but in the absence of significant covariation, they are conceived as gener
by independent random processes. In the case of action causality one "kno
that this is not the case (net of measurement error in observing evidence for
efficacious action).
The claim from which singular action causality is promoted, epistemic
speaking, as prior to generalization or comparative method, proves to be the m
contentious ingredient of narrative explanations. There is a long but ultimate
indecisive philosophical literature devoted to the issue of singular causality, go
back at least to Ducasse (1969) and Anscombe (1971), that licences a numbe
alternative wordings?singular cause, token cause, and actual cause (Pearl 2000,
Psillos 2002). I use the terms singular and action cause to bring out the restri
focus of the present review.
There are perhaps limited grounds for disputing the ontological claim where
singular causes exist; rather, the problem that arises is epistemological: how
we ground claims that we know they exist? This amounts to establishing in s
gular cases a demarcation between consequences and mere sequence. How do w
know, in fact, that C causes E in a particular case, rather than E only follows f
C (or C preceeds E)l What are the conditions X for such knowledge, so that w
can say if and only if X, if E follows C then C causes El Although various ph
sophical proposals have been designed to replace the regularity/nomic Humea
standpoint?mechanisms (Salmon 1997), INUS condition (Mackie 1974), an
"C is the only change in ?"s environment" (Ducasse 1969)?it has, nevertheless,
proved difficult on close examination to dispel the need for generalization of o
sort or another. Narrativists might temporarily have their hopes raised only f
them to be dashed a little later (Psillos 2002).
Equally pessimistic conclusions can be drawn with respect to the causal expl
nation of both statistical regularities and singularly probable events. Hempel lo
ago recognized that the conclusions of a deductive nomological argument can
a statistical regularity if it embodies at least one statistical nomological prem
However, when it comes to explaining a singular event with a probability of l
than one, then this will not work (Salmon 1997,Cartwright 1989, Armstrong 19
The additional factor, X, converting sequence into causality stubbornly turns
to be a (nomic) generalization (and thus implies comparison).

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 295

There is, however, a tradition that attempts to associate the epistemics of causal
claims with human agency. In this respect, Von Wright (1971) is notable. Menzies
& Price (1993), for instance, urge that "a causal relation exists between two events
just in case it is true that if a free agent were present and able, she could bring about
the first event as a means of bringing about the second." Although this formula?
tion might strike the reader as rather circular because it involves the phrase "bring
about," these authors aver that we all, as agents, possess non-causal understandings
of singular "bringings about" Psillos (2002) believes this is not good enough for an
exhaustive theory of (physical) causality but does suffice where things are linked to
human agency?precisely what narrativists are searching for. Von Wright (1971)
popularized the practical syllogism as a way of "understanding" the causal agency
of human actions. This was explicitly adopted by Abell (1987) in his formula?
tion of contingent practical syllogisms as an explanatory constituent of narratives.
Such explanations are not directly dependent upon nomic regularity. Although the
intervention of an agent in the physical world will depend on all sorts of nomic
connections about how physical states of the world are transformed, these are not
part of the inferential machinery of the explanation of the (always experimental)
action of an agent. They form, as it were, a substrate within which experimental
causal agency can operate. I do not derive an explanation of an opening of a win?
dow to ventilate the room from the laws of moments, etc. But to prove successful,
the action must be consistent with any laws. As formulated, the explanation (or
understanding) of singular causal agency takes place ex post. We possess more or
less corrigible evidence for both the transition in the world and the actions from
which it eventuated. Many narrativists (e.g., historians) fight shy of any attempt at
prediction. In this sense, narrative explanation is unlike the deductive-nomological,
deductive-statistical, and inductive-statistical modes of explanation, each of which
are frequently mobilized ex ante to predict transformations in the world.
Narrativist explanations can, nevertheless, be used predictively if, indeed, sin?
gular causal explanations are generalizable. Then, given the state of the world and
the action, one may predict the new state of the world.
Recently, the so-called counterfactual interpretation of causal claims has gained
some practical (as opposed to only philosophical) significance (Pearl 2000,
Winship & Morgan 1999). In the context of narrative causality, the approach
amounts to the conjecture that:

The causal effect of actions = AWia? ? AW2a?,

where AW are the changes in the world and a? is forbearing to a?. The problem
in making a causal inference is, of course, that we cannot observe both a? and a?.
One or the other is always counterfactual. We may be tempted to take a repeated
longitudinal standpoint, but this implies generalizability across time (i.e., no age
or period effects). Self-comparison is not consistent with singular causality. The
general solution with large-N is to take other similar forbearances (not this par?
ticular case) to test the counterfactual. Narrativists, by contrast, in the absence of
comparison are inclined to find direct testimony (if not evidence) for "subjective

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296 ABELL

counterfactuals" (Abell 2001)?actors reasoning about what would have happen

if they had forborne to act in certain ways. Using actors' counterfactual reaso
as evidence is not common practice, and little has been written about it (altho
seeManski 1995).
In summary, it might prove useful to relate the idea of singular (action-driv
causality to some wider sociological concerns. In my view, there can be no war
for narrative explanations net of a singular concept of causality. Anti-positi
have, of course, endeavored to expunge the concept itself?general or sing
from the acceptable canon. Nevertheless, they soon invoke a surrogate word. I
difficult to see how one can dispense with a connective between states of affa
For once, the social scientist seems well placed when compared with the natu
ral scientist. Evidence for the behavioral aspects of human actions, which dr
changes in the world, can in principle be observed (and reported). Whereas t
is nothing more than the constant conjunction of physical events, action-dr
causes may be observed along with any conjunction (constant or otherwise). I
how Jane has changed her social status from "low" to "high." I observe (or have
idence) that she acted (shall we say sequentially) in ways that improved her sta
Furthermore, I might ask why?thus inviting an understanding of Jane's moti
(a deeper description of her motivational causal agency). Net of measurement
ror, the causality in this case is unimpeachable. I might now, of course, go o
ask how generalizable the motivational story (i.e., the causality) is that gener
changes in states of the world called social status. And, certainly, if N is then la
I am not going to use narrative method, not because it is, in principle, wrong t
so (indeed in a world of costless information I could), but rather because it wo
prove too unwieldy. It is in this sense that Andrew Abbott wishes to give epist
primacy to narrative methods. This primacy has limitations, however.
Another example has animated much of the acrimonious debate about the r
ative virtues of small- and large-N studies (Lieberson 1992). Does the consump
tion of alcohol cause car accidents? The standard large-N approach is clear. W
suitable controls for spurious antecedents, is the proportion of accidents am
drinkers statistically different from the proportion among the dry? However,
sider Jane again, whom we observe causing an accident while under the influe
The causality in this case of how the accident occurs in no way depends upon
statistical analysis?although its generalizability does. Assuming Jane is not b
on an accident, then her motivational structure is largely irrelevant. If we wis
however, to test the original causal question?does the consumption of alco
cause car accidents?then a statistical (nomic?) regularity (perhaps even a phys
iological one) must be invoked. Indeed, any putative cause that does not enter
the motivational structure of Jane (e.g., age, gender) is epistemically so place
Here we encounter the limits of narrative method. It can show how things ge
changed and even why, if the answer is procured according to the actor's moti
tional structure (formalized as a contingent practical syllogism). What it canno
(unless it invokes a regularity) is locate external singular causes. It is imperat
for narrativists to acknowledge this limitation. Unfortunately, they often do no

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 297

NARRATIVE EPISTEMICS II: PLOTS AND COHERENCE

Various authors have sought to establish that the concept of narrative explanation
is more than merely locating a structure or sequence of causally connected states.
Various terms have been used?double meaning (White 1984), total synoptic judg?
ment (Mink 1978), coherence (Polkinghorne 1988), plot structure (Ricoeur 1986),
emergent significance (Bruner 1986), and many more. Little analytical traction
has been achieved, however, and multiplying the number of words used has been
of little help.
If one assumes narratives are designed to describe and explain events and ac?
tions as they have actually occurred in the world, then their truth-value is the logical
conjunction of the truth-value of their constituent past-referring causal proposi?
tions and nothing more. A narrative is true if and only if each of its constituent
propositions is true. Precisely what else is required is not clear. But to protect the
conception from the accusation that to merely document "one thing after another"
is a commonplace, some additional constraints are in order. In particular, how in
the ongoing flow of events shall we break out a narrative with a beginning and
an end? The leading idea is one whereby "coherence" between (causal) propo?
sitions is maintained by some overall conception of "plot." There is an obvious
intellectual parallel here with structural linguistics, which has been exploited by
exponents of discourse analysis?namely to find the rules that generate structures
(sequences) of propositions that are globally meaningful (see also Heise & Durig
1997, Fararo & Bretts 1999). If such rules could be located, they would license
acceptable structures (sequences) while prohibiting the rest. I am by no means
confident about my knowledge of discourse analysis, but as far as I can tell, this
most laudable of ambitions has not been realized (however, see Franzosi 2003
below). Nevertheless, several less-ambitious approaches have addressed the same
set of issues; they are in order of increasing importance:

1. The unity of subject(s)

2. Cumulative causality
3. Instrumentally (motivationally) linked actions (causes)
4. Generative structuralism
I consider each in turn.

Coherence through Unity of Subject(s)

An obvious constraint that may be placed on narrative structures is one whereby
they should refer to named subjects; that is, they should comprise the story of
those subjects, culminating in a particular element of set W (the outcome) in need
of explanation. Intersecting paths in the structure (di-graph) could thus comprise
subplots (Rappaport 1993). A special case, of course, is the career of an individual.
Danto (1985) insists that what he terms sequences of "narrative sentences" always

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298 ABELL

refer to changes of state (narratives are inherently longitudinal). We may th

construe the sequence of changes of state (W) or the action causes as a p
explanandum. One aspires to explain, as it were, the whole path. The path cohe
in the same way as do the movements around a state space in a variable-cent
model. One will not search for an explanation of each transformation but fo
whole, from start to finish (i.e., probably an equilibrium state) (Doreian 2001
The period in which sociologists were inclined to seek sequences in ma
historical states (causally connected or not) appears now largely to be over. S
models of societal development are widely discredited (Danto 1985). Coher
sequences at a more micro-level are still sought, but these are likely to be anim
either by bringing a sequence of actions under a planned overall objective (Bra
1987) or as the outcome of some institutionally established generative rules
below for both).
Abbott (1998) has been among the most insistent in his claim wherein who
sequences (i.e., paths) should be treated as objects of inquiry (i.e., units of an
ysis). He furthermore points to many situations in which the units (cases) are
independent, defining what he terms interactional fields. Such fields, he belie
are probably not open to explanation but can, nevertheless, be described to s
significant purpose.
Although not widely encountered in sociology?as opposed to, say, biol
evolutionary narratives are a possible avenue toward narrative coherence. Sto
ries wherein a species or even a specific organ (e.g., the eye) evolved thr
processes of mutation and selection (phylogeny) often piece together conject
and fragmented pieces of hard evidence. It is difficult to see how these narrat
explanations could ever be supplanted by more conventional ones. The curren
preoccupation with evolutionary models in political economy, derivative of g
theory, often leads authors into a narrative style of presentation (Bates et al. 1
Skyrms 1996). The idea whereby evolutionary narratives unfold under the ausp
of both contingent (often random) and generalizable causal forces fits with ma
historians' interpretations of historical process, as it does with Ricoeur (1986
Evolutionary narratives often invite us to amalgamate processes operating ov
markedly different time scales (Abbott 1990). From the perspective of historia
the Annales school of thought has pushed this idea furthest, although the sty
writing is often most opaque precisely at the point at which epistemological puz
arise. The concept of evolutionary coherence awaits more rigorous analysis.
Decomposing a sequence or structure into cohering plot (and subplot) u
is certainly intuitively an appealing procedure. It turns out, however, to be ra
difficult analytically to achieve. There are a number of attempts in the literatu
tie the concept down (for an informal review see Polkinghorne 1988), but noth
beyond ad hoc common sense procedures has emerged. Any state of the world
be selected from an ongoing structure as the outcome of interest, and the narr
will give its causal history. Alternatively, the change in the state from some in

5The path may be a single actor story or an interactive story. See Abell (1987) for deta

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 299

State to a later one can provide the focus. In the first case we answer the question
as to how we arrive at the outcome and in the second as to how the world changes.
There are no restrictions on our license to do this sort ofthing that would effectively
separate arbitrary sequences from plots. One possibility that has not, as far as I am
aware, been explored is to interpret cohering units as processes that either open up
or restrict the options available to actors. Such processes are, however, probably
best studied under the auspices of cumulative causality.

Coherence through Cumulative Causality

Consider a narrative sequence:

W0(to)-ax ?? Wx{h)-a2 ?> W2(t2)-a3 ??> W3(t3).

It is sometimes maintained that the later transformations could not have occurred
in the absence of the earlier ones. Alternatively, a narratively coherent sequence
(plot) traces the necessary stages in a sequence of transformations (Abbott 1995,
Mohr 1982). As narrative ethnographers and historians might both say, the more
history we understand, the more we understand the present. First, one should
separate these claims from the standard ones about transitive closure?if A causes
B and B causes C then A causes C. In the variable-centered stochastic framework
of causes, there are well-established techniques for detecting a direct causal link
running between A and C and separating it from the effect running through B. In
the above sequence, in either a stochastic or deterministic framework, Wo(to) will
be transformed to W3(t3), and it is narratively possible for another (action-driven)
path to exist between these two states. But this is not, I suspect, what most authors
mean by "coherence" in the present context. It is rather that the actions (causes)
themselves have a coherence over and above the states of W. I therefore interpret
"coherence" to logically imply:

(Only) if a i then a2.

(Only) if a\ and a2 then a3 (and so on).

One could weaken this requirement by involving sufficiency rather than necessity.
Thinking causally, this would imply, first, a\ causes a2, followed by a\ and a2
causes a3, and so on. This is not the same as saying there exists an independent
causal path running from a\ to a3. It is in fact logically equivalent to a higher order
Markov constraint where N is large enough, so to speak. If one is inclined to set
out a di-graph with actions as the nodes, then the above scheme will be a complete
and graph. Two or more arcs incident into any given node will indicate that all
(1-arc connected) prior actions are conjointly necessary/sufficient for the action at
that node [this will generate a Boolean structure in the spirit of Ragin (1987)?see
Abell (2001)].
As noted above, it appears that the concept of coherence, through cumulative
(action) causation, is consistent with the thinking behind discrete time and space
stochastic models (i.e., where N becomes large). Moreover, when long paths occur

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300 ABELL

in a number of narratives, it may prove possible to impose a small dimensio

categorization on the action types (or indeed set W) and then to test for station
(i.e., invariance of transaction probabilities down paths), order (i.e., first, seco
etc., Markov dependencies), and homogeneity (i.e., across case identity of proc
See Poole et al. (2000) for such analyses.
One can, of course, derive a conception of coherent plot from a pattern of cu
lative causality. A sub di-graph that is (asymmetrically) complete can be ident
as a plot. A narrative can in principle thus be decomposed into plots and conne
ing structure. Cumulative causality seems to capture well the idea of cumula
precedent whereby normative (i.e., institutional) expectations evolve under t
auspices of local optimization among a population of interacting actors (Youn
1998). Narrative analyses will be at a premium when the number of interact
dwindles.

Coherence as Instrumentally (Motivationally) Linked Actions

A number of authors have in one way or another associated the idea of narra
coherence with sequences of actions (or interactions) that can be brought un
the same intention, goal, objective, or plan (see Bratman 1987 for a philosop
analysis).
So in the sequence:

Wo(fo)-ax ?* Wx(h)-a2 ?? W2(t2)

a i is motivated by the belief that W\(t{) will result and thus facilitate a2 in order to
realize W2(t2). It is of course possible that a\ and a2 are commissioned by different
actors in a sequence of social interactions. Abell (1987, 1993) describes single
actor and interactive mappings permitting both the abstraction and generalization
of narrative structures. Abstraction is achieved by creating equivalence classes on
set W, which preserve paths of social determination. Heise (1993) has criticized this
approach as overly permissive without a clear theory of meaning. Sharpe (2002)
has developed these ideas by requiring of a sequence/structure that it satisfy three
types of hierarchally ordered norms. He postulates, first, that each person lives a life
according to a narrative, which expresses the kind of person she wants to be ("homo
narrans") (Maclntyre 1985, Rappaport 1993). Second, synchronie norms require
that each action is reasonable (i.e., appropriately ends-oriented) in its own terms;
norms of diachronic consistency require that synchronie norms are consistent
with each other over time. Finally, hierarchical norms require that "coarser" and
"refined" descriptions (compare Abell's abstraction) are also consistent with each
other. If the life or career of an individual takes the form of a coherent narrative,
then in general more detail will be retained in the current period and less in the
past. Likewise, plans projected into the future will be of a coarser nature. The idea
that future plans and past reflections, though lacking narrative detail, need in some
sense to cohere with (be consistent with) current activity is something that has not
been fully developed in sociological analysis. A rather rich literature pertains to

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 301

these issues originating in psychology and in artificial intelligence (Bratman 1987).

Clearly substructures of a given narrative that may cohere in terms of individual or
collective plans provide a quite natural interpretation of the terms plot and subplot.
The explanatory ambitions of narrativists may perhaps be properly confined to the
paths that span subplots (Mishler 1995, Freeman 1997). The sociological results in
this area are sparse despite much hand waving. A lead might be found with Gilboa
& Schmeidler (2001), who link planning into their case-based theory of decision
making, which conceives decision makers as following "similar," remembered
past situations. Abell (2003) has proposed that similar situations be conceived in
narrative terms in which the similarity relation is derived from narrative mappings,
leading to what he terms narrative action theory.

Coherence as Generative Structuralism

The term narrative is not frequently used by the various advocates of generative
structuralism, but in their ambition to locate a finite set of rules that will generate
(culturally) permissible and prohibit impermissible sequences of actions, they have
made the most significant contribution to the field of study (Fararo & Bretts 1999,
Skvoretz & Fararo 1996, Heise & Durig 1997). Coherence is thus created by the
generative rules themselves. In some ways this literature achieves one of the deeper
aspirations of discourse analysis, although there is little cross fertilization of ideas.
The literature on generative structuralism and closely related ideas in artificial
intelligence (Carley 1996), sociological algorithms (Heise 1995), computational
sociology (Carley 1997), object orientation modeling (Hummon & Fararo 1995,
Martin 1997), and productions systems (Skvoretz & Fararo 1996) is by now impres?
sively large. It calls for an integrative review in its own right but largely falls beyond
the scope of this review, as these ideas are not intrinsically tied to small-N situations.
There can be little doubt, nevertheless, that the intellectual program underpin?
ning generative structuralism (interpreting this phrase widely to cover any simu?
lation procedure that generates sequences) is one of the most promising in social
theory and brings a level of rigor to the idea of narrative coherence that is conspicu?
ously lacking elsewhere. The nagging question remains, however, as to whether the
program can be brought to bear on the sorts of macro social phenomena that have
gained the attention of historical sociologists and on the detailed micro phenomena
that are the concern of many with an ethnographic inclination. As Skvoretz (1993)
puts it, "Narrative method may be a more revealing analytical technique when ap?
plied to less scripted more narrative interaction." One should note that within the
generative structuralist framework the entire sequence or structure (i.e., narrative)
constitutes the explanandum and the generative mechanism the explanans, and, if
the latter contains a stochastic component, appropriate probabilistic interpretations
are at hand. How much real-world sequences/structures of interest can be treated
as unities in this manner is a moot point (Abell 1993). Narratives are one way
of addressing the issue of heterogeneity. In the extreme, each individual brings a
unique, partially realized "life story" to each institutional setting. Modeling the

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302 ABELL

extent to which the institution (set of rules) and the narrative constrain current
actions should, in my view, be a central issue in social theory.
The precepts of generative structuralism could, of course, be applied to those
subsequences that either exhibit a pattern of cumulative causality (thus plots)
or cover instrumentally linked actions. In the former case, the generative rules
would pick out normatively structured plans of action (interaction). In this sense,
we can see possible interconnections between the various concepts of coherence.
Nevertheless, I am unaware of any serious attempts to make these connections. This
may be because most narrativists characteristically fight shy of any formalism. But
equally the above point stands; narrative depiction (with all its inherent limitations)
is perhaps best suited to messy situations where normatively structured sequences
are not to be found. In this context it is cumulative causation that will prove
analytically most useful.

NARRATIVE METHODS

Three methods respectively associated with the names Abbott, Franzosi, and Heise
have played a conspicuous role in developing narrative ideas. With the exception of
Heise, with his formulation of event structure analyses (ESA), they have not put a
premium upon the explanatory role of sequences themselves. As discussed below,
Abbott eschews any consideration of causality between the constituent events of
a sequence, and Franzosi's (2003) interest is largely in counting the number of
sequences in narratives. Nevertheless, no review would be complete without some
consideration of their contribution.
Abbott (1983,1995) has orchestrated a distinct approach to the systematic com?
parative analysis of sequences of entities, variously called sequence analysis or
optimal matching (or alignment). The method derives from and develops tech?
niques formulated in the biological, natural, and cognitive sciences. For a recent
review of these sources, see Gusfield (1997). Because the sociological use of se?
quence analysis has been fully reviewed (Abbott & Tsay 2000), I only deal with
selected issues directly relevant to narrative analysis.
The basic ideas behind sequence analysis are as follows:

1. Generate a set of sequences of events (states/actions, etc.) from a finite

vocabulary of event types. Call this set S.
2. Compare each pair of sequences, noting the minimum of event insertions,
deletions, and replacements in order to commute one sequence to the other.
3. Attach a cost to each insertion, etc.
4. Construct a distance matrix, D = S x S
5. Subject D to some form of statistical clustering technique giving clusters of
similar sequences.

So formulated, it is of some moment that sequence analyses are conceived as

procuring a solution to large-N, not small-N, problems. It has, therefore, been

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 303

critically compared with other applicable statistical models, notably event history
analysis (Abbott 1992) and in general (Markov) stochastic sequences
(Wu 2000). Abbott and others who have made use of his technique are, how?
ever, insistent that sequences (and subsequences) should be treated as whole units
(Abbott 1995). They want us to turn away from considerations of what Abbott
refers to as step-by-step methods to whole sequence methods. Thus, any con?
cept of stochastic coherence (e.g., Markov dependence) plays no role in sequence
analyses, so conceived. This leads Abbott to propose that either whole or partial
sequences can be the carriers of properties, which in turn can be treated as either
dependent or independent variables (Abbott 1995, Abbott & Tsay 2000). So issues
concerning the internal structure of sequences, beyond their ordering (in time and
space), are suppressed. In particular, there is no consideration of causality within
the sequences. If we are prepared to picture each sequence as a whole, more or
less similar/close to every other sequence, generating a number of equivalence
classes (ranked or nominal), then insofar as they may serve an explanatory pur?
pose in respect of a chosen dependent variable the epistemics of what is happening
presumably fall fair and square under the classical Humean (large-N) concept of
causality. There is nothing heterodox beyond the initial clumping of events into
sequences.
In 2000, Abbott found 23 sociological applications of the sequence matching
method (not all published). In an earlier review (Abbott 1995), he also found a
significant number of studies in the other social sciences (psychology, economics,
archaeology, linguistics, and political science). These reviews provide a compre?
hensive overview of the development and achievements of the method. Individual
careers appear to provide the most common basis for study. Chan (1995) reports on
the movements of 37 individuals into the service class in Hong Kong. Following
this, Halpin & Chan (1998) extended the study to Ireland and Britain, analyz?
ing nearly 1000 sequences. Although they found sequence analysis to be a useful
classificatory device, they concluded that it only provided a prefatory to more or?
thodox methods. Stovel et al. (1996) claim, however, that in a study of bankers
sequence analysis discloses patterns that other cross-sectional studies could not.
But surely here the appropriate comparison is with other longitudinal methods.
Han & Moen (1999), in a study of about 500 sequences, claim that the whole
career path is a significant predictor of the timing of retirement. This is a partic?
ularly important finding if replicable. Guiffre (1999) studied "career trajectories"
through differing network locations gaining various amounts of media attention
(a dependent variable). Because in this study the dependent variable is concep?
tually quite distinct from the "next step in a sequence," this study is again rather
important.
Abbott & Tsay (2000) review a few studies that concentrate on the trajectories
of units larger than individuals, but they concede that the studies do not possess the
clarity of the individual career studies. Interestingly, from the perspective of this
review, a number of studies (Wilson 1988; Sabrerwal & Robey 1993; Abbott 1983,
1990; Levitt & Nass 1989) have examined, in a variety of contexts, a moderate
number of sequences, in the range 25 to 50 or more?perhaps too few for more

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304 ABELL

orthodox statistical analysis but enough for sequence analysis to prove applica?
ble. As Abbott observes, many studies have produced "interpretable and intuitiv
findings." He and Tsay conclude, however, that "there is not yet a single deci?
sive application?one that completely solves a major empirical question left out
by standard methodology or that completely overthrows standard interpretations
(Abbott & Tsay 2000, p. 28).
Although Abbott and other sequence analysis enthusiasts have sought to estab?
lish strong claims for their chosen technique as against more orthodox stochastic
generative models (Abbott 1995), this is not our concern here. Rather, the issue
is whether these techniques could play a significant role in small-N situations. As
such, they would eschew any consideration of the causal mechanisms internal to
the sequence. This puts them somewhat at odds with narrative analysis as nor?
mally conceived, but there appears to be no intrinsic reason why the classificatory
potential of sequence analysis should not prove useful to narrativists. The method
could easily be adapted to incorporate parallel branching sequences inherent to the
narrative method.
A number of authors have been rather critical of sequence analysis, notably
Wu (2000). Despite Abbott's claims about sequence analysis to the contrary
Wu finds sequence analysis to be highly assumption-dependent in relation t
the computation of the costs of transmuting one sequence to another. Nor does
the issue surrounding the lack of independence of units [what Abbott (1997
calls "interactional fields"] appear to confer a distinct analytical advantage upon
sequence analysis. In particular, more traditional regression-based models can
handle endogenous, contextual, and correlated effects (Manski 1995). But again,
these are issues about the choice of technique with large N. Unfortunately, one
cannot come away from Wu's observations with other than the feeling that se?
quence analysis, when treated as a large-Af technique, struggles to find a distinc?
tive, powerful voice. However, this conclusion should not cloud its potential as N
dwindles.
The software program ETHNO (Heise 1991) has become a standard tool for
the analysis of sequential structures of events. It has, however, more recently
evolved into ESA, which explicitly implements what Heise and his colleagues
refer to as event frames analysis. Unlike Abell (1987), Heise (Heise & Duri
1997) provides a systematic semantics of actions/events. Eight characteristics of
action-driven events (agent, action, object, instrument, alignment, setting, prod?
uct, and beneficiary) are proposed that can be linked across agents generatin
structures of interactive events that "have the potential for being routinized such
that a whole sequence of events unfolds smoothly every time an initial event
occurs."
These structures, in turn, can be treated as macroactions [see, for example,
Abell's (1987) abstraction mappings]. Heise & Durig in effect provide a set of
open categories (frames) each of which may be specified in the provision of
an adequate conceptualization of an event, although they concede that all the
frames may not be filled in a particular empirical application. They reanalyze

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 NARRATIVE EXPLANATION 305

one of Abell's (1987) case histories, showing the rather severe limitations of
his narrative method. In so doing, they also develop links between ESA and
network analyses by counting the number of agent-object and beneficiary re?
lations contained in the narrative (see Franzosi 2003). Whether their eightfold
categorization will prove widely applicable, time alone will tell. Although not
entirely explicitly, Heise & Durig do appear to embrace a singular conception of
causality.
For Heise & Durig it is largely through collaborative macroactions, which link
a series of microactions, that narrative coherence is achieved. Coherence may have
a global character, operating through locally maintained interactions. So actor 1
may consciously coordinate with actor 2, who may coordinate with actor 3. The
latter calculation may, nevertheless, never enter the (eightfold) account of actor
l's actions.
Franzosi (2003) has in the last decade or so developed a distinctive approach
to the analysis of what he terms narrative data. His ambition, however, is always
to convert qualitative narrative text into a numerical scale by adopting a coding
framework that, in his most celebrated applications (Franzosi 2003), allows counts
of subject-action-object triples. Indeed, insofar as he examines multiple narrative
texts (over 15,000 in Franzosi 2003), his approach falls far from the subject matter
of this review. However, he uses the counts of triples to generate valued di-graphs
in which subject and object (characteristically distinct collective actors) are the
nodes, which are then related by actions. In this sense, the basic picture is consis?
tent with the model of narrative that underpins this review. If we start, as at the
beginning of this review, with a tripartite di-graph connecting actors (A), actions
(a), and states of the world (W), then actor-action-actor di-graphs are one possible
projection. One of the distinct merits of Franzosi's approach is the way in which
it ties narrative depiction to its linguistic carrier by grounding it in a semantic
grammar framework (see, for example, Korn 1998). Whether this is always valu?
able from a sociological perspective is questionable. The mapping from linguistic
representations to a conceptual picture of "what went on" is many to one, and to
pay attention to the particular linguistic representation might often prove otiose.
Indeed, one could fix upon the idea of counting triples without any of the linguistic
paraphernalia.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this review, I have mustered the strongest case I can for a particular form of
narrative explanation. I am by no means confident that the argument is water?
tight. Certainly the idea of narrative has gained a significant currency over the last
decade or so, but much of the literature does not engage with the more analyti?
cally rigorous developments in contemporary social science. This sort of separa?
tion is unfortunately endemic in many areas of sociology. There is almost no cross
referencing by those who take a "postpositivist" or "postmodern" stance on

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306 ABELL

narrative to the technical literature (although there is some the other way arou
This is bad for the discipline and certainly not good for students of sociology
hope this review, written in an entirely nontechnical manner, may contribute
more cogent debate.
But what role can narrative analysis (and explanation) properly play in the d
velopment of a technically rigorous sociology? It is particularly important not
overstate the case. One should have little sympathy for those who exclusi
identify with "qualitative" sociology (historical, ethnographic, or whate
particularly if this comprises a scarcely veiled excuse not to acquire a master
of the technical infrastructure of our discipline. Be this as it may, small-N "qu
itative" studies will, I suspect, continue to find a modest place in our endeav
where the system of interactions under scrutiny is only infrequently (or ind
never) repeated. It is important to confine narrative analysis to these situations
in a role as an exploratory method). If sociology were to be blessed with wid
validated general theories, then narratives could, in addition, provide the foc
for the application of such theories, but unfortunately it is not so endowed
may never be so. The notion whereby "social reality" may be captured by a f
number of generalizations?albeit with time varying parameters?hardly r
true to contemporary ears. It is perhaps worth acknowledging that in a signific
sense, social reality can metaphysically be pictured as an evolutionary network
complex social interactions (i.e., as a narrative). In a world of costless and full i
formation, one would always study (parts of) this narrative and in so doing seek
answer questions about the generalizability and coherence of singular causal c
nections. Sociological and historical inquiry would become of a piece. The
and motivational whys are addressed and answered. In the real world of costs a
limited information, however, one must pose the question as to the optimal ep
mological intervention in the network, and, when repeated patterns occur, larg
statistical models are the answer. Furthermore, as noted, where extramotivatio
why questions are posed, then once again narrative explanation is of no use. Thu
I may adopt a rather pretentious expression?narrative explanation derives from
ontological primacy, although variable-centered explanation has epistemologic
primacy.
As a final remark, I hope I might be excused a rather personal observation. My
interest in narrative explanation arose from my experience of studying producer
cooperatives in the developing world. Although by inclination a statistical mod?
eler, I found myself having to face the fact that I only managed to understand the
dynamics of cooperative enterprises in sufficient detail to offer cogent advice by
conducting detailed case studies. The statistically based generalizations I could
locate were of little practical value (and explained a very small proportion of vari?
ance in performance). Indeed, I came to have much sympathy with Karl Popper's
injunction that most "laws" in social science are rather uninteresting. This experi?
ence led to my own particular version of "comparative narratives" as a hopefully
rigorous method of case analysis.

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The Annual Review of Sociology is online at http://soc.annualreviews.org
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