References for QCA Exploration

Prepared for the May 13, 2020 GBEN Roundtable on QCA, by Evan Kuras and Min Ma. View the recording of the roundtable here and the slides here.

Note: The best place to start is by reading other QCA examples, especially ones that are similar to your specific project. There are many published QCA studies in the academic literature as well as evaluation reports. Once you find a QCA application similar what you might want to do, it is much easier to transfer the logic and vocabulary to your work 

For short video examples (< 2 minutes), check out:

For in-depth theoretical background, read anything by Charles Ragin, the original QCA pioneer:

  • Ragin, C. C. (2014). The Comparative Method. University of California Press.

For a deep dive on QCA for evaluation, including pitfalls and strategies, read Befani: 

  • Befani, B. (2016). Pathways to change: Evaluating development interventions with QCA, Rapport till Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys [Report for the Expert Group for Aid Studies-EBA], Expert Group for Aid Studies. Report 05/16. Stockholm, Sweden: EBA. Link
  • Pattyn, V., Molenveld, A., Befani, B. (2017). Qualitative Comparative Analysis as an Evaluation Tool: Lessons From an Application in Development Cooperation. American Journal of Evaluation. Link

These three papers focus on methods and best practices. 

  • Schneider and Wagemann 2010 Standards of Good Practice in QCA and Fuzzy-Sets. Link
  • Legewie, N. (2013). An Introduction to Applied Data Analysis with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 14(3), 15. Link
  • Basurto, X., & Speer, J. (2012). Structuring the Calibration of Qualitative Data as Sets for Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Field Methods, 24(2), 155–174. Link

You can use free QCA software developed by Ragin et al. here.

Better Evaluation has some useful links, and you can always reach out to Min or Evan with questions!

Evan’s recent publication using QCA can be found here, and you can read more about the project elsewhere on this website.