Using Exploratory Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to explore what HAS worked when and where

Abstract: This presentation will be a somewhat modified version of one Barbara Befani and I gave to researchers, policy officers and investigators for the Environment Agency as part of the CECAN programme. It will cover the following topics and show how if we deploy the logic of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) we can start to understand the different patterns – note the multiple here – AND the complex processes of causation in operation when we engage in complex interventions in complex systems:

1. The nature of complex systems

2. Equifinality

3. Complex causation

4. Set theoretic thinking

5. Systematic comparison

6. An example – thinking about health inequalities

7. Some tricks of the trade

Bio: My interest in complexity goes back to the middle 1990s when I first encountered the ideas through reading popular science. Gill Callaghan, then my Ph.D. student, introduced me to Reed and Harvey’s work attempting a synthesis of complexity approaches and critical realism. My own research work in urban and health fields had been very much informed by the realist position and Reed and Harvey’s work really enabled me to both write the book Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences published by Routledge in 1998 and to engage in a programme of empirical research informed by the complexity frame of reference. Since then I have published widely in relation to methods and methodology and done empirical research in relation to social exclusion, health (with Blackman), and urban issues. I am particularly interested in how to develop a new form of applied social science which draws on the complexity frame of reference, the theme which underpins my book on Applying Social Science, and is being developed in practice, particularly in relation to action research projects addressing AIDS and in other related areas. Subsequent complexity informed publications include Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences – the state of the Art with Gill Callaghan – a second edition is about to go to publishers - Class after Industry and Inequality in a Context of Climate Crisis After COVID. . I have a particular interest in the application of case based methods for understanding multiple and complex causation and edited (with Charles Ragin) The Sage Handbook of Case Based Methods. I was part of the CECAN – Centre for Evaluating Complexity Across the NEXUS – programme and will draw on work there in this presentation.

Employment: Currently Emeritus Professor of Applied Social Sciences, School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University. Previously: Reader, Senior Lecturer, and Lecturer – Durham University, Reader in Sociology, Ulster Polytechnic, Research Director North Tyneside Community Development Project

ActEarly Methods Club: Using Exploratory Qualitative Comparative Analysis