ABSTRACT
“Everything that exists exists in quantity,” Lord KELVIN is said to have remarked (cf. MOORE 1966:519). There is no need to enter the philosophical debate as to whether this statement is true or meaningful. It simply represents a premise to which most of the scholars whose works we have considered would probably subscribe. Yet a scientific creed is one thing, substantial results another. After all that has been said at various points in preceding chapters, it comes as no surprise that the aspirations of the researcher interested in quantitative cross-national research in the fields of political violence, crises, and revolutions remain unfulfilled. These difficulties notwithstanding, the goal of developing “universally” valid theoretical explanations which are more general and at the same time more precise than those typically found in qualitative analyses of phenomena of political violence, crises, and revolutions will continue to be sought. No doubt there may be limits to a cross-national quantitative approach to these fields, but such an approach also has distinct advantages. The aim is not to substitute a badly reasoned quantitative approach for a well-reasoned qualitative one but rather to combine good reasoning with as much precision as possible, precision in the nomothetic rather than in the idiographic sense. By now, the drawbacks as well as the promises of a cross-national approach to the fields of political violence, crises, and revolutions should be evident. The drawbacks, i.e., insufficent data material for far-reaching theoretical statements, bad theoretical reasoning for the indicators chosen, or simply questionable statistical manipulations, have been indicated throughout this study. The virtues might be found in many a substantial result that has been commented on in prior chapters.
