ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to describe a few of the many misperceptions, focusing especially on the common view that small-N research is an inferior version of large-N research. Case-oriented researchers seek knowledge of cases that is sufficiently in-depth to allow them to make well-grounded inferences about social action and how it makes sense to actors. In large-N, extensive research, by contrast, aspects of cases is viewed as analytically distinct variables and is connected to each other primarily through cross-case analyses. The view that small Ns are unscientific is reinforced by misrepresentations of the nature of causal analysis in small-N research. Of special concern is the completely erroneous view that case-oriented researchers seek deterministic, single-cause explanations. Revolutionary uprisings display extraordinary social content and typically require 100s or 1000s of person-years in planning, coordination, and effort, like many of the other macro-level phenomena that some case-oriented researchers study.
