ABSTRACT
This chapter explains what Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is and how it can be used and combined with other methodological approaches. The chapter also explains how I conducted the field research that provides the illustrative data for this book. This transparent guide to the fieldwork approach aids in demonstrating how QCA can be utilized from the first moment of fieldwork through to the final data analysis. This will be particularly helpful for those struggling with the selection of proper methods, when to use QCA, and how to justify the use of QCA. Detailed tables, which uncover the protocols through which the causal conditions and factors are identified as being active or not, are offered as guidelines on how these tables should be crafted to make the analysis transparent and replicable. In this chapter, there is a discussion of when to use QCA in its different variations (e.g., crisp-set, fuzzy-logic, multi-value, temporal) and how to identify when it is not a suitable method. The limitations of this approach are explored, and insight is offered on how these limitations can and should be addressed.
