Charles C. Ragin has changed the field of comparative studies when his book has reached the reader. In chapter 3 of this book he argues that “the case-oriented approach works well when the number of relevant cases is relatively small” (p. 49). Regarding this and agreeing with Goldthorpe, I put forward following thesis for this reaction paper: small N is not a problem of method but the problem of data.
First, it is very important to emphasize that small N problem occurs more in the variable-oriented approach (analysed in Chapter 4) than in the case-oriented approach.…
