Most Similar Systems Design
The most similar systems design (MSSD) is a small-N comparative strategy that selects cases as alike as possible on many background characteristics but differing on the outcome of interest. By matching cases so that most potential confounders are held roughly constant, the design isolates the few factors that vary alongside the outcome as the candidate causes. Rooted in John Stuart Mill's method of difference and named by Przeworski and Teune, it is a cornerstone of comparative politics for drawing causal inferences from a handful of countries or cases.
Source record
Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.
- Przeworski, A., & Teune, H. (1970). The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. New York: Wiley-Interscience. · ISBN 9780471701422
- Seawright, J., & Gerring, J. (2008). Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options. Political Research Quarterly, 61(2), 294–308. · DOI 10.1177/1065912907313077
- Gerring, J. (2007). Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. · ISBN 9780521676564
Curated claims
Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.
This view does not invent a claim assessment when the ledger has none.
Related methods
Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.