مقایسهٔ روش‌ها

	پژوهش آرشیوی تاریخی تطبیقی	فرایند ردیابی (Process Tracing)
حوزه	روش‌های میدانی	روان‌سنجی
خانواده	Process / pipeline	Latent structure
سال پیدایش	Late 19th century (archival foundations); mid-20th century (comparative systematic application)	2005
پدیدآور	Leopold von Ranke (archival history); Theda Skocpol, Barrington Moore (comparative-historical synthesis)	Alexander George, Andrew Bennett
نوع	Qualitative comparative research design	Qualitative causal inference
منبع بنیادین	Skocpol, T. (1979). States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0521294997	Bennett, A., & Checkel, J. T. (Eds.). (2015). Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool. Cambridge University Press.
نام‌های دیگر	comparative-historical analysis, cross-national archival research, comparative archival history, CHAR	—
مرتبط	6	5
خلاصه	Comparative historical archival research combines systematic examination of primary archival sources across two or more historical cases — nations, regions, institutions, or time periods — to identify causal patterns, structural similarities, and divergences that single-case histories cannot reveal. It is the method of choice when researchers want to explain why similar or different outcomes emerged across distinct historical contexts using documentary evidence.	Process Tracing is a qualitative research method developed by George and Bennett (2005) for studying causal mechanisms and causal chains within individual cases. It involves examining the sequence of events and decision-making processes within a case to infer whether a hypothesized causal mechanism actually operated. Process tracing aims to strengthen causal inference in case studies by looking beyond correlation to understand how causes produce effects.