เปรียบเทียบวิธี

	Counterfactual Analysis	Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis
สาขาวิชา	International Relations	International Relations
ตระกูล	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
ปีกำเนิด	1991	2005
ผู้ริเริ่ม	James Fearon (methodological treatment); Tetlock & Belkin (framework)	James Rosenau (CFP); Valerie Hudson and the Foreign Policy Analysis tradition
ประเภท	Method of causal reasoning via hypothetical alternatives	Comparative, multi-level explanation of foreign-policy behavior
แหล่งต้นตำรับ	Fearon, J. D. (1991). Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. World Politics, 43(2), 169–195.	Hudson, V. M. (2005). Foreign policy analysis: Actor-specific theory and the ground of international relations. Foreign Policy Analysis, 1(1), 1–30.
ชื่อเรียกอื่น	Counterfactual Reasoning in IR, What-If Analysis in International Relations, Counterfactual Thought Experiments, Hypothetical Case Analysis	Comparative Foreign Policy, CFP Analysis, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), Comparative Study of Foreign Policy Behavior
ที่เกี่ยวข้อง	3	3
สรุป	Counterfactual analysis evaluates causal claims in international relations by reasoning about what would have happened had some antecedent been different: had the archduke not been assassinated, had the United States not deployed missiles, had a leader chosen otherwise. As Fearon (1991) argues, such counterfactuals play a necessary if often implicit role in testing hypotheses about singular and small-N events, where ordinary statistical comparison is impossible. Done rigorously — with plausible antecedents, sound connecting principles, and attention to confounders — counterfactual analysis disciplines the 'what if' reasoning that pervades historical and conflict explanation.	Comparative Foreign Policy (CFP) analysis explains the foreign-policy behavior of states by opening the 'black box' of decision making and comparing how foreign policy is produced across countries, leaders, and contexts. Part of the broader Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) tradition that Valerie Hudson (2005) characterizes as actor-specific theory, it draws on factors at multiple levels — individual leaders, small groups and bureaucracies, domestic society, and the international system — to account for why different states (or the same state at different times) behave as they do. Its hallmark is the systematic comparison of decision processes and outputs.