Over the past 50 years, scholars across the social sciences have employed critical juncture analysis to understand how social orders are created, become entrenched, and change. In this book, leading scholars from several disciplines offer the first coordinated effort to define this field of research, assess its theoretical and methodological foundations, and use a critical assessment of current practices as a basis for guiding its future. Contributors include stars in this field who have written some of the classic works on critical junctures, as well as the rising stars of the next generation who will continue to shape historical comparative analysis for years to come.Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies will be an indispensable resource for social science research methods scholars and students.

David Collier is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. His scholarly contributions were recognized in 2014, when he received the Johann Skytte Prize, the preeminent international award in the discipline of political science. At Berkeley, he served as Department Chair and Chair of the Center for Latin American Studies. His research focuses on democracy and authoritarianism, Latin American politics, comparative-historical analysis, and methodology. Colliers books includeShaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and the Regime Dynamics in Latin America (with Ruth Berins Collier; Princeton University Press, 1991, reissued in 2002), which won the Best Book Prize of the APSA Comparative Politics Section and is a seminal work in the field of critical junctures and comparative historical analysis. His co-authored and co-edited methodological work includesRethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, 2nd expanded edition (Rowman& Littlefield, 2010);Statistical Models and Causal Inference: A Dialogue with the Social Sciences(Cambridge University Press, 2009);Concepts and Method in Social Science (Routledge, 2009), andThe Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (Oxford University Press, 2008). Within the American Political Science Association, he has served as President of the Organized Section for Comparative Politics, Vice President of the Association, and founding President of the Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research. Collier is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His more recent awards, along with the Skytte Prize, include the 2014 Frank J. Goodnow Award for Distinguished Service to Political Science and the American Political Science Association.

Gerardo L. Munckis Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). His books include Authoritarianism and Democratization. Soldiers and Workers in Argentina, 1976-83(Penn State University Press, 1998);Regimes and Democracy in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2007);Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics (with Richard Snyder; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007);Measuring Democracy: A Bridge Between Scholarship and Politics(Johns Hopkins University, 2009);A Middle-quality Institutional Trap: Democracy and State Capacity in Latin America(with Sebastián Mazzuca; Cambridge University Press, 2020); andContemporary Latin American Politics: The Quest for Democracy and Citizenship Rights (with Juan Pablo Luna; Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2022). He is currently completing a book manuscript on the evolution of knowledge about the social world, entitledHow Advances in the Social Sciences Have Been Made: The Study of Democracy and Democratization Since 1789. His articles have been published in the Annual Review of Political Science, World Politics, Comparative Politics, and Comparative Political Studies.The awards he has received include the 2003 Award for Conceptual Innovation in Democratic Studies, of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M) and the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Mexico; and the Frank Cass Prize for Best Overall Article inDemocratization in 2016.

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Introduction: Tradition and Innovation in Critical Juncture ResearchDavid Collier and Gerardo L. Munck

I. Basics: Core Concepts and Big Substantive Questions

1. Critical Juncture Framework and the Five-Step TemplateDavid Collier

2. Critical Junctures and Developmental Paths: Colonialism and Long-Term Economic ProsperityJames A. Robinson

3. Postwar Settlements and International Order: A Critical Juncture PerspectiveG. John Ikenberry

4. Mobilization, Protest, and Conflicts of the 1960s: What Is the Legacy, and How Did It Unfold?Sidney Tarrow

II. Framework and Methods: Historical Causation and Causal Inference

5. The Theoretical Foundations of Critical Juncture Research: Critique and ReconstructionGerardo L. Munck

6. Critical Junctures, Contingency, and Models of Institutional ChangeRachel Beatty Riedl and Kenneth M. Roberts

7. Qualitative Causal Inference and Critical Junctures: The Problem of Backdoor PathsDavid Waldner

8. Quantitative Methods and Critical Junctures: The Strengths and Limits of Quantitative HistoryGerardo L. Munck

III. Substantive Applications I: States and Political Regimes

9. Nineteenth-Century State Formation and Long-Term Economic Performance in Latin AmericaSebastián L. Mazzuca

10. Religion and Critical Junctures: Divergent Trajectories of Liberalism in Modern EuropeAndrew C. Gould

11. Evaluating Critical Junctures in Latin America: Historical vs. Proximate Causes in the 1940sRuth Berins Collier

12. Regime Transitions as Critical Junctures: Cultural Legacies of Democratization in Spain and PortugalRobert M. Fishman

13. Leninist Extinction? Critical Junctures, Legacies, and the Study of Post-CommunismDanielle N. Lussier and Jody LaPorte

IV. Substantive Applications II: Neoliberalism and Political Parties

14. Temporal Distance, Reactive Sequences, and Institutional Legacies: Reflections on Latin Americas Neoliberal Critical JuncturesKenneth M. Roberts

15. A New Critical Juncture? Analyzing Party System Transformation in South American PoliticsSamuel Handlin

16. A Fourth Critical Juncture? Party Politics in Contemporary ChileTimothy R. Scully

17. Potential Mistakes, Plausible Options: Establishing the Legacy of Hypothesized Critical JuncturesTaylor C. Boas

18. Critical Junctures and Contemporary Latin America: A Note of CautionRobert R. Kaufman

V Conclusion

19. The Power and Promise of Critical Juncture ResearchGerardo L. Munck

Appendix I Conceptions of a Critical Juncture and Cognate Terms

Appendix II Glossary of Terms Used in Critical Juncture Research

Appendix III Bibliography of Substantive Research on Critical Junctures

Appendix IV Examples of Critical Juncture Research

Index

About the Contributors