Derek Beach

Aarhus University | AU · Department of Political Science

A key mission of many applied linguists is to understand how language-related processes work. The inner workings of a process can be explained by theorizing about the underlying causal mechanism that enables the process to unfold and evidencing the mechanism with empirical material. However, the methodological repertoire of applied linguistics is l...

The promise of process tracing methods is that they can help us better understand how things work in real-world cases. Despite the many advances in the past two decades, we contend that existing accounts result in either under-socialised accounts in which the moves made by actors are studied while neglecting the social dimension of action, or over-...

This article analyses how the European Council and the institutional infrastructure that supports it have been managing the early stages of the energy crisis. This was the time when the European Council, as the “control room” of EU crisis management, was unable to come up with any solutions to high energy prices. It makes a methodological and empir...

This article argues for the importance of theory and theorizing for an evaluation in the form of a process theory of change. A process theory of change centers its theoretical attention on key episodes that explain how things worked, in which the causal linkages are unpacked. The key lies in answering why actors do what they do (and thus whether th...

This article analyses the EU’s third attempt to reform its asylum and migration regime. Our focus is on process management. Instead of looking at positions or policy substance, we analyse how to manage the migration reform negotiations. We use the method of embedded process tracing to analyse, in real-time, the interplay between the member states a...

The combination of cross-case and within-case analysis in Multi-Method Research (MMR) designs has gained considerable traction in the social sciences over the last decade. One reason for the popularity of MMR is grounded in the idea that different methods can complement each other, in the sense that the strengths of one method can compensate for th...

Why do smart policy makers who try to learn from policy failure end up overgeneralizing these lessons when facing new crises? This article focuses on the policy learning that can come in the wake of perceived policy failure, and the consequences that lesson learning has for diagnosing and tackling subsequent crises. We argue, in contrast to much of...

Why do smart policy makers who try to learn from policy failure end up overgeneralizing these lessons when facing new crises? This article focuses on the policy learning that can come in the wake of perceived policy failure, and the consequences that lesson learning has for diagnosing and tackling subsequent crises. We argue, in contrast to much of...

In this article, we develop Comparative Process Tracing (PT) as a strategy for validating empirically the scope of cases to which process-level generalizations can be made. While PT methods have discussed internal validity, there has been less attention given to the external validity of processual claims. Comparative PT involves two phases. The int...

What is the most appropriate QCA solution type when engaging in a multimethod design that includes QCA and in-depth process-tracing (PT)? While either the intermediate or the parsimonious solution are generally favored in QCA-only studies, we identify important challenges that can emerge when selecting those solutions in a QCA-PT multimethod study....

This article reconstructs the coming about of the 750 billion EU Covid Recovery fund. We provide an embedded process-tracing analysis of the dynamics from mid-March 2020, when the idea of ‘Corona-bonds’ was parachuted onto the Heads’ Agenda, up until the ‘historic’ deal on the MFF and Recovery Fund of 21 July. Where most media accounts and scholarl...

Is evidential pluralism possible when we move to the social sciences, and if so, to what degree? What are the analytical benefits? The answer put forward in this article is that there is a tradeoff between how serious social science methodologies take the study of mechanisms and the analytical benefits that flow from evidential pluralism. In the so...

This paper provides an in-depth reconstruction of the (failed) reform of the EU's Common European Asylum System. Even though this was essentially a legislative process, it was characterized by extensive European Council involvement. In fact, the European Council is commonly blamed for the lack of progress in EU reform. Divisions at the level of the...

Process tracing is a method that aims to trace causal mechanisms as they play out in real-world cases using in-depth case studies. The analytical focus is on understanding the processes whereby causes contribute to produce outcomes, opening up what is going on in the causal arrow in-between. Process tracing can be used to build or test theories of...

Randomized experimental design is seen by many researchers in the social sciences as the gold standard of causal inference, but as a method, it is blind to the mechanistic processes that lead from cause to outcome. While experimental researchers are highly conscious of the mechanisms underlying their theorization and inference, they are mostly impl...

Process tracing methods are increasingly popular in the social sciences. At the same time, most existing guidelines miss ‘the social’ when studying political and social processes. In effect, existing guidelines for PT suggest there is little difference between studying the natural world and the social world. In this article, we attempt to reconstru...

Can voters be persuaded by referendum campaigns? This article develops a theoretical model that synthesises the existing literature on campaign effects and issue-voting by arguing that the strength of pre-existing attitudes conditions voter receptivity to campaign arguments, thereby also determining their eventual vote choice. Using original panel...

There is still significant confusion about how multimethod research can be undertaken and even if it is possible. The article makes the claims that much of the confusion is the result of a failure to distinguish between multimethod and multimethodology research. We argue that there are at least three different methodological languages: variance-bas...

This article explores the impact that the rise of a new, European Council-dominated Union has had for role of EU institutions in the most important issues of the past decade. Building on rational institutionalist theories of leadership, we first develop a New Institutionalist Leadership model that helps us understand the political leadership tasks...

This paper contributes to a new understanding of the role and influence of the EU institutions in dealing with major EU reforms. Many have argued that, due to successive crises, Eurozone, Refugee and Brexit, EU decision making has become more intergovernmental. The role of the main intergovernmental body, the European Council, has been enhanced. Mo...

This article unpacks the role that analogical reasoning plays in epistemic learning, helping actors identify and evaluate what solutions can be used to fix complex, high‐stakes policy problems. Based on recent research in cognitive psychology, we develop a two‐stage analogical reasoning model of learning in which core causal lessons are transferred...

The article contends that an important but overlooked explanation for the European Union's resilience in the past decade in the face of several existential crises has been the informal instrumental leadership roles played by EU institutional actors collaborating with each other. In this article, a theoretical framework is developed that can explain...

The question how to generalize mechanistic claims from one or multiple studied cases to other cases belonging to the same population is a crucial one in the social sciences, and beyond. Given the low external validity of mechanistic findings, we can never be 100% sure about our generalizations unless we have examined all cases, a problem which is a...

Evaluations of how policy interventions work in actual cases have traditionally been relegated to the bottom tier of an evidence hierarchy dominated by RCT designs, which are viewed as the gold standard. Instead of aiming to make causal inferences about average causal effects of interventions, in case-based evaluation using methods like process tra...

In this article, we provide a less intergovernmentalist reading of the British re-negotiations, and similar cases of crisis reform, focusing on the lower level dynamics, in the process qualifying the image of sub-optimality and institutional decline. This article fleshes out the new role and influence of the EU institutions in major EU reform negot...

This paper traces the role of the EU institutions in the process leading up to the EU Turkey Action Plan and EU Turkey Statement. The EU Turkey deal is the proverbial 'orphan' in EU crises management, with none of the key actors and institutions eager to claim ownership. Yet, when judged from the perspective of process-management, the deal resulted...

Studying causal processes and mechanisms using in-depth case study methods has become an increasingly popular way to study international relations. The core of a mechanistic claim is that the causal process in-between a cause and outcome is unpacked theoretically and traced empirically in sufficient depth that we learn about how the process actuall...

This article reviews recent attempts to develop multi-method social scientific frameworks. The article starts by discussing the ontological and epistemological foundations underlying case studies and variance-based approaches, differentiating approaches into bottom-up, case-based and top-down, variance-based approaches. Case-based approaches aim to...

This paper analyses the role and influence of the EU institutions in major reform negotiations. We argue that one of the paradoxes of European Council dominated decision-making has been the enhanced dependence on EU institutions to translate broad priorities into actual reforms. We substantiate this claim by means of an in-depth process-tracing ana...

Process-tracing in social science is a method for studying causal mechanisms linking causes with outcomes. This enables the researcher to make strong inferences about how a cause (or set of causes) contributes to producing an outcome. Derek Beach and Rasmus Brun Pedersen introduce a refined definition of process-tracing, differentiating it into thr...

This paper traces the role of the EU institutions in setting-up the ESM. There have been many scholarly assessments but few empirical reconstructions of the decision-making on the intergovernmental ESM, and its predecessor the EFSF. The instruments clearly constituted a step away from supranational entrepreneurship and the Community method. However...

Scholars who attempt to publish stand alone in-depth causal case studies frequently face the 'and so what' critique from reviewers and other scholars. Despite a rigorous, systematic case study that explored the evidence for a given causal relationship within one or two cases, the scholarly relevance of the findings are usually judged based on what...

Multi-method research approaches have become increasingly popular in recent years as tools to make more robust causal inferences in the social sciences. The most common combination involves cross-case comparative analysis (e.g. statistically assessing mean causal effects of a large number of cases) and in-depth within-case analysis (e.g. process-tr...

Short, three day intensive course in Process-tracing methods at the ICPSR (Michigan) Summer School – May 30-June 1, 2018. Form more, see https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/courses/0215 The aim of this intensive three-day course is to provide participants with a good working understanding of the core elements of process-tracing as a disti...

Theory-based impact evaluations have been put forward increasingly as an alternative for counterfactual impact evaluations. However, this raises questions regarding the foundations of drawing causal inference on the basis of such approaches. Case study methods such as QCA (Quantitative Comparative Analysis), process tracing and congruence analysis...

Process tracing is an in-depth within-case study method used in the social sciences for tracing causal mechanisms and how they play out within an actual case. Process tracing can be used to build and test theories of processes that link causes and outcomes in a bounded population of causally similar cases, in combination with comparative methods, o...

Process tracing is a method that aims to trace causal mechanisms as they play out in real-world cases using in-depth case studies. The analytical focus is on understanding the processes whereby causes contribute to produce outcomes, opening up what is going on in the causal arrow in-between. Process tracing can be used to build or test theories of...

Despite the decades of theorization, the causal processes in-between acts of delegation and agency discretion and autonomy are still not developed theoretically, with much ambiguity about how the model’s elements are causally connected. This chapter shows that process-tracing is a useful methodological tool for improving our theoretical and empiric...

How can we empirically trace the operation of causal mechanisms using process tracing case study methods? While the promise of process tracing as a distinct case study method is that we both are able to make stronger causal inferences when we have within-case evidence of the actual operation of a mechanism linking causes and an outcome, and gain a...

This article explores the overlooked issue of potential causal heterogeneity at the level of mechanisms and the risks of incorrect generalizations it creates for case selection strategies in case study research based on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Causal heterogeneity at the level of mechanisms relates to the fact that the same outcome...

In this paper, we argue that EU-skeptic voters are more likely to engage in motivated reasoning then EU-friendly voters because of stronger held underlying attitudes towards the EU. Based on evidence from studies of EU-skepticism and public opinion towards the EU, we should expect that anti-EU attitudes are affect-based, meaning that voters would h...

This paper assesses the new forms of collaborative institutional leadership that have developed in the post-crisis era in the EU for dealing with informal constitutional changes relating to EMU deepening. The argument proceeds in three steps. First we argue that current assessments of the role and influence of institutions in the post-crisis era ne...

This article explores the practical challenges one faces when combining qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and process tracing (PT) in a manner that is consistent with their underlying assumptions about the nature of causal relationships. While PT builds on a mechanism-based understanding of causation, QCA as a comparative method makes claims a...

Based on findings from the literature on campaign effects on the one hand, and the literature on European Parliament elections on the other, we propose a model of European Parliamentary elections in which the campaign shift the calculus of electoral support, making differences in national political allegiances less important and attitudes about the...

Process tracing is a research method for tracing causal mechanisms using detailed, within-case empirical analysis of how a causal process plays out in an actual case. Process tracing can be used both for case studies that aim to gain a greater understanding of the causal dynamics that produced the outcome of a particular historical case and to shed...

The argument in this paper is that if we adopt a counterfactual-based understanding of mechanisms when engaging in process tracing, we blind ourselves to how a causal process played out in a real-world case. Process tracing is a within-case method where the analyst traces how a causal mechanism (i.e. process) plays out in a given case. This paper i...

How are we to understand the role played by EU institutions in the post-Lisbon European Union? This article introduces the concept of collaborative framing, attempting to theoretically capture the type of shared institutional leadership that has increasingly become apparent in major reform processes in the post-Lisbon era. Collaborative framing ena...

Process-tracing (PT) as a distinct case-study methodology involves tracing causal mechanisms that link causes (X) with their effects (i.e. outcomes) (Y). We trace causal mechanisms whereby a cause (or set of causes) produces an outcome to both: (1) make stronger evidence-based inferences about causal relationships because the analysis produces with...

The last decade has witnessed resurgence in the interest in studying the causal mechanisms linking causes and effects. This article games through the methodological consequences that adopting a systems understanding of mechanisms has for what types of cases we should select when using in-depth case study methods like process tracing. The article pr...

This is a preprint of the manuscript accepted for publication by Sociological Methods & Research In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the combination of two methods on the basis of set theory. In our introduction and this special issue, we focus on two variants of cross-case set-theoretic methods - Qualitative Comparative Analysi...

This is a preprint of the manuscript accepted for publication by Sociological Methods & Research In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the combination of two methods on the basis of set theory. In our introduction and this special issue, we focus on two variants of cross-case set-theoretic methods - Qualitative Comparative Analysi...

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the combination of two methods on the basis of set theory. In our introduction and this special issue, we focus on two variants of cross-case set-theoretic methods—qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and typological theory (TT)—and their combination with process tracing (PT). Our goal is to...

This article focuses on methodological challenges in evaluating complex program aid interventions like budget support. We show that recent innovations in process-tracing methodology can help solve the identified challenges and increase the strength of causal inference made when using case studies in demanding settings. For the specific task of eval...

The questions address the ontological and epistemological implications of taking the ‘mechanismic’ view of causal mechanisms seriously, suggesting that they are more than events or series of intervening variables. Peter Hall is asked his views on the nature of causal mechanisms, and the logics of inference that we can use to study them in within-ca...

This article claims that the reform negotiations of the euro can only be understood as a form of issue-linkage, where two groups of states (euro-winners and euro-losers) want either stricter rules for state scal behavior (euro-winners) or increased assistance mechanisms in the form of temporary aid packages or permanent transfers for countries hit...

Process-tracing in social science is a method for studying causal mechanisms linking causes with outcomes. This enables the researcher to make strong inferences about how a cause (or set of causes) contributes to producing an outcome. Derek Beach an.

This paper develops guidelines for each of the three variants of Process-tracing (PT): explaining outcome PT, theory-testing, and theory-building PT. Case selection strategies are not relevant when we are engaging in explaining outcome PT due to the broader conceptualization of outcomes that is a product of the different understandings of case stud...

Despite the widespread use of process tracing (PT) in empirical research and an increasing body of methodological literature on PT and causal mechanisms, there has been little progression in the development of PT methodology. This confusion is partly the product of defining PT as a single research method. We argue that a lot of the murkiness about...

What type of understanding of causality should be used in process-tracing case study research? We contend that process-tracing methods will profit from adopting a ‘mechanistic’ ontology of causation, where a theorized causal mechanism is conceptualized as a series of interacting parts composed of entities that undertake activities that transmit cau...

Within EU studies, there has been an increasing recognition that the celebrated ‘big bangs’ agreements do not materialize by themselves. History-making negotiations that conclude constitutional negotiations in intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) or major reform packages like Agenda 2000 are not what can be termed ‘spot markets’, where governments...

Why are intergovernmental negotiations in the Council not locked in a perpetual joint decision trap, where high transaction costs systematically result in inefficient, lowest common denominator outcomes or deadlock? Social constructivists and ‘deliberative’ approaches argue that Council decisionmaking is a very long-term iterative game that has res...

Why did two rounds of EU constitutional reform held within a five-year period yield very different results? The 2000 IGC resulted in the modest Treaty of Nice, whereas the 2002-04 round drafted the Constitutional Treaty which, although it did not involve major substantive changes, did mark a major symbolic step forward. This article argues that the...

While the roles and impact of the European Commission and the European Parliament in the ‘history-making’ decisions of the EU integration process have been subjected to considerable academic scrutiny, the Council Secretariat1 has been all but discounted in the literature (Christiansen 2002; Christiansen and Jørgensen 1998; Dinan 2000; Gray 2002; Ma...

Why do governments comply with costly rulings handed down by international courts? This article focuses upon governmental compliance with ECJ rulings. The argument is that we cannot explain compliance based solely upon the instrumental calculations of actors, but must also incorporate the normative dimension of law into our compliance model to expl...