Process Tracing: From Philosophical Roots to Best Practices (SWP 21)

This paper has two overarching goals – to summarize recent developments on the philosophical and practical dimensions of process tracing, and to identify features common to best practices of it on different kinds of arguments, with different kinds of available evidence, in different substantive research domains. First, we define process tracing and discuss its foundations in the philosophy of social science. Next, we address its techniques and evidentiary sources, and advance ten criteria for judging its quality in particular pieces of research. Finally, we analyze the methodological issues specific to process tracing on general categories of theories, including structural-institutional, cognitive-psychological, and sociological.