A process tracing approach to the investigation of situated cognition

This chapter provides clear definitions of the concepts the book uses and the theory of inside-out identity contestation it develops. The chapter defines competing identity proposals as suggested understandings of the national self that prescribe and proscribe specific behaviors and red lines as particularly intolerable points of contention among supporters of various proposals. It then argues that identity hegemony is the goal of these supporters, and contestation is the process by which the contours of identity debates change over time in supporters’ efforts to achieve hegemony. The chapter briefly reviews relevant literature to carve out space for the book’s theoretical argument: when supporters of a proposal are blocked at the domestic level, they take their fight “outside” through the use of international institutional conditionality, transnational activist networks, and/or diasporic politics. The chapter also discusses the methodology of intertextual analysis and process tracing employed in the study.

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Divergent Paths of Inequality in Poland and the Czech Republic

10.1093/oso/9780198826927.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Ekrem Karakoç

Keyword(s):

Czech Republic ◽

Income Inequality ◽

Voter Turnout ◽

Political Party ◽

Process Tracing ◽

Social Policies ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

Welfare Policies ◽

Two Factors

Employing most similar design and process-tracing methodology, this chapter focuses on Poland and the Czech Republic in the postcommunist region. It discusses the divergent paths these two countries have taken since their transitions. After discussing the similarities and dissimilarities of these two cases, it turns to the welfare policies shared by both countries with some differences under their former communist rule. It also traces voter turnout and linkage between political party and citizens, and explores how these two factors have affected social policies in each country. The last section offers a comparison of Polish and Czech social policies regarding the level and nature of their targeted spending and its effect on income inequality.

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