Doing Justice to Logical Remainders in QCA: Moving Beyond the Standard Analysis

Limited diversity is among the most understudied methodological challenges. QCA allows for a more conscious treatment of logical remainders than most other comparative methods. The current state of the art is the Standard Analysis (Ragin 2008; Ragin and Sonnett 2004). We discuss two of its pitfalls, both rooted in the primacy given to parsimony. First, the Standard Analysis is no safeguard against untenable assumptions. As a remedy, we propose the Enhanced Standard Analysis (ESA). Second, researchers should consider including theoretically sound counterfactual claims even if they do not contribute to parsimony. We label this Theory-Guided Enhanced Standard Analysis (TESA).