Synergies of CAS: New Inquiries, Theory Development, and Community

The 2018 publication of Ariel Ahram, Patrick Köllner, and Rudra Sil’s edited volume Comparative Areas Studies: Methodological Rationales & Cross-Regional Applications (CAS) inspires enthusiasm from scholars of political science, such as myself, who are already engaged (with some trepidation in the age of mixed-methods and experimental research) in the enterprise of cross-regional contextualized comparisons. Reflecting on my own work, as well as other scholarship in the study of the political economy of development (PED), particularly comparative studies that engage the politics of China as a case, this essay considers how CAS encourages at least three synergies.