‘Let Me Tell the Story Straight On’: Middlemarch, Process‐Tracing Methods and the Politics of Narrative. Ruback, T. J The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 12(4):477--497, November, 2010. ![‘Let Me Tell the Story Straight On’: Middlemarch, Process‐Tracing Methods and the Politics of Narrative [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper doi abstract bibtex Much thought has been put into developing rationales for the process-tracing method, but proponents of this narrative method have been agnostic about the criterial demands for ‘writing up’ a case study. This article addresses that lack through a double reading. First, I show that ‘good’ process-tracing prose mirrors a narrative voice found in Victorian fiction, most notably in George Eliot's Middlemarch. Then, in the second reading, I critique this narrative approach through a close reading of Middlemarch. In doing so, I explain how this style attempts (and ultimately fails) to mask its own pre-theoretical political commitments. For process-tracing to seem effective, its practitioners must turn a blind eye to the theoretical consequences of narrative style and must remain silent on the instability inherent in their prose.
@article{ruback_let_2010,
title = {‘{Let} {Me} {Tell} the {Story} {Straight} {On}’: {Middlemarch}, {Process}‐{Tracing} {Methods} and the {Politics} of {Narrative}},
volume = {12},
issn = {1467-856X},
shorttitle = {‘{Let} {Me} {Tell} the {Story} {Straight} {On}’},
url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x/abstract},
doi = {10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x},
abstract = {Much thought has been put into developing rationales for the process-tracing method, but proponents of this narrative method have been agnostic about the criterial demands for ‘writing up’ a case study. This article addresses that lack through a double reading. First, I show that ‘good’ process-tracing prose mirrors a narrative voice found in Victorian fiction, most notably in George Eliot's Middlemarch. Then, in the second reading, I critique this narrative approach through a close reading of Middlemarch. In doing so, I explain how this style attempts (and ultimately fails) to mask its own pre-theoretical political commitments. For process-tracing to seem effective, its practitioners must turn a blind eye to the theoretical consequences of narrative style and must remain silent on the instability inherent in their prose.},
language = {en},
number = {4},
urldate = {2011-11-24},
journal = {The British Journal of Politics \& International Relations},
author = {Ruback, Timothy J},
month = nov,
year = {2010},
keywords = {IR theory, Narrative, process‐tracing, qualitative methods},
pages = {477--497},
file = {j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x copy.pdf:files/36057/j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x copy.pdf:application/pdf;j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x.pdf:files/35909/j.1467-856X.2010.00425.x.pdf:application/pdf}
}
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