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Examples
Causation
Incrementalism
Best Practices

The Road Not Taken

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and i took the one less traveled by, And that has made all differance.”

Robert Frost

This website is organized around arguments advanced in:

David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck. 2017. “Building blocks and methodological challenges: A framework for studying critical junctures.” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 15: 2–9.

For a more recent formulation of these arguments, see:

Collier, David, and Gerardo L. Munck, eds. 2022. Critical junctures and historical legacies: insights and methods for comparative social science. Rowman & Littlefield.

Although readers should refer to the book for an up-to-date formulation of the arguments, colleagues have found the images on the website have been valuable in making slides for teaching.

Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies is a 2022 book, published by Rowman & Littlefield. It is a definitive volume on critical juncture theory in comparative social science, edited by David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck. The book defines the field, provides theoretical and methodological frameworks, and uses empirical case studies to illustrate how sudden, discontinuous historical events (critical junctures) shape societies and leave enduring “historical legacies” that constrain and influence subsequent actions.

“…this volume is a milestone in critical juncture analysis that will serve as a major resource for seasoned and early career researchers alike.”

Continue reading book review in Perspectives on Politics

Research on Critical Junctures:
Temples, Examples, Best Practices

Prepared by David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck

Table of Contents for Slides

1. Introduction
2. Examples
3. Causation
4. Incrementalism
5. Best Practices Bilography and Credits

Navigation Instructions

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Laura Deneckere provides skilled assistance in preparing this website.

Please cite as: Collier, David, and Gerardo L. Munck (2018). “Research on Critical Junctures: Template, Examples, Best Practices.” Accessed on [insert current date] www.critical-juncture.org.

This Work is Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
©Copyright 2018 by David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck

A Fundamental Idea in the Social Sciences Max Weber’s Switchmen

Interests, Framed by belief systems, frequently ” have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed…”

Max Weber

(1920; 1946: 280)

Weber’s image of the switchmen denotes episodes of differentiation at which societies shift to a specific trajectory of changes

Overview

The critical juncture framework offers tools to analyze trajectories of change in which major episodes of innovation generate enduring institutions.

This framework asks:

  • What cleavages and crises produce the critical juncture?
  • What happens at the critical juncture itself to yield alternative trajectories of change?
  • What short-term dynamics produce and reproduce the legacy?
  • What is the interplay between relative stasis and incremental change in the legacy?

The section presents:

  • A working definition of critical juncture.
  • The field-defining contributions of Lipset and Rokkan, Krasner, North, Collier & Collier, and Luebbert.
  • A five-step template – focused on the critical juncture itself, its antecedents, and the legacy.
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