David Collier
Recent Books
Working with Concepts: Foundational Essays by David Collier with Research Notes on Innovation in the Field
Offers a lively introduction to new ideas about concepts and concept analysis in political science and international studies.
Elkins, Zachary. Working with Concepts: Foundational Essays by David Collier with Research Notes on Innovation in the Field. Cambridge University Press. 2026.
Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies: Insights and Methods for Comparative Social Science
Over the past 50 years, scholars across the social sciences have employed critical juncture analysis to understand how social orders are created, become entrenched, and change. In this book, leading scholars from several disciplines off er the fi rst coordinated eff ort to defi ne this fi eld of research, assess its theoretical and methodological foundations, and use a critical assessment of current practices as a basis for guiding its future.
Collier, David, and Gerardo L. Munck, eds. Critical junctures and historical legacies: Insights and methods for comparative social science. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2022.
Selected Research Projects
BACKGROUND READINGS ON CRITICAL JUNCTURES
- “Symposium on Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies” (co-edited with Gerardo Munck). Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 15, No. 1 (Spring 2017): 2–47.
- “Building Blocks and Methodological Challenges: A Framework for Studying Critical Junctures” (with Gerardo Munck). Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 15, No. 1 (Spring 2017): 2–9. (This Introduction to the symposium offers a new synthesis of methodological issues in the study of critical junctures.)
TEACHING ABOUT METHODS
- Website, Teaching About Critical Junctures. A teaching tool with slideshow.
- “Understanding Process Tracing.” PS: Political Science and Politics 44, No. 4 (Oct 2011): 823-30. With 2019 Addendum.
- “Teaching Process Tracing.” PS: Political Science and Politics 44, No. 4 (October 2011): Posted online, pp. 1-15, by PS as a supplement to “Understanding Process Tracing.”
CONCEPTS AND MEASUREMENT
- "Rival Strategies of Validation: Tools for Evaluating Measures of Democracy." Comparative Political Studies 47. (2014): 111-138. Includes Online Appendix "Comparing the Data Sets."
- "Putting Typologies to Work: Concept-Formation, Measurement, and Analytic Rigor" (with LaPorte and Seawright). Political Research Quarterly 65, No. 1 (March 2012): 217-32. Includes glossary and online appendix.
CAUSAL INFERENCE
- Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (second, expanded edition, with Henry E. Brady). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
- “Outdated Views of Qualitative Methods: Time to Move On” (with Henry E. Brady and Jason Seawright). Political Analysis 18, No. 4 (Fall 2010): 506–13.
Personal Statement
David Collier's work focuses on research methods, comparative politics, and Latin America.
CV
CAREER
David Collier's research focuses on political methodology, including concept analysis, qualitative methods, and strategies of multi-method investigation. His current work is concerned with the challenges of integrating case-study and medium-N analysis.
Throughout his career, Collier has also studied democracy and authoritarianism, regime transitions, labor politics, party system dynamics, and class coalitions -- focusing primarily on Latin America. Shaping the Political Arena (1991, 2002, coauthored with Ruth Berins Collier), was one of the first extended, historical analyses of critical junctures and path dependence to be published in political science. Corresponding to these substantive interests, Collier's work on concept analysis includes numerous examples from the literature on democracy, authoritarianism, and regime change.
At Berkeley, Collier has been Chair of both the Political Science Department and the Center for Latin American Studies, and he was the founding Co-Director of the Berkeley-Stanford Program in Latin American Studies. He has served as President of the APSA Comparative Politics Section, Vice President of APSA, and was the founding President of the APSA Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research. He played an active role in building the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, an international training program at Syracuse University. Collier is centrally involved in training scholars in the fields of Latin American politics, comparative politics, and methodology. He won Berkeley’s campus-wide Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award, as well as the Powell Graduate Student Mentoring Award of the APSA Comparative Politics Section.
Collier has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2014 he was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science for his lifetime contribution to the discipline.
PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION AND AWARDS
- Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science: 2014
- Frank J. Goodnow Award for Distinguished Service to Political Science and the American Political Science Association: 2014
- Powell Award for Graduate Student Mentoring, APSA Comparative Politics Section: 2013
- Elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science: 2010.
- Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 2003.
- Inauguration of “David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award,” APSA Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research: 2010.
- Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award, University of California, Berkeley (campus-wide award for graduate mentoring): 2005.
- Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, 2nd expanded edition (co-authored and co-edited with Henry E. Brady). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
- Statistical Models and Causal Inference: A Dialogue with the Social Sciences (co-edited with Jasjeet Sekhon and Philip B. Stark). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Concepts and Method in Social Science: The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori (co-edited with John Gerring). Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2009.
- Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (co-edited with Janet Box-Steffensmeier and Henry E. Brady). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (with Ruth Berins Collier). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Reissued in 2002 by the University of Notre Dame Press, with a Preface by Guillermo O’Donnell, and a new Authors’ Note.
- The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (editor and co-author). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Published in both Spanish and in Portuguese, 1982.
- Squatters and Oligarchs: Authoritarian Rule and Policy Change in Peru. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
- Articles and Symposia
- "Symposium: Set-Theoretic Comparative Method (STCM) -- Critical Assessment and the Search for Alternatives." Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 12(1), Spring 2014.
- "Outdated Views of Qualitative Methods: Time to Move On." Political Analysis 18, 2010. (pdf)
- "Putting Typologies to Work: Concept-Formation, Measurement, and Analytic Rigor." Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming (pdf)
- "A Sea Change in Political Methodology." In Rethinking Social Inquiry, 2010. (pdf)
- "Conceptual Hierarchies in Comparative Research". Chap. 10 in Concepts & Method in Social Science: The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori, 2009 (pdf)
- "Symposium: Case Selection, Case Studies, and Causal Inference." Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 6(2), Fall 2008 (pdf)
- "Qualitative and Multi-Method Research: Organizations, Publication, and Reflections on Integration". Chap. 34 in The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology, 2008 (pdf)
- "Toward a Pluralistic Vision of Methodology." Political Analysis, 2006 (pdf)
- "Essentially Contested Concepts: Debates and Applications." Journal of Political Ideologies, 2006 (pdf)
- "Qualitative versus Quantitative: What Might this Distinction Mean?" Newsletter of the APSA Organized Section on Qualitative Methods, 2003. (pdf)
- "Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research." American Political Science Review 95(3), 2001. (pdf)
- "Bureaucratic Authoritarianism."In The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, 2001. (pdf)
- "Democracy and Dichotomies: A Pragmatic Approach to Choices about Concepts" Annual Review of Political Science, 1999 (pdf)
- "Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research." World Politics, 1997 (pdf)
- "Insights and Pitfalls: Selection Bias in Qualitative Research." World Politics, 1996 (pdf)
- "Translating Quantitative Methods for Qualitative Researchers: The Case of Selection Bias." American Political Science Review, 1995 (pdf)
- "Trajectory of a Concept: 'Corporatism' in the Study of Latin American Politics." In Latin America in Comparative Perspective, 1995 (pdf)
- "Conceptual Stretching Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis." American Political Science Review, 1993 (pdf)
- "The Comparative Method" In Political Science: The State of the Discipline II, , 1993 (pdf)
- "Strategic Choice Models of Political Change in Latin America." Comparative Politics, 1992 (pdf)
- "Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies." In Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena 1991 (pdf)
- "Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating Corporatism." American Political Science Review, 1979 (pdf)
- "Industrial Modernization and Political Change: A Latin American Perspective." World Politics, 1978 (pdf)
- "Who Does What, to Whom, and How: Toward a Comparative Analysis of Latin American Corporatism." In Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, 1977. (pdf)
- "Prerequisites versus Diffusion: Testing Alternative Explanations of Social Security Adoption." American Political Science Review, 1975 (pdf)
- "Timing of Economic Growth and Regime Characteristics in Latin America." Comparative Politics, 1975 (pdf)
Letters from the President, Newsletter of the APSA Organized Section for Comparative Politics
