The challenge in answering these questions lies withmethodological complexities.
Given that PRRPs present themselves as alleged protectors of a distinct national identity, an analysis of their electoral fortunes requires country studies (Wimmer 2002). These alone, however, are not well suited to decipher generalizable political mechanisms (King et al. 1994). On the other hand, studies trying to elucidate variation of that party family with larger samples lack data sources that reliably and validly mirror party interactions (Helbling and Tresch2011). This explains why Cas Mudde calls for moving away from the‘comfort zone of detached quantitative electoral studies of the same problematic data sources (e.g. Eurobarometer, World Value Survey) and descriptive historical studies of the same parties (e.g. British National Party, Front National)’ (Mudde2016, 10).
Proposing a solution, Charles Tilly offers a way to largely avoid both short-comings. He emphasizes that the‘analysis of social and institutional change should be ‘concrete’—referring to concrete units of analysis—and ‘historical’—limiting their scope to an era bound to clearly defined processes’ (Tilly1984, 14). He argues for comparisons among large numbers of cases, if detailed information about each case is given, in calling‘for comparisons of various large entities, with one prime caveat: familiarity with cases needs to remain being given’ (Tilly1984, 77). Tilly is advocating for a medium-sized sample and mid-range theories incomparative case studies. This should ensure a substantial potential to generalize the findings, and also a rather high degree of validity and reliability, in turn, ameliorating the challenges of relying on either single case or large n-studies (Table2.2). This study will adhere to these elaborations and work with comparative case studies.
Table 2.2 Challenges in the study of variation in the electoral advances of PRRPs Qualitative, single
case studies
Quantitative, large-N
studies Comparative case studies Advantage Higher degree of
validity
Higher degree of reli-ability and
generalizability
Relatively high degree of reliability, validity and generalizability Disadvantage Lower degree of
gen-eralizability and reliability
Lower degree of validity
2.6 Methodological Challenges: The Call for Comparative Case Studies 13
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