Fifteen Years of Empirical Research on Collective Action in Natural Resource Management: Struggling to Build Large-N Databases Based on Qualitative Research

SummaryMany debates exist among social scientists that relate to the “best” way of collecting data about important theoretical questions. As scholars, who conduct individual case studies as well as participate in large-N studies combining qualitative and quantitative data, we recognize the value of each research strategy and trade-offs in choosing between them. We support the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to build on the strengths of each. A meta-analysis of the scholarly literature indexed during 1990–2004 on collective action related to natural resource governance yielded strong evidence that small-N studies are still the dominant empirical method. The continued reliance on research designs with limited comparative scope reflects practical challenges that limit the quantity and geographic breadth of data that any one researcher can collect using field-based research. We discuss the relative merits and shortcomings of two strategies for overcoming those challenges: Meta-databases constructed from existing qualitative studies and large-N field-based studies. Resource constraints, career incentives, and, ironically, collective action problems among researchers currently limit adoption of these strategies.