Comparative mainstreaming? Mapping the uses of the comparative method in social policy, sociology and political science since the 1970s

This article maps the development and uses of comparative method in academic research since 1970s. It is based on an original database that we constructed for our review 12,483 articles extracted from leading journals representing disciplines Social Policy, Political Science Sociology. We proceed to a quantitative qualitative analysis reported effort. find became mainstream 1990s – following publication Three Worlds Welfare Capitalism JESP most journal all. In 2020, 66% published are comparative. The turn has been stronger Policy than Sociology over last three decades. witness rise use formal techniques (case studies historical analysis, SEM/factorial techniques, cluster QCA/Fuzzy-set) mixed-methods comparison descriptive this particularly pronounced Regression dominant, however cited case statistics. Overall, argue is, essence, ‘a way thinking’ not simply application set disparate techniques.