The authors review all known studies applying optimal matching or alignment (OM) techniques to social science sequence data. Issues of data, coding, temporality, cost setting/algorithm design, and analytic strategies are considered, and substantive findings are reviewed. The authors conclude...

This article discusses causal analysis as a paradigm for explanation in sociology. It begins with a detailed analysis of causality statements in Durkheim's Le suicide. It then discusses the history of causality assumptions in sociological writing since the 1930s, with brief remarks about the...

This article reviews new and rigorous methods for analyzing narrative data and over-time data more generally. It locates these new methods within a general turn away from the “variables paradigm.â€