Paradigmatic Cases

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

By way of an introductory statement, it is perhaps worth returning to the etymology of the terms paradigm and case to frame the meaning of paradigmatic cases. Literally, the term paradigm may be defined as “show side by side” it derives from the parts para, meaning “beside,” and -digm, from deiknynai, meaning “to show.” This admittedly truncated etymology suggests that a phenomenon is revealed by the “showing” that happens when an exemplary element is extracted and placed alongside it. For its part, the term case refers to a “state of affairs.” It derives from the old French cas (“an event”) and the Latin casus (“a chance” or, more literally, “a falling,” which derives from cas or the stem of cadere, which means “to fall.”) Such derivations imply that a case be considered as a contingent event with a decidedly historical singularity about it. Merging these etymologies, one might say that a paradigmatic case is a singular event that involves placing an exemplar alongside a phenomenon; by virtue of so placing, it shows or reveals key elements of that phenomenon. One might add that the etymology also signals a degree of contingency involved in both the “falling” of the case and the way in which its appearance is taken to elucidate a phenomenon in a given context.

For some people, an entry dealing with paradigmatic cases might be expected to speak of representative examples that accurately reflect, or mirror, a more general phenomenon. However, the idea that a singular case might reflect something else is not at all clear cut within the more qualitatively focused logic of case study methodologies. Hence, for example, Robert Yin insists on a distinctive logic of theoretical replication (as opposed to, say, confirmation or verification) as a hallmark feature of case study analyses. It also distinguishes the approach from either survey or experimental methodologies—especially those that seek generalized statements based on the aggregation of variables across specific cases. An emphasis on singular cases, by contrast, works in another direction, with a different logic and in some formulations (poststructural) with quite different epistemological frameworks (i.e., those that challenge images of a correspondence between quantitative representations and an underlying world that is assumed to exist independently).

When evoking the concept “paradigm,” commentators typically refer back to Thomas Kuhn's classic book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Despite the book's notoriously ambiguous use of this concept, it is useful in context to note two influential formulations. The first, as Giorgio Agamben argues, focuses on what members of a [Page 646]specific scientific community hold in common (e.g., values, techniques, methodologies, etc.). A paradigm here refers to the broader assumptive and normative universes that structure the worldviews of its participants. Kuhn's second sense of the term is more specific but is directly relevant to our discussion of paradigmatic cases. It conceptualizes a paradigm as an element of a wider whole (e.g., “normal science”), offering exemplars by which contextually specific meaning horizons are rendered understandable to participants. In this case, a paradigm may be thought of as providing an example that contains meaning and insight for participants, rendering phenomena understandable, practicable, and so on. It serves as a reference point for particular forms of intelligibility. Yet what sort of logic is at play here?

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