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Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) offers researchers the opportunity to combine the intensiveness of case-oriented research strategies and the extensiveness of variable-oriented approaches in a single framework. QCA is specifically designed for a moderate number of cases, too few for variable-oriented research designs and too many for in-depth, case-oriented analysis. To illustrate QCA's applicability to moderate-sized data sets, we analyze data on forty-one villages in southern India reported in Robert Wade's (1988) comparative study of villagewide collective action, Village Republics. Using QCA, we show that Wade's explanation of villagewide collective action is incomplete. We complement his strictly ecological explanation with a sociological perspective and show that intervillage competition is an important condition for villagewide collective action.Social research tends to be either intensive or extensive. Intensive research typically focuses on a small number of cases and examines them in depth. This case-study strategy is well suited for close examination of complex empirical processes, for assessing the meanings actors attach to their actions, or for clarifying categories and concepts and thus advancing sociological theory. However, this approach does not offer powerful tools for constructing generalizations, testing theories, or making broad predictions. These latter tasks are better served by the variable-oriented strategy, an approach that focuses on the covariation between two or more phenomena across many

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In recent years, environmentalism in the US has increasingly emerged at the community level, focusing on local ecological problems. Correspondingly, the American environmental movement has exhorted its supporters to 'think globally' but 'act locally'. The authors examine this modern environmental mantra by analysing the opportunities and constraints on local environmental action posed by economic and political structures at all levels. The difficulties involved in local activism are explored in three case studies - a wetlands protection project, water pollution of the Great Lakes, and consumer waste recycling. The final chapter then reflects on the challenges facing citizen-worker movements in each case study, and concludes that, despite the inherent difficulties, any successful attempt at mobilisation must have a local component.