The Case for Asking “What Is This a Case Of?”

 A lot of junior researchers struggle with at least one of the following challenges when conducting autonomous research:
-“I’m told to use concepts, but how do I know which ones are relevant for my project?”
- “How do I make my work more analytical?”
- “I’m told to do a literature review, but there’s no relevant literature on my topic.”
- “How do I find literature that goes beyond my case study?”
-“I need to justify my case selection — but how?” 
- “How do I put my case in perspective?”
-“The work I admire contributes to both theoretical and empirical debates — how do I do that?”

The secret is that one deceptively simple question addresses all of these problems at once: “What is this a case of?”.
This isn’t just a philosophical musing — it’s a powerful, generative tool that can supercharge your research approach. Asking this question yields four key benefits:
1. It forces you to situate your project within a broader universe of comparable cases, leading to more rigorous case selection.
2. It helps you identify conceptual anchors for your literature review beyond case-specific sources.
3. It pushes you to develop a conceptual toolbox that sharpens your analysis.
4. It allows you to make a double contribution — both to those interested in your empirical case and to those working on broader conceptual or theoretical questions.
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In short, asking “What is this a case of?” is a strategic, epistemological, and practical move. It transforms a descriptive project into an analytical one — bridging your phenomenon and theory to produce richer, more meaningful results.

1. Navigating the Universe of Cases: Strengthening Case Selection

One of the most valuable — and often overlooked — benefits of asking “What is this a case of?” is methodological: it helps you clearly justify and structure your case selection. In social science, cases are never self-evident; they are constructed by the researcher, defined by analytical boundaries such as time, space, the type of documents or data considered, and the actors involved.
The first step in justifying your case is to clarify what it is a case of, using concepts that anchor it in broader scholarly debates. For example, if you study how politicians argue in favour of policy X, you might explicitly want to frame your research as one instance of a broader phenomenon: the legitimation of a public policy, you would . This conceptual anchoring ensures that your work speaks to a wider audience than those interested only in your specific context, linking it to existing theories and comparative studies on similar processes.
The next step is to define the boundaries of your case — temporal, spatial, and analytical.  In the case at hand, this might mean focusing on the economic and demographic conditions of X in London between 1992 and 1998. Making these boundaries explicit clarifies the scope of your study, signals what is included and excluded, and helps readers understand the specific context within which your analysis takes place.
Once the boundaries are set, you can position your case within the broader universe of cases by identifying relevant points of comparison. This might include other public policies in London, the same public policy implemented at the national level or in other countries, or similar legitimation strategies applied to issues other than public policy. Mapping these connections shows how your case relates to others — revealing both its commonalities and its distinctive features.
Your case should also be explicitly connected to your research question, the existing literature, and relevant theories. This alignment demonstrates how your study contributes to scholarly debates: by showing that your case is both comparable to others and distinctive in ways that generate new insights. Such positioning ensures that your work speaks to multiple audiences — those interested in the specific case and those engaged in the broader conceptual or theoretical discussions it illuminates.
In many projects, there is also a “case within a case”, and each level of this nested design needs to be justified. For example, your study might be a case of an urban setting rather than a rural one, or of a city rather than another spatial or administrative unit. You might further narrow your focus to certain boroughs within London, particular age groups, or other sub-populations. Each of these choices — and the reasons behind them — must be made explicit so that readers understand the logic of your selection and the scope of your findings.

When you ask “What is this a case of?” you are also invited to consider whether typical, representative, extreme, or deviant?​ For instance, if you're studying how migrants are represented in mainstream media during elections in a specific country, is your case part of a wider trend of scapegoating by right-wing media? Or is it an unusually inclusive counter-example? Does it emerge from a national context with a distinctive media ecosystem or immigration history? How does this case relate to other cases investigated by the literature?

Don't forget that your case selection is a very important dimension of research design! To sum, it :
- Establishes relevance – Shows how the case addresses your research question and contributes to the broader literature.
- Clarifies representativeness – Explains whether the case is typical, critical, extreme, or otherwise strategically important in illustrating a phenomenon.
- Strengthens validity – Demonstrates why the case is suitable for drawing analytical or theoretical insights, reducing the risk of selection bias accusations.
- Situates the study in context – Helps readers understand the historical, cultural, political, or social background that shapes the case.
- Supports transferability of findings – Justifies why lessons from this case may apply (or deliberately not apply) to other contexts.
- Reveals methodological rationale – Connects the case choice to your data availability, feasibility, and research design.
- Preempts criticism – Anticipates and addresses doubts about arbitrariness, cherry-picking, or researcher bias.
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​Demonstrates theoretical fit – Shows how the case interacts with existing theory (testing, extending, or challenging it).

2. From Case-Specific to “Instances of something”: Guiding Your Literature Review

​Another key benefit of this question is that it helps you build a conceptually grounded and strategically focused literature review. Many students conducting independent research tend to stay close to their empirical context — reading what has been written about their country, their population, or their time period. While necessary, this approach is not sufficient.
For example, if you're studying how a specific migrant group is represented in the media of a particular country, and you only read studies about that group in that country, your literature review will likely be too narrow. Your research risks remaining descriptive and disconnected from broader scholarly debates.
Instead, asking “What is this a case of?” prompts you to identify the concepts that connect your case to broader issues. If your research problem is “the discursive construction of prescribed drugs as a social health issue,” this question might lead you to concepts such as:

• Public policy communication
• Agenda-setting
• Framing and reception
• Social construction of risk and crisis

Each of these opens up access to wider bodies of literature and helps you find theoretical anchors for your analysis.

This process is iterative. As you explore the literature linked to your initial concepts, you’ll encounter additional concepts, competing definitions, and theoretical debates. Use general and specialized dictionaries of social science to clarify meanings. Internalize the concepts that resonate with your research, and start using them as exploratory hypotheses — interpretive tools that help you see your material through new lenses.

3. Becoming More Analytical: Building Your Conceptual Toolbox

​Asking “What is this a case of?” also plays a central role in building the conceptual toolbox that will guide your analysis and structure your research design. It encourages you to view your case not just as a topic or context, but as an instance of a broader configuration, process, or discursive dynamic.
The types of concepts that make up a strong analytical architecture will vary depending on your research design and field. It would take an entire textbook to map them all — and I wouldn’t presume to do that here! Instead, I’ll share an example from the type of research project I know best.

​Let’s return to the case of the U.S. opioid crisis since 1994. This isn’t just a story about drug policy (which would relate to one category of concepts — policy institutions, regulatory shifts, etc.). It can also be framed as a case of:

• The discursive construction of public health threats
• Moral panic driven by discourse
• Racialized perceptions of addiction and social deviance

To sum up, a project is not inherently a case of something per se, it is you who chose what a case is a case of based on your objectives and the concepts your decide to mobilise. Depending on the lens you apply, your analytical toolbox — and your argument — shifts. And so does the theoretical community your research will engage with. For more tips on how to become more analytical check the blog post ​What is analysis ? Some tips to become more analytical,

4. Making a Double Contribution: Theory and Case Communities

​Finally, asking “What is this a case of?” enhances the reach and relevance of your work. It allows you to contribute to two scholarly communities at once:

• Those focused on your empirical case (e.g., national politics, a social movement, a policy debate), and
• Those engaged with the conceptual or theoretical problem that your case illuminates.

This is what transforms a good student project into a publishable academic contribution. Suppose you’re working on indigenous resistance to policy-making in Chile. You might contribute new empirical insights to scholars of Chilean politics and indigenous rights. But you can also contribute to broader debates around framing of resistances, postcolonial activism, or state-minority relations.
You don’t need to label your project as a formal “case study” in the methodological sense. But you should approach it as an opportunity to shed empirical light on a theoretical problem. That’s what makes your work meaningful to others working on similar questions in different contexts.
As Robert Yin puts it: “You should think of your case study as the opportunity to shed empirical light on some theoretical concepts or principles” (Yin 2018: 92). Similarly, Flyvbjerg (2006) reminds us that the richness of a single case often lies in its ability to reframe general ideas. Ragin (1992) goes further: the question “What is this a case of?” should be asked not once but continuously, as a way of refining what your case reveals about the world.
This mindset ensures your research has both depth and reach — it speaks to the particular while also resonating with the general.

In Conclusion: A Compass for Research Autonomy

When you're navigating the complexities of an autonomous research project — especially in an interdisciplinary setting — it's easy to feel stuck or uncertain. How do you move from topic to theory? From data to analysis?
The deceptively simple question “What is this a case of?” can serve as your compass.
It helps you:

• Justify and contextualize your case selection
• Construct a meaningful and strategic literature review
• Build a robust analytical framework
• Contribute to both your empirical and theoretical communities

More than just a clarifying question, it's a generative method — a way to think, structure, and communicate your research with greater clarity and analytical depth.

Reference

​Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 219–245.
Ragin, C. C. (1992). “Casing and the Process of Social Inquiry.” In C. C. Ragin & H. S. Becker (Eds.), What Is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry (pp. 217–226). Cambridge University Press.
Yin, R. K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. Sage Publications.