Data-driven transitions research: Methodological considerations for event-based analysis

This chapter argues that serious progress can be made in transitions studies if a more data-driven approach to empirical analysis is adopted. For instance, transitions research relies heavily on case study narratives for its underpinning and the field has amassed a considerable body of empirical data in the form. Meta-analysis of the existing empirical literature may be an appropriate way to bootstrap data-driven transitions research, whilst enabling a much-needed re-examination of basic assumptions. Meta-analysis involves selecting a corpus of texts that adequately describe transitions. Accumulating ‘events that made a difference’ and that demonstrably took place during transitions should smooth out such content bias in the aggregate. The aid of ontology would potentially allow a richer analysis than one just based on an event catalogue, but building ontology for a large domain of discourse like transitions is far from trivial.