Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Most of the academic literature on the process tracing method has been developed in English. This paper aims to provide a detailed description and reflection, in Spanish, of the most relevant scientific literature on the process tracing method with an application to Political Science and International Relations. To achieve this objective, the article establishes a theoretical framework of analysis of the process tracing method from social constructivism to articulate its applicability to different scientific work. This paper is relevant as an input for the various kinds of social research which use the process tracing method as a qualitative technique. Increasingly, it has had a greater impact among researchers of Political Science and International Relations due to its sensitivity in the analysis of the complexity of historical events, although it should be clarified that this method had its origins in cognitive psychology.  Here it has been used to detect the intermediate steps in the mental cognitive processes of human beings' decision making. The article starts from the contextualization of the method, with a reductionist vision to understand the decision making of the agents, until reaching an understanding and extension of the structure with the aim of theorizing (developing theories) and explaining individual cases. Therefore, the first part of the text deals with the conceptualization of the process tracing method from the different definitions to extract and identify the essential features of the method: processes, mechanisms, and evidence. Firstly, the causal process that intervenes or connects the independent variables and the outcome of the dependent variable is addressed. The method is predominantly descriptive and qualitative, thus implying several causal chains that may be overlapping.  However, it also requires a detailed description process. The applicability of the method is implicitly linked to the need to understand the necessary conditions that will produce a specific result. Therefore, the type of research may generate types of variants focused on theory or case studies. Secondly, causal mechanisms cannot be dissected into specific events, but rather must be analyzed from their own interaction and dynamics. Thus, they should not be confused with intervening variables. Thirdly, finding the relevant evidence for the object of study and its relationship with the hypothesis is the most important part of process tracing. From here, different types of evidence must be addressed to assess the probative value of the evidence and its relevance. The process tracing method allows the researcher to choose, according to the resources available, between adopting a deductive or inductive input.  That said, it is generally carried out through the combination of deductive and inductive elements at different stages of the research. From the social constructivist side, the use of the process tracing method is more common because of the interpretive component, especially with regards to the structure and agency debate. It is with information from historical archives and secondary sources that process tracing is intended to be carried out. However, specialized interviews to collect detailed information from elites can also be useful for understanding case studies of the political and international phenomena to be studied. The success of the process depends on having as much information as possible to understand the different causal mechanisms, and conducting the interviews allows corroborating the information obtained from different sources and finally reconstructing a series of events. In other words, process tracing allows a triangulation of different sources to achieve maximum accuracy in the understanding of the events. The method, like any other, has strengths and weaknesses, which, depending on the researcher's decision, must be weighed for its correct use. Some of the positive aspects of the method are the possibilities of broadening the explanatory perspective of causal mechanisms, the ability to have sufficient and necessary information to test the hypothesis, the greater emphasis on understanding rather than on the solution, and finally, how this allows an eclectic approach to build bridges between different schools of thought. As for the weaknesses of the method, some of these can be related to its qualitative orientation, and because of which it is not possible to have total certainty of the facts that are studied.  Therefore, we resort to representations that are extracted from different sources of information, which requires a lot of time and a large amount of information. It also requires establishing up to what level of analysis to reach; it does not allow theoretical generalization since the results would end up simplifying the reality. Finally, the barriers that the researcher must overcome with the process tracing method are fundamentally the promotion of a pluralistic methodology and epistemology, and the normative and ethical elements of the case study, since losing the contextual element leaves the causal mechanisms without explanatory elements. Thus, this paper intends to bring together some of the most relevant contributions from different authors to deepen the different variants that can be assumed in the process tracing method, and in accordance with the objectives and research questions. Likewise, the guiding thread of this paper is found in the understanding of the causal mechanism, the theoretical and empirical variants, the testing of evidence, and the deductive and inductive inputs that will allow articulating the objectives and answering the research questions. Undoubtedly, the causal mechanism is the fundamental basis of the process tracing method in both its theoretical and empirical variants, the evidence tests that can be performed and the deductive or inductive inputs. The researcher is encouraged to extract the empirical manifestations or testing of the theory from each of the parts of the causal mechanism that is presented in the case study, either through events or study events. In this way it will be possible to contextualize or conceptualize the causal mechanism, carry out the operationalization of the causal mechanism to verify the theory, and finally, collect the empirical evidence to carry out causal inferences and verify the causal mechanism and its parts as predicted according to the sequence of historical events.  

Review of: Ferguson, S. (2020). Mujeres y Trabajo: Feminismo, trabajo y reproducción social. Editorial Viento Sur, 174 pp.

Review of: Rodó-Zárate, M. (2021). Interseccionalidad. Desigualdades, lugares y emociones. Editorial Bellaterra, 231 pp.

Review of: González, A.M. (2021) El claroscuro catalán. Nación, emoción e identidad en el proceso independentista. Editorial Rialp, 154 pp. 

La superación del maestro de la Educación Primaria para la atención educativa a los educandos con discapacidad intelectual, constituye una prioridad del Ministerio de Educación en Belice, el que presupone, desde el marco legal, el acceso a la educación de todos los educandos, incluidos aquellos que presentan necesidades educativas especiales. Ello ha provocado la necesidad de incidir en los docentes a fin de que eleven la calidad de su labor y puedan concretar la respuesta educativa en correspondencia con las necesidades de cada educando. La profundización en su estudio nos acerca a la necesidad de su tratamiento y ofrecer una respuesta a esta problemática, para lo que se hace la propuesta de una concepción teórico-metodológica destinada a la superación del maestro de la Educación Primaria sobre la atención educativa a los educandos con discapacidad intelectual. En el proceso de la investigación se aplicaron métodos del nivel teórico, empírico y estadístico, que permitieron recopilar, interpretar y procesar la información relacionada con el objeto de estudio, en aras de ofrecer una solución al problema científico identificado. La concepción teórico-metodológica se basa en dos ideas rectoras que promueven la superación del maestro en función de la atención educativa y su vinculación con el trabajo metodológico para favorecer el desempeño de su labor con los educandos que presentan discapacidad intelectual. La valoración por criterio de expertos permitió constatar la correlación entre el valor teórico y metodológico, revelando su factibilidad en función de favorecer la superación del maestro.

The article addresses the promotion of reading in the university from a formative conception in the university extension. Its objective was aimed at establishing a pedagogical conception of training for the promotion of reading in the context of the University of Pinar del Río. For this, the main methods were used the Dialectic-Materialist, as rector, theorists such as the Historical-logical, the Systemic-Structural and empirical Modeling such as the Interview, the Survey and the documentary Analysis. The main results were in a set of ideas that conceiveit as a process with a transversal nature and understandit as a sociocultural practice, energized by the relationships that are generated between the students of the student brigade, the academic ear group and the Department of University Extension, which uses the method and organization alforms of university extension, based on the integral cultural training of future professionals. The conclusions derived from the ideas, associated with the new condition simposed by the pandemic, allow edus to find new challenges for the exchange of best practices, to strength enties with other social actors, as well as to project new ways of approaching reading from the promotion.

The article presents a research result of a master's thesis on the formation of the conflict resolution competence in students of the Sociology career in Cuba. Its objective is to identify theorical-methological guidelines for the formation of conflict resolution competence in Sociology students. Theoretical level methods such as analysis-synthesis and induction-deduction were used for the approach to the subject of socio-emotional competences in the educational field. Emphasis was placed on the conflict resolution competence and its training as a relevant aspect for the students of the Sociology career. From the empirical level, the documentary analysis was used on the legal basis that supports the formation of the student of the Sociology career in Cuba. Group interviews with teachers and students were also used. The most significant result is the identification of theorical-methological guidelines for the formation of conflict resolution competence in Sociology students. The formation of conflict resolution competence in Sociology students is being supported from a socioformative approach.

The preparation of education professionals in the contents of Statistics based on educational research is a necessity for the successful development of research in this field. The objective of this article is to expose the limitations in the preparation of the contents of Statistics based on educational research as well as the results of the structuring and assessment of the impact of the improvement actions in this sense, for the teachers of the headquarters "Rafael María de Mendive", of the University of Pinar del Rio "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca". The use of methods at a theoretical, empirical and statistical-mathematical level made it possible to verify the limitations of the initial state of said process, as well as the structuring and assessment of the impact of the product designed based on the preparation of the teachers, in such a way as to guarantee the acquisition of the contents of Statistics based on educational research and raise their level of development for conducting research, thus achieving greater objectivity of their results. The assessment of the improvement strategy in educational practice confirmed its theoretical, methodological and practical contribution, confirming higher levels in the preparation of teachers from the cognitive and instrumental point of view.

This study aims to analyze the growth of technology companies in Brazil in 2002-2013. To do so, we use Gibrat’s law, otherwise known as the Law of Proportionate Effect (LPE) and the panel data model, which allows us to control unobservable heterogeneity. However, unlike the previous empirical evidence, this study takes into account the effect of the recent financial crisis and profitability on business growth. The main results show that in times of crisis, public policies could a lot some resources available to help some of the smaller, more profitable, and least indebted technology companies to boost economic growth.

This paper evaluates the Innovation Stimulus Program (PEI) in Mexico through its contribution to the Baja California Regional Innovation System (SRI) between 2009 and 2013. Using additional behavior methodologies, we analyzed the within-company effect and the network effect, as well as the degree of connectivity and number of interactions between stakeholders from the worlds of business, science, and government involved in the SRI. The results reveal that by making funding for innovative projects subject to connections between actors from the realms of business and science, the PEI is helping fortify the SRI by incentivizing 15% of its interactions.