POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF CROSS-NATIONAL AND CROSS-REGIONAL RESEARCH.

The article presents information on the possibilities and limitations of cross-national and cross-regional research. In approaching cross-national and cross-regional research, the author has taken for granted the fundamental rationale of comparative study as such, and disregarded general problems of its validity. This is so, as the last Congress considered this issue, and the main points of these deliberations are on record. Instead, the author has tried to focus on more specific topics of conceptualization, methodology and organization, as they bear directly upon rural social study. Accordingly, the papers included have two major foci and fall into two groups; in each of which the author has tried to secure a discussion of both theoretical as well as applied and practical aspects. The first group, focuses on problems of the proper meaning or nature of comparative research and on the essential qualities it must have to be effective. The second group is related to problems attending the execution of comparative projects. The first of the two deals mainly with major questions of methodology: firstly, with problems of interpersonal relations, including those of political clearance, of tackling cultural variations and of stereotyping; and secondly, with technical ones, chiefly the comparability of secondary data, the utilization of and relationship to theoretical models and the standardization of field procedures.