understanding economics a case study approach

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Understanding Economics: A Case Study Approach Paperback – January 1, 1997

• Print length 188 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Globe Fearon
• Publication date January 1, 1997
• Grade level 7 - 9
• Dimensions 8.5 x 0.5 x 11 inches
• ISBN-10 0835918106
• ISBN-13 978-0835918107
• See all details

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Globe Fearon (January 1, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 188 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0835918106
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0835918107
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.5 x 11 inches
• #45,509 in Economics (Books)

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Solving Case Study in Economics: A Complete Guide

case study in economics

Case studies are invaluable in economics education, providing students with real-world scenarios to apply theoretical concepts and analytical skills. However, solving a case study in economics requires a structured approach that combines research, critical thinking, and a deep understanding of economic principles. This post presents a comprehensive guide on effectively solving a case study in economics , ensuring a thorough analysis and a grasp of practical implications.

Understanding the Case Study

Read carefully: .

Begin by reading the case study thoroughly. Pay attention to the details, context, and objectives presented. Identify the main issues, stakeholders, and the economic concepts at play.

Define the Problem: 

Clearly define the economic problem or challenge presented in the case study. What are the fundamental problems that ought to be handled? Understanding the problem is crucial before proceeding with analysis.Identify the central economic problem or challenge that the case study presents. This could involve issues related to demand and supply, market structures, externalities, government interventions, or any other economic concept.

Gathering Relevant Information

Research: .

Conduct thorough research to gather additional information relevant to the case study. This may involve exploring economic theories, statistical data, and industry trends. Reliable sources such as academic journals, government reports, and reputable news outlets are valuable.

Identify Variables: 

Identify the variables affecting the situation presented in the case study. These could include economic indicators, market conditions, government policies, etc.

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Applying Economic Concepts

Use relevant theories: .

Apply relevant economic theories and concepts to analyze the case study. Consider concepts like supply and demand, elasticity, market structure, cost analysis, and utility theory, depending on the case context.

Quantitative Analysis:  

If applicable, use quantitative methods such as calculations, graphs, and charts to illustrate your analysis. These tools can help visualize economic relationships and trends.

Data Interpretation

Cause and effect:.

 Identify the cause-and-effect relationships driving the economic situation in the case study. Analyze how changes in one variable can impact others and lead to specific outcomes.

Consider Alternatives: 

Explore solutions or strategies to address the issues presented. Consider the possible benefits and drawbacks of each option.

Making Recommendations

Informed decisions: .

Based on your analysis, make informed recommendations for addressing the challenges outlined in the case study in economics. Your recommendations should be rooted in economic theories and supported by your gathered data.

Justify Your Recommendations: 

Clearly explain the rationale behind your recommendations. How will they positively impact the stakeholders involved? Justify your choices with economic logic.

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Tips for Success

Practice: .

The more case studies you solve, the more comfortable you’ll become with the process. Practice hones your analytical skills and enables you to apply economic concepts effectively.

Collaborate: 

Engage in discussions with peers or instructors. Collaborative analysis can offer diverse perspectives and deepen your understanding of the case.

Real-World Context: 

Relate the case study to real-world economic scenarios. Understanding the practical implications of your analysis adds depth to your recommendations.

Stay Updated:

 Case study in economics is a dynamic field. Stay updated with current economic trends, policy changes, and market developments to enhance the relevance of your analysis.

Read the Case Thoroughly

Begin by reading the case study attentively. Familiarize yourself with the context, characters, and economic issues presented. Take notes as you read to highlight key information and identify the main problems.

 Apply Relevant Economic Concepts

Next, apply the economic concepts and theories you’ve learned in your coursework to the identified problem. Consider how concepts like elasticity, opportunity cost, marginal analysis, and cost-benefit analysis can be applied to the situation.

 Collect Data and Information

Gather relevant data and information that can support your analysis. This may include statistical data, market trends, historical information, and other relevant sources that substantiate your arguments.

Analyze and Evaluate

Conduct a thorough analysis of the situation. Identify the factors contributing to the problem and evaluate their impact. Use graphs, charts, and diagrams to represent your analysis and provide clarity visually.

 Explore Alternatives

Generate possible solutions or alternatives to address the identified problem. Consider the pros and cons of each solution, keeping in mind economic feasibility, ethical implications, and potential outcomes.

 Apply Economic Theories

When formulating solutions, apply economic theories and principles that align with the situation. For instance, if you’re dealing with a market failure, explore how government intervention or corrective measures can be applied based on economic theories like externalities or public goods.

Quantitative Analysis

If applicable, perform quantitative analysis using relevant mathematical or statistical tools. This could involve calculating elasticity break-even points or analyzing cost structures to support your recommendations.

 Justify Your Recommendations

Ensure that your solutions are well-justified and backed by solid economic reasoning. Explain how each solution addresses the problem and aligns with economic theories.

 Consider Real-World Constraints

Acknowledge any real-world constraints that might affect the implementation of your recommendations. This could include budgetary limitations, political considerations, or social factors.

Solving an case study in economics writing is an enriching experience that bridges theory and practice. It requires a structured approach, from understanding the case to making well-informed recommendations. By thoroughly analyzing the economic concepts, interpreting data, and applying relevant theories, you can arrive at strategic solutions that align with economic principles.

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Understanding economics: a case study approach - softcover, globe fearon.

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• About this edition
• Publisher Globe Fearon
• Publication date 1996
• ISBN 10  0835918114
• ISBN 13  9780835918114
• Binding Paperback
• Number of pages 86

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Understanding Economics: A Case Study Approach Paperback – Jan. 1 1810

• Language English
• Publication date Jan. 1 1810
• Dimensions 21.59 x 1.27 x 27.94 cm
• ISBN-10 0835918106
• ISBN-13 978-0835918107
• See all details

Product details

• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0835918106
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0835918107
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 567 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.59 x 1.27 x 27.94 cm

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• Publisher Globe Fearon Educational Publishing
• ISBN-10 0835918106
• ISBN-13 9780835918107
• eBay Product ID (ePID) 2575571

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• Book Title Understanding Economics : a Case Study Approach
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• Format Hardcover
• Language English
• Intended Audience Young Adults
• Number of Pages 192 Pages
• Item Length 11in
• Item Width 8.7in
• Item Weight 19.2 Oz

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• Grade to Twelfth Grade
• Target Audience Young Adult Audience
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Economics Inscribed Study Hardcovers Prep

Economics workbook study hardcovers prep, economics hardcover study guides & test prep, economics hardcover study guides & test prep in english, economics hardcover study guides & test prep personalized, economics hardcover study guides & test prep in japanese.

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22 Case Study Research: In-Depth Understanding in Context

Helen Simons, School of Education, University of Southampton

• Published: 01 July 2014
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This chapter explores case study as a major approach to research and evaluation. After first noting various contexts in which case studies are commonly used, the chapter focuses on case study research directly Strengths and potential problematic issues are outlined and then key phases of the process. The chapter emphasizes how important it is to design the case, to collect and interpret data in ways that highlight the qualitative, to have an ethical practice that values multiple perspectives and political interests, and to report creatively to facilitate use in policy making and practice. Finally, it explores how to generalize from the single case. Concluding questions center on the need to think more imaginatively about design and the range of methods and forms of reporting requiredto persuade audiences to value qualitative ways of knowing in case study research.

Introduction

This chapter explores case study as a major approach to research and evaluation using primarily qualitative methods, as well as documentary sources, contemporaneous or historical. However, this is not the only way in which case study can be conceived. No one has a monopoly on the term. While sharing a focus on the singular in a particular context, case study has a wide variety of uses, not all associated with research. A case study, in common parlance, documents a particular situation or event in detail in a specific sociopolitical context. The particular can be a person, a classroom, an institution, a program, or a policy. Below I identify different ways in which case study is used before focusing on qualitative case study research in particular. However, first I wish to indicate how I came to advocate and practice this form of research. Origins, context, and opportunity often shape the research processes we endorse. It is helpful for the reader, I think, to know how I came to the perspective I hold.

The Beginnings

I first came to appreciate and enjoy the virtues of case study research when I entered the field of curriculum evaluation and research in the 1970s. The dominant research paradigm for educational research at that time was experimental or quasi- experimental, cost-benefit, or systems analysis, and the dominant curriculum model was aims and objectives ( House, 1993 ). The field was dominated, in effect, by a psychometric view of research in which quantitative methods were preeminent. But the innovative projects we were asked to evaluate (predominantly, but not exclusively, in the humanities) were not amenable to such methodologies. The projects were challenging to the status quo of institutions, involved people interpreting the policy and programs, were implemented differently in different contexts and regions, and had many unexpected effects.

We had no choice but to seek other ways to evaluate these complex programs, and case study was the methodology we found ourselves exploring, in order to understand how the projects were being implemented, why they had positive effects in some regions of the country and not others, and what the outcomes meant in different sociopolitical and cultural contexts. What better way to do this than to talk with people to see how they interpreted the “new” curriculum; to watch how teachers and students put it into practice; to document transactions, outcomes, and unexpected consequences; and to interpret all in the specific context of the case ( Simons, 1971 , 1987 , pp. 55–89). From this point on and in further studies, case study in educational research and evaluation came to be a major methodology for understanding complex educational and social programs. It also extended to other practice professions, such as nursing, health, and social care ( Zucker, 2001 ; Greenhalgh & Worrall, 1997 ; Shaw & Gould, 2001 ). For further details of the evolution of the case study approach and qualitative methodologies in evaluation, see House, 1993 , pp. 2–3; Greene, 2000 ; Simons, 2009 , pp. 14–18; Simons & McCormack, 2007 , pp. 292–311).

This was not exactly the beginning of case study, of course. It has a long history in many disciplines ( Simons, 1980; Ragin, 1992; Gomm, Hammersley, & Foster, 2004 ; Platt, 2007 ), many aspects of which form part of case study practice to this day. But its evolution in the context just described was a major move in the contemporary evolution of the logic of evaluative inquiry ( House, 1980 ). It also coincided with movement toward the qualitative in other disciplines, such as sociology and psychology. This was all part of what Denzin & Lincoln (1994) termed “a quiet methodological revolution” (p. ix) in qualitative inquiry that had been evolving over the course of forty years.

There is a further reason why I continue to advocate and practice case study research and evaluation to this day and that is my personal predilection for trying to understand and represent complexity, for puzzling through the ambiguities that exist in many contexts and programs and for presenting and negotiating different values and interests in fair and just ways.

Put more simply, I like interacting with people, listening to their stories, trials and tribulations—giving them a voice in understanding the contexts and projects with which they are involved, and finding ways to share these with a range of audiences. In other words, the move toward case study methodology described here suited my preference for how I learn.

Concepts and Purposes of Case Study

Before exploring case study as it has come to be established in educational research and evaluation over the past forty years, I wish to acknowledge other uses of case study. More often than not, these relate to purpose, and appropriately so in their different contexts, but many do not have a research intention. For a study to count as research, it would need to be a systematic investigation generating evidence that leads to “new” knowledge that is made public and open to scrutiny. There are many ways to conduct research stemming from different traditions and disciplines, but they all, in different ways, involve these characteristics.

Everyday Usage: Stories We Tell

The most common of these uses of case study is the everyday reference to a person, an anecdote or story illustrative of a particular incident, event, or experience of that person. It is often a short, reported account commonly seen in journalism but also in books exploring a phenomenon, such as recovery from serious accidents or tragedies, where the author chooses to illustrate the story or argument with a “lived” example. This is sometimes written by the author and sometimes by the person whose tale it is. “Let me share with you a story,” is a phrase frequently heard

The spirit behind this common usage and its power to connect can be seen in a report by Tim Adams of the London Olympics opening ceremony’s dramatization by Danny Boyle.

It was the point when we suddenly collectively wised up to the idea that what we are about to receive over the next two weeks was not only about “legacy collateral” and “targeted deliverables,” not about G4S failings and traffic lanes and branding opportunities, but about the second-by-second possibilities of human endeavour and spirit and communality, enacted in multiple places and all at the same time. Stories in other words. ( Adams, 2012 )

This was a collective story, of course, not an individual one, but it does convey some of the major characteristics of case study—that richness of detail, time, place, multiple happenings and experiences—that are also manifest in case study research, although carefully evidenced in the latter instance. We can see from this common usage how people have come to associate case study with story. I return to this thread in the reporting section.

Professions Individual Cases

In professional settings, in health and social care, case studies, often called case histories , are used to accurately record a person’s health or social care history and his or her current symptoms, experience, and treatment. These case histories include facts but also judgments and observations about the person’s reaction to situations or medication. Usually these are confidential. Not dissimilar is the detailed documentation of a case in law, often termed a case precedent when referred to in a court case to support an argument being made. However in law there is a difference in that such case precedents are publicly documented.

Case Studies in Teaching

Exemplars of practice.

In education, but also in health and social care training contexts, case studies have long been used as exemplars of practice. These are brief descriptions with some detail of a person or project’s experience in an area of practice. Though frequently reported accounts, they are based on a person’s experience and sometimes on previous research.

Case scenarios

Management studies are a further context in which case studies are often used. Here, the case is more like a scenario outlining a particular problem situation for the management student to resolve. These scenarios may be based on research but frequently are hypothetical situations used to raise issues for discussion and resolution. What distinguishes these case scenarios and the case exemplars in education from case study research is the intention to use them for teaching purposes.

Country Case Studies

Then there are case studies of programs, projects, and even countries, as in international development, where a whole-country study might be termed a case study or, in the context of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where an exploration is conducted of the state of the art of a subject, such as education or environmental science in one or several countries. This may be a contemporaneous study and/or what transpired in a program over a period of time. Such studies often do have a research base but frequently are reported accounts that do not detail the design, methodology, and analysis of the case, as a research case study would do, or report in ways that give readers a vicarious experience of what it was like to be there. Such case studies tend to be more knowledge and information-focused than experiential.

Case Study as History

Closer to a research context is case study as history—what transpired at a certain time in a certain place. This is likely to be supported by documentary evidence but not primary data gathering unless it is an oral history. In education, in the late 1970s, Stenhouse (1978) experimented with a case study archive. Using contemporaneous data gathering, primarily through interviewing, he envisaged this database, which he termed a “case record,” forming an archive from which different individuals,, at some later date, could write a “case study.” This approach uses case study as a documentary source to begin to generate a history of education, as the subtitle of Stenhouse’s 1978 paper indicates “Towards a contemporary history of education.”

Case Study Research

From here on, my focus is on case study research per se, adopting for this purpose the following definition:

Case study is an in-depth exploration from multiple perspectives of the complexity and uniqueness of a particular project, policy, institution or system in a “real-life” context. It is research based, inclusive of different methods and is evidence-led. ( Simons, 2009 , p. 21).

For further related definitions of case study, see Stake (1995) , Merriam (1998), and Chadderton & Torrance (2011) . And for definitions from a slightly different perspective, see Yin (2004) and Thomas (2011a) .

Not Defined by Method or Perspective

The inclusion of different methods in the definition quoted above definition signals that case study research is not defined by methodology or method. What defines case study is its singularity and the concept and boundary of the case. It is theoretically possible to conduct a case study using primarily quantitative data if this is the best way of providing evidence to inform the issues the case is exploring. It is equally possible to conduct case study that is mainly qualitative, to engage people with the experience of the case or to provide a rich portrayal of an event, project, or program.

Or one can design the case using mixed methods. This increases the options for learning from different ways of knowing and is sometimes preferred by stakeholders who believe it provides a firmer basis for informing policy. This is not necessarily the case but is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore. For further discussion of the complexities of mixing methods and the virtue of using qualitative methods and case study in a mixed method design, see Greene (2007) .

Case study research may also be conducted from different standpoints—realist, interpretivist, or constructivist, for example. My perspective falls within a constructivist, interpretivist framework. What interests me is how I and those in the case perceive and interpret what we find and how we construct or co-construct understandings of the case. This not only suits my predilection for how I see the world, but also my preferred phenomenological approach to interviewing and curiosity about people and how they act in social and professional life.

Qualitative Case Study Research

Qualitative case study research shares many characteristics with other forms of qualitative research, such as narrative, oral history, life history, ethnography, in-depth interview, and observational studies that utilize qualitative methods. However, its focus, purpose, and origins, in educational research at least, are a little different.

The focus is clearly the study of the singular. The purpose is to portray an in-depth view of the quality and complexity of social/educational programs or policies as they are implemented in specific sociopolitical contexts. What makes it qualitative is its emphasis on subjective ways of knowing, particularly the experiential, practical, and presentational rather than the propositional ( Heron, 1992 , 1999 ) to comprehend and communicate what transpired in the case.

Characteristic Features and Advantages

Case study research is not method dependent, as noted earlier, nor is it constrained by resources or time. Although it can be conducted over several years, which provides an opportunity to explore the process of change and explain how and why things happened, it can equally be carried out contemporaneously in a few days, weeks, or months. This flexibility is extremely useful in many contexts, particularly when a change in policy or unforeseen issues in the field require modifying the design.

Flexibility extends to reporting. The case can be written up in different lengths and forms to meet different audience needs and to maximize use (see the section on Reporting). Using the natural language of participants and familiar methods (like interview, observation, oral history) also enables participants to engage in the research process, thereby contributing significantly to the generation of knowledge of the case. As I have indicated elsewhere ( Simons, 2009 ), “This is both a political and epistemological point. It signals a potential shift in the power base of who controls knowledge and recognizes the importance of co-constructing perceived reality through the relationships and joint understandings we create in the field” (p. 23).

Possible Disadvantages

If one is an advocate, identifying advantages of a research approach is easier than pointing out its disadvantages, something detractors are quite keen to do anyway! But no approach is perfect, and here are some of the issues that often trouble people about case study research. The “sample of one” is an obvious issue that worries those convinced that only large samples can constitute valid research and especially if this is to inform policy. Understanding complexity in depth may not be a sufficient counterargument, and I suspect there is little point in trying to persuade otherwise For frequently, this perception is one of epistemological and methodological, if not ideological, preference.

However, there are some genuine concerns that many case researchers face: the difficulty of processing a mass of data; of “telling the truth” in contexts where people may be identifiable; personal involvement, when the researcher is the main instrument of data gathering; and writing reports that are data-based, yet readable in style and length. But one issue that concerns advocates and nonadvocates alike is how inferences are drawn from the single case.

Answers to some of these issues are covered in the sections that follow. Whether they convince may again be a question of preference. However, it is worth noting here that I do not think we should seek to justify these concerns in terms identified by other methodologies. Many of them are intrinsic to the nature and strength of qualitative case study research.

Subjectivity, for instance, both of participants and researcher is inevitable, as it is in many other qualitative methodologies. This is often the basis on which we act. Rather than see this as bias or something to counter, it is an intelligence that is essential to understanding and interpreting the experience of participants and stakeholders. Such subjectivity needs to be disciplined, of course, through procedures that examine both the validity of individuals’ representations of “their truth”, and demonstrate how the researcher took a reflexive approach to monitoring how his or her own values and predilections may have unduly influenced the data.

Types of Case Study

There are numerous types of case study, too many to categorize, I think, as there are overlaps between them. However, attempts have been made to do this and, for those who value typologies, I refer them to Bassey (1999) and, for a more extended typology, to Thomas (2011b) . A slightly different approach is taken by Gomm, Hammersley, and Foster (2004) in annotating the different emphases in major texts on case study. What I prefer to do here is to highlight a few familiar types to focus the discussion that follows on the practice of case study research.

Stake (1995) offers a threefold distinction that is helpful when it comes to practice, he says, because it influences the methods we choose to gather data (p. 4). He distinguishes between an intrinsic case study , one that is studied to learn about the particular case itself and an instrumental case study , in which we choose a case to gain insight into a particular issue (i.e., the case is instrumental to understanding something else; p. 3). The collective case study is what its name suggests: an extension of the instrumental to several cases.

Theory-led or theory-generated case study is similarly self-explanatory, the first starting from a specific theory that is tested through the case; the second constructing a theory through interpretation of data generated in the case. In other words, one ends rather than begins with a theory. In qualitative case study research, this is the more familiar route. The theory of the case becomes the argument or story you will tell.

Evaluation case study requires a slightly longer description as this is my context of practice, one which has influenced the way I conduct case study and what I choose to emphasize in this chapter. An evaluation case study has three essential features: to determine the value of the case, to include and balance different interests and values, and to report findings to a range of stakeholders in ways that they can use. The reasons for this may be found in the interlude that follows, which offers a brief characterization of the social and ethical practice of evaluation and why qualitative methods are so important in this practice.

Interlude: Social and Ethical Practice of Evaluation

Evaluation is a social practice that documents, portrays, and seeks to understand the value of a particular project, program, or policy. This can be determined by different evaluation methodologies, of course. But the value of qualitative case study is that it is possible to discern this value without decontextualizing the data. While the focus of the case is usually a project, program, policy, or some unit within, studies of key individuals, what I term case profiles , may be embedded within the overall case. In some instances, these profiles, or even shorter cameos of individuals, may be quite prominent. For it is through the perceptions, interpretations, and interactions of people that we learn how policies and programs are enacted ( Kushner, 2000 , p. 12). The program is still the main focus of analysis, but, in exploring how individuals play out their different roles in the program, we get closer to the actual experience and meaning of the program in practice.

Case study evaluation is often commissioned from an external source (government department or other agency) keen to know the worth of publicly funded programs and policies to inform future decision making. It needs to be responsive to issues or questions identified by stakeholders, who often have different values and interests in the expected outcomes and appreciate different perspectives of the program in action. The context also is often highly politicized, and interests can conflict. The task of the evaluator in such situations becomes one of including and balancing all interests and values in the program fairly and justly.

This is an inherently political process and requires an ethical practice that offers participants some protection over the personal data they give as part of the research and agreed audiences access to the findings, presented in ways they can understand. Negotiating what information becomes public can be quite difficult in singular settings where people are identifiable and intricate or problematic transactions have been documented. The consequences that ensue from making knowledge public that hitherto was private may be considerable for those in the case. It may also be difficult to portray some of the contextual detail that would enhance understanding for readers.

The ethical stance that underpins the case study research and evaluation I conduct stems from a theory of ethics that emphasizes the centrality of relationships in the specific context and the consequences for individuals, while remaining aware of the research imperative to publicly report. It is essentially an independent democratic process based on the concepts of fairness and justice, in which confidentiality, negotiation, and accessibility are key principles ( MacDonald, 1976 ; Simons, 2009 , pp. 96–111; and Simons 2010 ). The principles are translated into specific procedures to guide the collection, validation, and dissemination of data in the field. These include:

engaging participants and stakeholders in identifying issues to explore and sometimes also in interpreting the data;

documenting how different people interpret and value the program;

negotiating what data becomes public respecting both the individual’s “right to privacy” and the public’s “right to know”;

offering participants opportunities to check how their data are used in the context of reporting;

reporting in language and forms accessible to a wide range of audiences;

disseminating to audiences within and beyond the case.

For further discussion of the ethics of democratic case study evaluation and examples of their use in practice, see Simons (2000 , 2006 , 2009 , chapter 6, 2010 ).

Designing Case Study Research

Design issues in case study sometimes take second place to those of data gathering, the more exciting task perhaps in starting research. However, it is critical to consider the design at the outset, even if changes are required in practice due to the reality of what is encountered in the field. In this sense, the design of case study is emergent, rather than preordinate, shaped and reshaped as understanding of the significance of foreshadowed issues emerges and more are discovered.

Before entering the field, there are a myriad of planning issues to think about related to stakeholders, participants, and audiences. These include whose values matter, whether to engage them in data gathering and interpretation, the style of reporting appropriate for each, and the ethical guidelines that will underpin data collection and reporting. However, here I emphasize only three: the broad focus of the study, what the case is a case of, and framing questions/issues. These are steps often ignored in an enthusiasm to gather data, resulting in a case study that claims to be research but lacks the basic principles required for generation of valid, public knowledge.

Conceptualize the Topic

First, it is important that the topic of the research is conceptualized in a way that it can be researched (i.e., it is not too wide). This seems an obvious point to make, but failure to think through precisely what it is about your research topic you wish to investigate will have a knock-on effect on the framing of the case, data gathering, and interpretation and may lead, in some instances, to not gathering or analyzing data that actually informs the topic. Further conceptualization or reconceptualization may be necessary as the study proceeds, but it is critical to have a clear focus at the outset.

What Constitutes the Case

Second, I think it is important to decide what would constitute the case (i.e., what it is a case of) and where the boundaries of this lie. This often proves more difficult than first appears. And sometimes, partly because of the semifluid nature of the way the case evolves, it is only possible to finally establish what the case is a case of at the end. Nevertheless, it is useful to identify what the case and its boundaries are at the outset to help focus data collection while maintaining an awareness that these may shift. This is emergent design in action.

In deciding the boundary of the case, there are several factors to bear in mind. Is it bounded by an institution or a unit within an institution, by people within an institution, by region, or by project, program or policy,? If we take a school as an example, the case could be comprised of the principal, teachers, and students, or the boundary could be extended to the cleaners, the caretaker, the receptionist, people who often know a great deal about the subnorms and culture of the institution.

If the case is a policy or particular parameter of a policy, the considerations may be slightly different. People will still be paramount—those who generated the policy and those who implemented it—but there is likely also to be a political culture surrounding the policy that had an influence on the way the policy evolved. Would this be part of the case?

Whatever boundary is chosen, this may change in the course of conducting the study when issues arise that can only be understood by going to another level. What transpires in a classroom, for example, if this is the case, is often partly dependent on the support of the school leadership and culture of the institution and this, in turn, to some extent is dependent on what resources are allocated from the local education administration. Much like a series of Russian dolls, one context inside the other.

Unit of analysis

Thinking about what would constitute the unit of analysis— a classroom, an institution, a program, a region—may help in setting the boundaries of the case, and it will certainly help when it comes to analysis. But this is a slightly different issue from deciding what the case is a case of. Taking a health example, the case may be palliative care support, but the unit of analysis the palliative care ward or wards. If you took the palliative care ward as the unit of analysis this would be as much about how palliative care was exercised in this or that ward than issues about palliative care support in general. In other words, you would need to have specific information and context about how this ward was structured and managed to understand how palliative care was conducted in this particular ward. Here, as in the school example above, you would need to consider which of the many people who populate the ward form part of the case—nurses, interns, or doctors only, or does it extend to patients, cleaners, nurse aides, and medical students?

Framing Questions and Issues

The third most important consideration is how to frame the study, and you are likely to do this once you have selected the site or sites for study. There are at least four approaches. You could start with precise questions, foreshadowed issues ( Smith & Pohland, 1974 ), theories, or a program logic. To some extent, your choice will be dictated by the type of case you have chosen, but also by your personal preference for how to conduct it—in either a structured or open way.

Initial questions give structure; foreshadowed issues more freedom to explore. In qualitative case study, foreshadowed issues are more common, allowing scope for issues to change as the study evolves, guided by participants’ perspectives and events in the field. With this perspective, it is more likely that you will generate a theory of the case toward the end, through your interpretation and analysis.

If you are conducting an instrumental case study, staying close to the questions or foreshadowed issues is necessary to be sure you gain data that will illuminate the central focus of the study. This is critical if you are exploring issues across several cases, although it is possible to do a cross-case analysis from cases that have each followed a different route to discovering significant issues.

Opting to start with a theoretical framework provides a basis for formulating questions and issues, but it can also constrain the study to only those questions/issues that fit the framework. The same is true with using program logic to frame the case. This is an approach frequently adopted in evaluation case study where the evaluator, individually or with stakeholders, examines how the aims and objectives of the program relate to the activities designed to promote it and the outcomes and impacts expected. It provides direction, although it can lead to simply confirming what was anticipated, rather than documenting what transpired in the case.

Whichever approach you choose to frame the case, it is useful to think about the rationale or theory for each question and what methods would best enable you to gain an understanding of them. This will not only start a reflexive process of examining your choices—an important aspect of the process of data gathering and interpretation—it will also aid analysis and interpretation further down the track.

Methodology and Methods

Qualitative case study research, as already noted, appeals to subjective ways of knowing and to a primarily qualitative methodology, that captures experiential understanding ( Stake, 2010 , pp. 56–70). It follows that the main methods of data gathering to access this way of knowing will be qualitative. Interviewing, observation, and document analysis are the primary three, often supported by critical incidents, focus groups, cameos, vignettes, diaries/journals, and photographs. Before gathering any primary data, however, it is useful to search relevant existing sources (written or visual) to learn about the antecedents and context of a project, program, or policy as a backdrop to the case. This can sharpen framing questions, avoid unnecessary data gathering, and shorten the time needed in the field.

Given that there are excellent texts on qualitative methods (see, for example, Denzin & Lincoln, 1994 ; Seale, 1999 ; Silverman, 2000 , 2004 ), I will not discuss all potential relevant methods here, but simply focus on the qualities of the primary methods that are particularly appropriate for case study research.

Primary Qualitative Data Gathering Methods

Interviewing.

The most effective style of interviewing in qualitative case study research to gain in-depth data, document multiple perspectives and experiences and explore contested issues is the unstructured interview, active listening and open questioning are paramount, whatever prequestions or foreshadowed issues have been identified. This can include photographs—a useful starting point with certain cultural groups and the less articulate, to encourage them to tell their story through connecting or identifying with something in the image.

The flexibility of unstructured interviewing has three further advantages for understanding participants’ experiences. First, through questioning, probing, listening, and, above all, paying attention to the silences and what they mean, you can get closer to the meaning of participants’ experiences. It is not always what they say.

Second, unstructured interviewing is useful for engaging participants in the process of research. Instead of starting with questions and issues, invite participants to tell their stories or reflect on specific issues, to conduct their own self-evaluative interview, in fact. Not only will they contribute their particular perspective to the case, they will also learn about themselves, thereby making the process of research educative for them as well as for the audiences of the research.

Third, the open-endedness of this style of interviewing has the potential for creating a dialogue between participants and the researcher and between the researcher and the public, if enough of the dialogue is retained in the publication ( Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985 ).

Observations

Observations in case study research are likely to be close-up descriptions of events, activities, and incidents that detail what happens in a particular context. They will record time, place, specific incidents, transactions, and dialogue, and note characteristics of the setting and of people in it without preconceived categories or judgment. No description is devoid of some judgment in selection, of course, but, on the whole, the intent is to describe the scene or event “as it is,” providing a rich, textured description to give readers a sense of what it was like to be there or provide a basis for later interpretation.

Take the following excerpt from a study of the West Bromwich Operatic Society. It is the first night of a new production, The Producers , by this amateur operatic society. This brief excerpt is from a much longer observation of the overture to the first evening’s performance, detailing exactly what the production is, where it is, and why there is such a tremendous sense of atmosphere and expectation surrounding the event. Space prevents including the whole observation, but I hope you can get a glimmer of the passion and excitement that precedes the performance:

Birmingham, late November, 2011, early evening.... Bars and restaurants spruce up for the evening’s trade. There is a chill in the air but the party season is just starting....

A few hundred yards away, past streaming traffic on Suffolk Street, Queensway, an audience is gathering at the New Alexandra Theatre. The foyer windows shine in the orange sodium night. Above each one is the rubric: WORLD CLASS THEATRE.

Inside the preparatory rituals are being observed; sweets chosen, interval drinks ordered and programmes bought. People swap news and titbits about the production.... The bubble of anticipation grows as the 5-minute warning sounds. People make their way to the auditorium. There have been so many nights like this in the past 110 years since a man named William Coutts invested £10,000 to build this palace of dreams.... So many fantasies have been played under this arch: melodramas and pantomimes, musicals and variety.... So many audiences, settling down in their tip-up seats, wanting to be transported away from work, from ordinariness and private troubles.... The dimming lights act like a mother’s hush. You could touch the silence. Boinnng! A spongy thump on a bass drum, and the horns pipe up that catchy, irrepressible, tasteless tune and already you’re singing under your breath, ‘Springtime for Hitler and Germany....’ The orchestra is out of sight in the pit. There’s just the velvet curtain to watch as your fingers tap along. What’s waiting behind? Then it starts it to move. Opening night.... It’s opening night! ( Matarasso, 2012 , pp. 1–2)

For another and different example—a narrative observation of an everyday but unique incident that details date, time, place, and experience—see Simons (2009 , p. 60).

Such naturalistic observations are also useful in contexts where we cannot understand what is going on through interviewing alone—in cultures with which we are less familiar or where key actors may not share our language or have difficulty expressing it. Careful description in these situations can help identify key issues, discover the norms and values that exist in the culture, and, if sufficiently detailed, allow others to cross corroborate what significance we draw from these observations. This last point is very important to avoid the danger in observation of ascribing motivations to people and meanings to transactions.

Finally, naturalistic observations are very important in highly politicized environments, often the case in commissioned evaluation case study, where individuals in interview may try to elude the “truth” or press on you that their view is the “right” view of the situation. In these contexts, naturalistic observations not only enable you to document interactions as you perceive them, but they also provide a cross-check on the veracity of information obtained in interviews.

Document analysis

Analysis of documents, as already intimated, is useful for establishing what historical antecedents might exist to provide a springboard for contemporaneous data gathering. In most cases, existing documents are also extremely pertinent for understanding the policy context.

In a national policy case study I conducted on a major curriculum change, the importance of preexisting documentation was brought home to me sharply when certain documentation initially proved elusive to obtain. It was difficult to believe that it did not exist, as the evolution of the innovation involved several parties who had not worked together before. There was bound, I thought, to be minuted meetings sharing progress and documentation of the “new” curriculum. In the absence of some crucial documents, I began to piece together the story through interviewing. Only there were gaps, and certain issues did not make sense.

It was only when I presented two versions of what I discerned had transpired in the development of this initiative in an interim report eighteen months into the study that things started to change. Subsequent to the meeting at which the report was presented, the “missing” documents started to appear. Suddenly found. What lay behind the “missing documents,” something I suspected from what certain individuals did and did not say in interview, was a major difference of view about how the innovation evolved, who was key in the process, and whose voice was more important in the context. Political differences, in other words, that some stakeholders were trying to keep from me. The emergence of the documents enabled me to finally produce an accurate and fair account.

This is an example of the importance of having access to all relevant documents relating to a program or policy in order to study it fairly. The other major way in which document analysis is useful in case study is for understanding the values, explicit and hidden, in policy and program documents and in the organization where the program or policy is implemented. Not to be ignored as documents are photographs, and these, too, can form the basis of a cultural and value analysis of an organization ( Prosser, 2000 ).

Creative artistic approaches

Increasingly, some case study researchers are employing creative approaches associated with the arts as a means of data gathering and analysis. Artistic approaches have often been used in representing findings, but less frequently in data gathering and interpretation ( Simons & McCormack, 2007 ). A major exception is the work of Richardson (1994) , who sees the very process of writing as an interpretative act, and of Cancienne and Snowber (2003) , who argue for movement as method.

The most familiar of these creative and artistic forms are written—narratives and short stories ( Clandinin & Connelly, 2000 ; Richardson, 1994 ; Sparkes, 2002 ), poems or poetic form ( Butler-Kisber, 2010 ; Duke, 2007 ; Richardson, 1997 ; Sparkes & Douglas, 2007 ), cameos of people, or vignettes of situations. These can be written by participants or by the researcher or developed in partnership. They can also be shared with participants to further interpret the data. But photographs also have a long history in qualitative research for presenting and constructing understanding ( Butler-Kisber, 2010 ; Collier, 1967 ; Prosser, 2000 ; Rugang, 2006 ; Walker, 1993 ).

Less common are other visual forms of gathering data, such as “draw and write” ( Sewell, 2011 ), artefacts, drawings, sketches, paintings, and collages, although all forms are now on the increase. For examples of the use of collage in data gathering, see Duke (2007) and Butler-Kisber (2010) , and for charcoal drawing, Elliott (2008) .

In qualitative inquiry broadly, these creative approaches are now quite common. And in the context of arts and health in particular (see, for example, Frank, 1997 ; Liamputtong & Rumbold, 2008 ; Spouse, 2000 ), we can see how artistic approaches illuminate in-depth understanding. However, in case study research to date, I think narrative forms have tended to be most prominent.

Finally, for capturing the quality and essence of peoples’ experience, nothing could be more revealing than a recording of their voices. Video diaries—self-evaluative portrayals by individuals of their perspectives, feelings, or experience of an event or situation—are a most potent way both of gaining understanding and communicating that to others. It is rather more difficult to gain access for observational videos, but they are useful for documentation and have the potential to engage participants and stakeholders in the interpretation.

Getting It All Together

Case study is so often associated with story or with a report of some event or program that it is easy to forget that much analysis and interpretation has gone on before we reach this point. In many case study reports, this process is hidden, leaving the reader with little evidence on which to assess the validity of the findings and having to trust the one who wrote the tale.

This section briefly outlines possibilities, first, for analyzing and interpreting data, and second, for how to communicate the findings to others. However it is useful to think of these together and indeed, at the start, because decisions about how you report may influence how you choose to make sense of the data. Your choice may also vary according to the context of the study—what is expected or acceptable—and your personal predilections, whether you prefer a more rational than intuitive mode of analysis, for example, or a formal or informal style of writing up that includes images, metaphor, narratives, or poetic forms.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

When it comes to making sense of data, I make a distinction between analysis—a formal inductive process that seeks to explain—and interpretation, a more intuitive process that gains understanding and insight from a holistic grasp of data, although these may interact and overlap at different stages.

The process, whichever emphasis you choose, is one of reducing or transforming a large amount of data to themes that can encapsulate the overarching meaning in the data. This involves sorting, refining, and refocusing data until they make sense. It starts at the beginning with preliminary hunches, sometimes called “interpretative asides” or “working hypotheses,” later moving to themes, analytic propositions, or a theory of the case.

There are many ways to conduct this process. Two strategies often employed are concept mapping —a means of representing data visually to explore links between related concepts—and progressive focusing ( Parlett & Hamilton, 1976 ), the gradual reframing of initially identified issues into themes that are then further interpreted to generate findings. Each of these strategies tends to have three stages: initial sense making, identification of themes, and examination of patterns and relationships between them.

If taking a formal analytic approach to the task, the data would likely be broken down into segments or datasets (coded and categorized) and then reordered and explored for themes, patterns, and possible propositions. If adopting a more intuitive process, you might focus on identifying insights through metaphors and images, lateral thinking, or puzzling over paradoxes and ambiguities in the data, after first immersing yourself in the total dataset, reading and re-reading interview scripts, observations and field notes to get a sense of the whole. Trying out different forms of making sense through poetry, vignettes, cameos, narratives, collages, and drawing are further creative ways to interpret data, as are photographs taken in the case arranged to explain or tell the story of the case.

Reporting Case Study Research

Narrative structure and story.

As indicated in the introduction, telling a story is often associated with case study and some think this is what a case study is. In one sense, it is and, given that story is the natural way in which we learn ( Okri, 1997 ), it is a useful framework both for gathering data and for communicating case study findings. Not any story will do however. To count as research, it must be authentic, grounded in data, interpreted and analyzed to convey the meaning of the case.

There are several senses in which story is appropriate in qualitative case study: in capturing stories participants tell, in generating a narrative structure that makes sense of the case (i.e., the story you will tell), and in deciding how you communicate this narrative (i.e., in story form). If you choose a written story form (and advice here can be sought from Harrington (2003) and Caulley (2008) ), it needs to be clearly structured, well written, and contain only the detail that is necessary to give readers the vicarious experience of what it was like in the case. If the story is to be communicated in other ways, through, for example, audio or videotape, or computer or personal interaction, the same applies, substituting visual and interpersonal skill for written.

Matching forms of reporting to audience

The art of reporting is strongly connected to usability, so forms of reporting need to connect to the audiences we hope to inform: how they learn, what kind of evidence they value, and what kind of reporting maximizes the chances they will use the findings to promote policies and programs in the interests of beneficiaries. As Okri (1997) further reminds us, the writer only does half the work; the reader does the other (p. 41).

There may be other considerations as well: how open are commissioners to receiving stories of difficulties, as well as success stories? What might they need to hear beyond what is sought in the technical brief? And through what style of reporting would you try and persuade them? If conducting noncommissioned case study research, the scope for different forms of reporting is wider. In academia, for instance, many institutions these days accept creative and artistic forms of reporting when supported by supervisors and appreciated by examiners.

Styles of Reporting

The most obvious form of reporting is linear, often starting with a short executive summary and a brief description of focus and context, followed by methodology, the case study or thematic analysis, findings, and conclusions or implications. Conclusion-led reporting is similar in terms of its formality, but simply starts the other way around. From the conclusions drawn from the analyzed data, it works backward to tell the story through narrative, verbatim, and observational data of how these conclusions were reached. Both have a strong story line. The intent is analytic and explanatory.

Quite a different approach is to engage the reader in the experience and veracity of the case. Rather like constructing a portrait or editing a documentary film, this involves the sifting, constructing, re-ordering of frames, events and episodes to tell a coherent story primarily through interview excerpts, observations, vignettes, and critical incidents that depict what transpired in the case. Interpretation is indirect through the weaving of the data. The story can start at any point provided the underlying narrative structure is maintained to establish coherence ( House, 1980 , p. 116).

Different again, and from the other end of a continuum, is a highly interpretative account that may use similar ways of presenting data but weaves a story from the outset that is highly interpretative. Engaging metaphor, images, short stories, contradictions, paradoxes, and puzzles, it is invariably interesting to read and can be most persuasive. However, the evidence is less visible and therefore less open to alternative interpretations.

Even more persuasive is a case study that uses artistic forms to communicate the story of the case. Paintings, poetic form, drawings, photography, collage, and movement can all be adopted to report findings, whether the data was acquired using these forms or by other means. The arts-based inquiry movement ( Mullen & Finley, 2003 ) has contributed hugely to the validation and legitimation of artistic and creative ways of representing qualitative research findings. The journal Qualitative Inquiry contains many good examples, but see also Liamputtong & Rumbold (2008) . Such artistic forms of representation may not be for everyone or appropriate in some contexts, but they do have the power to engage an audience and the potential to facilitate use.

Generalization in Case Study Research

One of the potential limitations of case study often proposed is that it is impossible to generalize. This is not so. However, the way in which one generalizes from a case is different from that adopted in traditional forms of social science research that utilize large samples (randomly selected) and statistical procedures and which assume regularities in the social world that allow cause and effect to be determined. In this form of research inferences from data are stated as formal propositions that apply to all in the target population. See Donmoyer (1990) for an argument on the restricted nature of this form of generalization when considering single-case studies.

Making inferences from cases with a qualitative data set arises more from a process of interpretation in context, appealing to tacit and situated understanding for acceptance of their validity. Such inferences are possible where the context and experience of the case is richly described so the reader can recognize and connect with the events and experiences portrayed. There are two ways to examine how to reach these generalized understandings. One is to generalize from the case to other cases of a similar or dissimilar nature. The other is to see what we learn in-depth from the uniqueness of the single case itself.

Generalizing from the Single Case

A common approach to generalization and one most akin to a propositional form is cross-case generalization. In a collective or multi-site case study, each case is explored to see if issues that arise in one case also exist in other cases and what interconnecting themes there are between them. This kind of generalization has a degree of abstraction and potential for theorizing and is often welcomed by commissioners of research concerned that findings from the single case do not provide an adequate or “safe” basis for policy determination.

However, there are four additional ways to generalize from the single case, all of which draw more on tacit knowledge and recognition of context, although in different ways. In naturalistic generalization , first proposed by Stake (1978) , generalization is reached on the basis of recognition of similarities and differences to cases with which we are familiar. To enable such recognition, the case needs to feature rich description; people’s voices; and enough detail of time, place, and context to provide a vicarious experience to help readers discern what is similar and dissimilar to their own context ( Stake, 1978 ).

Situated generalization ( Simons, Kushner, Jones, & James, 2003 ) is close to the concept of naturalistic generalization in relying for its generality on retaining a connectedness with the context in which it first evolved. However, it has an extra dimension in a practice context. This notion of generalization was identified in an evaluation of a research project that engaged teachers in and with research. Here, in addition to the usual validity criteria to establish the warrant for the findings, the generalization was seen as dependable if trust existed between those who conducted the research (teachers, in this example) and those thinking about using it (other teachers). In other words, beyond the technical validity of the research, teachers considered using the findings in their own practice because they had confidence in those who generated them. This is a useful way to think about generalization if we wish research findings to improve professional practice.

The next two concepts of generalization— concept and process generalization —relate more to what you discover in making sense of the case. As you interpret and analyze, you begin to generate a theory of the case that makes sense of the whole. Concepts may be identified that make sense in the one case but have equal significance in other cases of a similar kind, even if the contexts are different.

It is the concept that generalizes, not the specific content or context. This may be similar to the process Donmoyer (2008) identifies of “intellectual generalization” (quoted by Butler-Kisber, 2010 , p. 15) to indicate the cognitive understanding one can gain from qualitative accounts even if settings are quite different.

The same is true for generalization of a process. It is possible to identify a significant process in one case (or several cases) that is transferable to other contexts, irrespective of the precise content and contexts of those other cases. An example here is the collaborative model for sustainable school self-evaluation I identified in researching school self-evaluation in a number of schools and countries ( Simons, 2002 ). Schools that successfully sustained school self-evaluation had an infrastructure that was collaborative at all stages of the evaluation process from design to conduct of the study, to analyzing the results and to reporting the findings. This ensured that the whole school was involved and that results were discussed and built into the ongoing development of school policies and practice. In other cases, different processes may be discovered that have applicability in a range of contexts. As with concept generalization, it is the process that generalizes not the substantive content or specific context.

Particularization

The forms of generalization discussed above are useful when we have to justify case study in a research or policy context. But the overarching justification for how we learn from case study is particularization —a rich portrayal of insights and understandings interpreted in the particular context. Several authors have made this point ( Stake, 1995 ; Flyvberg, 2006 ; Simons 2009 ). Stake puts it most sharply when he observes that “The real business of case study is particularization, not generalization” (p. 8), referring here to the main reason for studying the singular, which is to understand the uniqueness of the case itself.

My perspective (explored further in Simons, 1996 ; Simons, 2009 , p. 239; Simons & McCormack, 2007 ) is similar in that I believe the “real” strength of case study lies in the insights we gain from in-depth study of the particular. But I also argue for the universality of such insights—if we get it “right.” By which I mean that if we are able to capture and report the uniqueness, the essence, of the case in all its particularity and present this in a way we can all recognize, we will discover something of universal significance. This is something of a paradox. The more you learn in depth about the particularity of one person, situation, or context, the more likely you are to discover something universal. This process of reaching understanding has support both from the way in which many discoveries are made in science and in how we learn from artists, poets, and novelists, who reach us by communicating a recognizable truth about individuals, human relationships, and/or social contexts.

This concept of particularization is far from new, as the quotation from a preface to a book written in 1908 attests. Stephen Reynolds, the author of A Poor Man’s House , notes that the substance of the book was first recorded in a journal, kept for purposes of fiction, and in letters to one of his friends, but fiction proved an inappropriate medium. He felt that the life and the people were so much better than anything he could invent. The book therefore consists of the journal and letters drawn together to present a picture of a typical poor man’s house and life, much as we might draw together a range of data to present a case study. It is not the substance of the book that concerns us here but the methodological relevance to case study research. Reynolds notes that the conclusions expressed are tentative and possibly go beyond this man’s life, so he thought some explanation of the way he arrived at them was needed:

Educated people usually deal with the poor man’s life deductively; they reason from the general to the particular; and, starting with a theory, religious, philanthropic, political, or what not, they seek, and too easily find, among the millions of poor, specimens—very frequently abnormal—to illustrate their theories. With anything but human beings, that is an excellent method. Human beings, unfortunately, have individualities. They do what, theoretically, they ought not to do, and leave undone those things they ought to do. They are even said to possess souls—untrustworthy things beyond the reach of sociologists. The inductive method—reasoning from the particular to the general... should at least help to counterbalance the psychological superficiality of the deductive method. ( Reynolds, 1908 : preface) 1

Slightly overstated perhaps, but the point is well made. In our search for general laws, we not only lose sight of the uniqueness and humanity of individuals, but reduce them in the process, failing to present their experience in any “real” sense. What is astonishing about the quotation is that it was written over a century ago and yet many still argue today that you cannot generalize from the particular.

Going even further back, in 1798, Blake proclaimed that “To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit.” In research, we may not wish to make such a strong distinction: these processes both have their uses in different kinds of research. But there is a major point here for the study of the particular that Wilson (2008) notes in commenting on Blake’s perception when he says: “Favouring the abstract over the concrete, one ‘sees all things only thro’ the narrow chinks of his cavern”’ (referring here to Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell [1793]; in Wilson, 2008 , p. 62). The danger Wilson is pointing to here is that abstraction relies heavily on what we know from our past understanding of things, and this may prevent us experiencing a concrete event directly or “apprehend[ing] a particular moment” ( Wilson, 2008 , p. 63).

Blake had a different mission, of course, than case researchers, and he was not himself free from abstractions, as Wilson points out, although he fought hard “to break through mental barriers to something unique and living” ( Wilson, 2008 , p. 65). It is this search for the “unique and living” and experiencing the “isness” of the particular that we should take from the Blake example to remind ourselves of the possibility of discovering something “new,” beyond our current understanding of the way things are.

Focusing on particularization does not diminish the usefulness of case study research for policy makers or practitioners. Grounded in recognizable experience, the potential is there to reach a range of audiences and to facilitate use of the findings. It may be more difficult for those who seek formal generalizations that seem to offer a safe basis for policy making to accept case study reports. However, particular stories often hold the key to why policies have or have not worked well in the past. It is not necessary to present long cases—a criticism frequently levelled—to demonstrate the story of the case. Such case stories can be most insightful for policy makers who, like many of us in everyday life, often draw inferences from a single instance or case, whatever the formal evidence presented. “I am reminded of the story of....”

The case for studying the particular to inform practice in professional contexts needs less persuasion because practitioners can recognize the content and context quite readily and make the inference to their own particular context ( Simons et al., 2003 ). In both sets of circumstances—policy and practice—it is more a question of whether the readers of our case research accept the validity of findings determined in this way, how they choose to learn, and our skill in telling the case study story.

Conclusion and Future Directions

In this chapter, I have presented an argument for case study research, making the case, in particular, for using qualitative methods to highlight what it is that qualitative case study research can bring to the study of social and educational programs. I outlined the various ways in which case study is commonly used before focusing directly on case study as a major mode of research inquiry, noting characteristics it shares with other qualitative methodologies, as well as itsdifference and the difficulties it is sometimes perceived to have. The chapter emphasizes the importance of thinking through what the case is, to be sure that the issues explored and the data generated do illuminate this case and not any other.

But there is still more to be done. In particular, I think we need to be more adventurous in how we craft and report the case. I suspect we may have been too cautious in the past in how we justified case study research, borrowing concepts from other disciplines and forms of educational research. More than 40 years on, it is time to take a greater risk—in demonstrating the intrinsic nature of case study and what it can offer to our understanding of human and social situations.

I have already drawn attention to the need to design the case, although this could be developed further to accentuate the uniqueness of the particular case. One way to do this is to feature individuals more in the design itself, not only to explore programs and policies through perspectives of key actors or groups and transactions between them, which to some extent happens already, but also to get them to characterize what makes the context unique. This is the reversal of many a design framework that starts with the logic of a program and takes forward the argument for personal evaluation ( Kushner, 2000 ), noted in the interlude on evaluation. Apart from this attention to design, there are three other issues I think we need to explore further: the warrant for creative methods in case study, more imaginative reporting; and how we learn from a study of the singular.

Warrant for More Creative Methods in Case Study Research

The promise that creative methods have for eliciting in-depth understanding and capturing the unusual, the idiosyncratic, the uniqueness of the case, was mentioned in the methods section. Yet, in case study research, particularly in program and policy contexts, we have few good examples of the use of artistic approaches for eliciting and interpreting data, although more, as acknowledged later, for presenting it. This may be because case study research is often conducted in academic or policy environments, where propositional ways of knowing are more valued.

Using creative and artistic forms in generating and interpreting case study data offers a form of evidence that acknowledges experiential understanding in illuminating the uniqueness of the case. The question is how to establish the warrant for this way of knowing and persuade others of its virtue. The answer is simple. By demonstrating the use of these methods in action, by arguing for a different form of validity that matches the intrinsic nature of the method, and, above all, by good examples.

Representing Findings to Engage Audiences in Learning

In evaluative and research policy contexts, where case study is often the main mode of inquiry or part of a broader study, case study reports often take a formal structure or sometimes, where the context is receptive, a portrayal or interpretative form. But, too often, the qualitative is an add-on to a story told by other means or reduced to issues in which the people who gave rise to the data are no longer seen. However, there are many ways to put them center stage.

Tell good stories and tell them well. Or, let key actors tell their own stories. Explore the different ways technology can help. Make video clips that demonstrate events in context, illustrate interactions between people, give voice to participants—show the reality of the program, in other words. Use graphics to summarize key issues and interactive, cartoon technology, as seen on some TED presentations, to summarize and visually show the complexity of the case. Video diaries were mentioned in the methods section: seeing individuals tell their tales directly is a powerful way of communicating, unhindered by “our” sense making. Tell photo stories. Let the photos convey the narrative, but make sure the structure of the narrative is evident to ensure coherence. These are just the beginnings. Those skilled in information technology could no doubt stretch our imagination further.

One problem and a further question concerns our audiences. Will they accept these modes of communication? Maybe not, in some contexts. However, there are three points I wish to leave you with. First, do not presume that they won’t. If people are fully present in the story and the complexity is not diminished, those reading, watching, or hearing about the case will get the message. If you are worried about how commissioners might respond, remember that they are no different from any other stakeholder or participant when it comes to how they learn from human experience. Witness the reference to Okri (1997) earlier about how we learn.

Second, when you detect that the context requires a more formal presentation of findings, respond according to expectation but also include elements of other forms of presentation. Nudge a little in the direction of creativity. Third, simply take a chance, that risk I spoke about earlier. Challenge the status quo. Find situations and contexts where you can fully represent the qualitative nature of the experience in the cases you study with creative forms of interpretation and representation. And let the audience decide.

Learning from a Study of the Singular

Finally, to return to the issue of “generalization” in case study that worries some audiences. I pointed out in the generalization section several ways in which it is possible to generalize from case study research, not in a formal propositional sense or from a case to a population, but by retaining a connection with the context in which the generalization first arose—that is, to realize in-depth understanding in context in different circumstances and situations. However, I also emphasized that, in many instances, it is particularization from which we learn. That is the point of the singular case study, and it is an art to perceive and craft the case in ways that we can.

Acknowledgments

Parts of this chapter build on ideas first explored in Simons, 2009 .

I am grateful to Bob Williams for pointing out the relevance of this quotation from Reynolds to remind us that “there is nothing new under the sun” and that we sometimes continue to engage endlessly in debates that have been well rehearsed before.

Adams, T. ( 2012 ) ‘ Olympics 2012: Team GB falters but London shines bright on opening day ’, Observer, 29.07.12.

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• Published: 29 April 2024

A geopolitical-economy of distant water fisheries access arrangements

• Liam Campling 1 ,
• Elizabeth Havice 2 ,
• John Virdin 3 ,
• Gabrielle Carmine 4 ,
• Mialy Andriamahefazafy 5 ,
• Mads Barbesgaard 6 ,
• Siddharth Chakravarty 1 ,
• Béatrice Gorez 7 ,
• Dan Hetherington 8 ,
• Hyunjung Kim 1 ,
• Kwame Mfodwo 9 &
• Andre Standing 8  

npj Ocean Sustainability volume  3 , Article number:  26 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Environmental social sciences

In recent decades, fishing fleets and effort have grown in aggregate throughout the waters of lower-income coastal countries, much of which is carried out by vessels registered in higher-income countries. Fisheries access arrangements (FAAs) underpin this key trend in ocean fisheries and have their origins in UNCLOS’s promise to establish resource ownership as a mechanism to increase benefits to newly independent coastal and island states. Coastal states use FAAs to permit a foreign state, firm, or industry association to fish within its waters. This paper provides a conceptual approach for understanding FAAs across the global ocean and for exploring their potential to deliver on the promise of UNCLOS. Illustrated with the findings from multiple case studies, we advance understanding of FAAs by developing a geopolitical-economy of access that attends to the combination of contingent and context-specific economic, ecologic, and geopolitical forces that shape the terms, conditions and practices of the FAAs shaping this persistent phenomenon of higher-income industrial fleets fishing throughout lower-income countries’ waters.

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The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) promised increased benefits to newly independent and lower income coastal states from fisheries resource ownership. The mechanism supporting this claim is the sovereign rights over marine resources within coastal states’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs). UNCLOS provides the legal foundation, as well as the promise, for coastal and island states to use marine resources within their EEZs, including to capture rents from foreign fishing via fisheries access arrangements 1 . This is of central importance to understanding marine fisheries given that over 95% of global marine fish catch is within the human-drawn borders of the world’s EEZs 2 . The aim of this perspective is to suggest that the promise of ocean resource ownership under UNCLOS may not have been fully realized by lower income coastal and island states, and to highlight the importance of studying fisheries access arrangements (FAAs) in their various forms in order to better understand this phenomenon. To do so, we begin with the historical context that has created the conditions for contemporary fisheries access arrangements. We suggest that a research agenda using a geopolitical economy lens can help to better understand the continued prevalence and dynamics of FAAs in the waters of lower income, predominantly tropical, countries. We develop a conceptual approach and apply it to a series of geographically diverse country case studies, identifying the conceptual and methodological elements for further research to explain the important phenomenon – and outcomes – of distant water fishing, especially in tropical waters.

For centuries prior to UNCLOS, state jurisdiction was largely absent from the oceans, and indeed from the 1700s, the European imperial powers pressed for “freedom of the seas” in order to smooth the globalizing flow of commerce and colonialism to their benefit. This left fisheries as open access resources for those entities able to exploit them without regulation and free of charge. These dynamics began to shift in the mid-20th century. The expansion of industrialized fishing after World War I 3 , 4 and its globalization after World War II upended fisheries production dynamics and – alongside political processes of decolonization – ushered in an era of fisheries-related jurisdictional claims and conflicts that contributed to and framed the prolonged international negotiations that led to UNCLOS 5 .

Debates at UNCLOS III (1973–1982) were an expression of the historical conjuncture arising from the decline of formal colonialism, contestation over control of marine resources, and the Cold War politics during which the Convention was negotiated. Of particular note is that the Group of 77 developing countries propelled forward the UNCLOS process as part of their larger efforts at the United Nations for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). The NIEO called for international reforms of the rules of the game of the world economy to adjust the patterned history through which the Global North gained wealth through (neo)colonial relations that facilitated the unequal extraction of resources from the Global South 6 , 7 .

In this context, the formation of new regulatory mechanisms for the oceans presented opportunity 8 , 9 , 10 . The states of the Global South – many newly independent – recognized ocean policy as an institutional tool to control access to marine resources and promote redistribution and benefit sharing. The 1945 Truman Proclamations had already unilaterally established US claims to the marine subsoil and fisheries conservation zones running to the continental shelf off the US coastlines. Chile, Ecuador, and Peru had rapidly followed suit asserting state-space in the oceans by declaring EEZs with 200-mile limits, which they mutually recognised in the 1952 Santiago Declaration 11 . By the mid-1970s, the EEZ had been accepted in customary international law. Coupled with EEZ codification under UNCLOS in 1982, coastal states secured sovereign rights over resource-rich waters proximate to their terrestrial shores, a move that represents the largest enclosure of the commons in human history and that transformed vast swathes of the free sea into state property 12 . UNCLOS established state rights over a variety of fishing activities within EEZs, including, inter alia , the right to: charge access and fishing fees to fishing firms, define resource management, and prohibit or exclude fishers. In sum, UNCLOS provides for sovereign rights as a form of state-property over around 95% of marine capture fisheries 2 , making marine resources and spaces a public asset. It also provides the legal foundation for coastal states to establish their own fisheries access arrangements.

Over 40 years later, fleets from wealthier nations still dominate industrial fishing in the waters of lower income tropical nations, operating now under a diversity of FAAs (Ref. 13 , Figs. 1 , 2 , supplemental data). In this article, we explore how the promise of resource ownership under UNCLOS has played out through the evidence of FAAs in their various forms. Fishing fleets and effort have grown in aggregate throughout the waters of lower-income countries in recent decades, while generally decreasing in the more temperate waters of higher-income countries 14 . In this context, recent measures of industrial fishing effort apparent from satellite Automatic identification system (AIS) data suggest that the majority of fishing in the waters of low to lower middle-income (henceforth, "lower-income") countries continues to be carried out by vessels registered in wealthier countries, often characterized as “distant water fishing fleets” (DWFs). (Distant water fishing fleets are defined here as firms fishing in areas outside of the jurisdiction where beneficial ownership is held and beyond the FAO Major Fishing Area(s) that is (are) adjacent to the natural coastline of that jurisdiction. This definition draws on draft fisheries subsidies texts in the WTO Negotiating Group on Rules). The opposite pattern is found in high or upper-middle income (henceforth, “higher-income”) country waters where vessels flying higher-income country flags predominate.

Based on World Bank data, green land mass delineates a low or lower middle income nation and purple land mass delineates a higher-income nation. The same classifications are applied to a fishing vessel’s flag state. Apparent fishing effort in hours is separated based on the income group classification of flag states. a Fishing effort by vessels flagged to lower-income states in 2019. b Fishing effort by vessels flagged to higher-income nations. All fishing effort data is obtained from Global Fishing Watch’s AIS classification data. Mapping by Gabrielle Carmine.

a Ratio map of higher-income vessels’ apparent fishing effort comparative to lower-income vessels’ apparent fishing effort (hours fished) within Exclusive Economic Zones. This figure uses Global Fishing Watch AIS data for the 2019 calendar year. Based on World Bank data, green land mass delineates a low or lower-middle income country (light or dark green, respectively) and purple land mass delineates a high or upper middle-income country (light or dark purple, respectively). The same classifications are applied to all fishing vessel flag states in 2019 and that fishing effort in hours is separated based on flag state income group classification. A ratio of higher- and lower-income fishing effort is taken. The red ratio represents the further extent of higher-income fishing intensity when subtracting lower-income fishing effort (in hours) within each analysis cell; the darkest red indicates fishing is almost exclusively undertaken by higher-income countries. The blue ratio represents the further extent of lower-income fishing intensity when subtracting higher-income fishing effort (in hours) from each analysis cell; the darkest blue indicates fishing is almost exclusively undertaken by lower-income countries. The transparent color indicates equal ratios across income groupings. Figure 2 does not show density of fishing effort, which is depicted in Fig. 1 . b Illustrates areas in the Eastern Atlantic off of the West Coast of Africa where there are both high concentrations of higher-income flags as well as high concentrations of lower-income flags. Insets ( c ) and ( d ) illustrate that in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the ratio of fishing intensity tilts strongly toward higher-income flags. This is despite trends in both ocean regions in which foreign capital invests in local flags. Mapping by Gabrielle Carmine.

In 2019, 60% of fishing effort in lower-income EEZs was conducted by vessels flying flags of higher-income countries (Fig. 1 ). This represents a decline in the higher-income countries’ global share of in-EEZ fishing compared to 2016 when McCauley et al. 15 found that 78% of industrial fishing within the EEZs of lower-income nations was by vessels flagged to higher-income nations. Part of this shift can be explained by an increase in the use by higher-income country fleets of flags from lower-income coastal states as a strategy to secure access to the latter’s fisheries (discussed further below). This introduces a serious limitation in the use of data organized by flag state because it obscures the many cases of firms from higher-income states reflagging to lower-income states to gain strategic access to their EEZs 16 , 17 . Despite this important caveat, Fig. 1 shows that, overall, the spatial extent and intensity of fishing in the EEZs of lower-income countries is greater for vessels from higher-income countries than for vessels from lower-income countries.

While the industrial fishing effort apparent from satellite signals available for tracking vessels can miss significant numbers of vessels that do not send such signals 18 , 19 , these estimates do indicate a pattern of foreign-registered fleets from higher-income countries fishing in the national waters of lower-income countries throughout the global ocean. This pattern is not dissimilar from the pattern of industrial fishing when UNCLOS was agreed in 1982 20 , 21 , and which, as noted above, developing coastal and island states sought to change via establishing EEZs. For example, throughout the tropical waters under the jurisdiction of lower-income countries, the majority of industrial fishing is by vessels flagged to higher-income countries, as illustrated in the elaboration of the ratio of fishing intensity by vessel flag state income level in Fig. 2 .

While the ratio map in Fig. 2 illustrates spatial trends, the fact that firms fish, not countries, makes the analysis of global marine fisheries based on flag somewhat problematic. As we argue below, a more fine-grained analysis of FAAs that attends to both flag and firm dynamics is necessary to understand trends. FAAs establish the level of fishing effort that occurs in coastal state waters, and also the distribution of economic benefits and losses from industrial fishing between (and within) higher- and lower-income countries 22 , with a diversity of arrangements and outcomes in place throughout the tropics. Despite their importance in the current global pattern of industrial fishing, FAAs are difficult to study, not least because the terms and conditions of FAAs vary worldwide and even within EEZs. This challenge is gaining new urgency: attention to FAAs is growing because of their role in geopolitical relationships, their importance to ocean-based economic development, their implications for ocean sustainability and their links to fisheries subsidies (SDG 14.6), and more broadly, their role in fulfilling the promise of ownership for coastal and island states under UNCLOS (e.g., SDG 14.7). Yet, even if the generic terms and conditions of some FAAs are available, little is known of the catches, payments and investments under the vast majority of arrangements. These aspects are treated as confidential and not available for public scrutiny, and because the content, structure and goals of access arrangements are heterogenous, this important process is not well understood. What is clear is that FAAs are shaped by geopolitical dynamics such as trade relations, overseas aid relations and diplomacy; the economic interests of industrial fishing fleets and the value chains that they supply raw material to; and the geopolitical ambitions of the world’s most powerful states.

We suggest that applying a geopolitical economy lens to fisheries access arrangements can help scholars and practitioners better understand the persistent dominance of industrial fishing effort by higher-income countries in the waters of lower-income countries, and the distribution of benefits from this phenomenon. In the subsequent section, we develop a conceptual approach for applying a geopolitical economy lens to the study of FAAs, and then illustrate its use through a series of geographically diverse country case studies. These case studies are synthesized from a recent mapping by the authors of fisheries access arrangements across oceans that the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations commissioned in 2021 16 . This article builds upon this report in two important ways. First, it synthesizes a detailed and wide-ranging set of empirical data to advance and offer a conceptual approach for the study of FAAs that attends to and details their heterogeneous terms, socio-ecological origins and implications. Second, this synthesis further disseminates the important findings, enhancing their reach to intended audiences, including policy makers in coastal and island developing states.

Methodologically, the use of case studies overcomes the empirical constraints in the study of most FAAs by explicitly recognizing that heterogeneity is high in these arrangements, that data are uneven from case to case, and allowing focus on key dynamics in FAAs for which information is available in academic, policy, media and gray literature and via researchers’ regional expertize. The qualitative methods employed in the cases range from historical and/or predominantly interview-based analyses where very little public information is available through to fuller institutional accounts where FAAs are published. Building upon key findings from these country-level case studies, we propose conceptual and methodological elements to guide further research into the combination of contingent and context-specific economic, ecologic, and geopolitical forces that shape the terms, conditions and practices of fisheries access by distant water fleets. We refer to this conceptual approach as a geopolitical economy of access .

A conceptual approach for studying the geopolitical economy of distant water fisheries access arrangements

Our conceptualization of the geopolitical economy of access characterizes key players in FAAs as (a) resource-owning coastal and island states with sovereign rights over marine resources in their EEZ, and as (b) resource-seekers , which consist of firms and states wanting to access fisheries in resource-owning states’ EEZs. UNCLOS codifies coastal states’ sovereign rights for managing marine resources as a form of state-property that allows for the capture of rent 12 . UNCLOS also, among other things, sets out the coastal state responsibility to promote “optimum” use of resources, to decide on the possibility of making any “surplus” resources available to other states, and to collaborate with foreign states on the management of shared, highly migratory species that move across EEZ boundaries 1 , including into the legally gray space of the high seas. As such, determinations on the level of any surplus and the terms and conditions of FAAs are at the discretion of the relevant coastal state, and are highly heterogeneous.

We use the terminology of resource-owners and resource-seekers to emphasize that firms as well as distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) play active roles in the fisheries access process. Specifically, firms, not flag states, engage in fishing, though the distinction between the two is often blurred analytically because of the requirement that firms fly the flag of the state in which they are registered. While state-owned enterprises may appear to be an exception to this general trend, especially for the China DWF, they remain economic agents and do not always neatly follow “home state” policy 23 . The relationships between states and their “home” firms is crucial to the forms that access takes. States can seek access to fishing grounds on behalf of or in concert with (what are perceived as) their “home” firms. Other forms of direct ties between states and firms – such as fisheries subsidies – also shape access relations 24 . This analytical specificity differentiates the geopolitical economy of access from other approaches to access which tend to focus primarily on vessel flags or DWFNs and collapse the state-firm relation as a singular, unified domestic political-economic interest 25 , 26 , when in practice, the logics of resource-seeking states and firms, and relations and tensions between them, come in many forms that are consequential to access outcomes.

Assessment of the economic benefits of fisheries access considers that the monetary value that a resource-owner can charge for access to a specific fishery in an EEZ will reflect the expected profitability of fishing firms, acknowledging that EEZs have distinct attributes that shape these values. These different returns can most simply be understood as a rent. Rent can be affected by factors such as: competition with other firms and/ or states, the rate of exploitation of fishing crew, differing EEZ size, health and abundance of fish stocks or species composition, the strength of fisheries management, different costs of doing business (e.g., logistics costs), among others. A coastal state may also seek to remove or minimise rent relations. For instance, a small number of states have chosen to privatize their sovereign rights by transferring the right to fish to private legal entities, which can be characterized as a “Ricardian reform”: i.e., an attempt to keep resource rent low so as to encourage profitability in fishing enterprises.

However, rent is not purely a function of economic variables. The value of access is also shaped by politics and political-economic relationships including: the relative power and organizational capabilities of actors (e.g., multinational enterprises vs. small states), official development assistance (ODA) linked to fisheries access, the role of fisheries in broader geopolitical and economic relations, and/or corrupt practices of state representatives and seafood firms, among others. As such, “rent” can be hard to measure and to apply with analytical precision and consistency because conditions and the objectives of parties involved often differ in each access arrangement. The terms, conditions and value of access are negotiated around these dynamics. In sum, as measures of the economic benefits of FAAs, rents in these arrangements are a contested process worked through politics, value chain dynamics, and shifting environmental conditions, not a technical one. This contributes to making the study of most FAAs notoriously difficult.

Conceptualizing actors in fisheries access arrangements as resource-owners and resource-seekers, we describe a spectrum of the diverse types of approaches to access relations, providing a typology of FAAs (Fig. 3 ). One end of the spectrum represents FAAs in which resource-owners authorize fishing with no further obligation (e.g., cash for access, also known as “first generation access”). On the other end of the spectrum are FAAs in which resource-owners require onshore investments, such as fish processing facilities (also known as “second generation access”). The use of the terms “first” and “second” does not connote a preference, teleology, or “stage” of development. Indeed, “second” generation type FAAs first appeared when the USSR set up FAAs with post-independence African states from 1959 onwards, long before EEZs were accepted 16 . The terminology of “first” and “second” generation can be traced to European Commission 27 reflections on its own practices, especially its controversial FAA with Argentina in 1994 which saw the creation of JVEs 28 , 29 . In between the two poles of the spectrum are a wide range of FAAs wherein resource-owning countries aspire to coupled benefits but are constrained in establishing industrial onshore linkages such as processing (e.g., by small populations, infrastructure limitations, and/or prohibitive relative cost structures). They may instead offer inducements for DWFs to adopt domestic flags on the assumption that this may generate local gains, resulting in the recent growth in vessel numbers in certain resource-owning fleets noted earlier. To avoid resource seekers engaging in minimal compliance with local development aspirations through flagging alone, FAAs in this middle zone of the spectrum often require that access has some links to onshore economic activities, such as local transhipment and/or landings, domestic crewing, and/or the formation of joint-venture enterprises (JVEs) in fishing.

The band darkens as it moves to the right to indicate increased linkages to domestic economic activities. Resource-holders do not necessarily aspire to “move” FAA policies from the left to the right over time. Each country’s FAA approach is developed based on geopolitical-economic and environmental factors that are context specific.

Those FAAs classified as being at the first generation – “cash for access” – end of the spectrum involve a foreign entity gaining the opportunity to fish in a coastal state EEZ through the payment of resource rent. The terms of first generation access arrangements are typically drawn up by resource-seekers. Various methods are used to calculate the financial component and the FAAs are normally regulated by a set of requirements relating to: fisheries management; monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS); and enforcement. First generation FAAs may be organized in the following ways:

government-to-government, which can be bilateral in the case of EU Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs) or multilateral in the case of the “South Pacific Tuna Treaty” between the USA and the Pacific Islands.

industry association-to-government, are commonly used by DWFs from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

company-to-government, are used by individual firms or vessel-owners, e.g., from the EU and Taiwan (often using flags of convenience, FOC) in FAAs with resource-owning states.

The first two types of FAAs can be accompanied by additional payments made by the DWF’s home state, illustrating the entanglement of geopolitical goals within access arrangements. This can be done directly through the legal terms of the FAA (e.g., the EU, USA) or indirectly through (de)coupled bilateral aid and/ or loans (e.g., China, Japan).

Those FFAs that fall closer towards “second-generation” access arrangements tend to be promoted by resource-owners as an effort to increase linkages between fisheries extraction and domestic economic activity. They are highly varied, but usually involve one or a combination of two broad mechanisms:

Granting discounted access fees in return for DWF vessels registering locally and agreeing to use local crew, goods and services, and transshipping and/or landing fish domestically.

Granting discounted access fees in return for onshore investment in processing facilities. In this case, the operator may be expected to commit to onshore investment in the form of JVEs that, theoretically, involve direct and indirect employment generation, support or foment ancillary industries, exports, technology transfer, etc.

Potential investment-related returns from this approach in which maximizing access fees is traded off for other domestic investments, are depicted in Fig. 4 . The comparison or understanding of which benefits are being gained in lieu of access fees is not always clear and information about this accounting is rarely transparent. Further, there are multiple examples of lost access revenue or other tax breaks that resource-owners offer to resource-seekers to secure investment.

The inner ring of each “pie section” begins with one kind of socio-economic return; subsequent rings illustrate how benefits can expand into the broader economy.

Two additional types of FAA are worth noting though they are not addressed in detail in what follows: illicit arrangements, which remain important in some contexts (e.g., Myanmar) and have been historically significant; and open registries where the provision of a flag by a vessel registry has almost no strings attached (e.g., due to weak state capabilities to engage in MCS), which can create havoc in domestic and regional fisheries (we do not address this example explicitly, but do further elaborate the ways that resource-seeking firms make use of these flags of convenience).

Additional elements of a geopolitical-economy of access approach reflect the diversity of legal, economic and political processes negotiated in FAAs. These may include:

Resource units : access arrangements can specify single species or multi-species.

Reciprocity : access arrangements can be reciprocal or non-reciprocal. Reciprocal access is typically, but not always, among higher-income DWFNs. Non-reciprocal access is typically between higher-income DWFs and lower-income coastal states. In some cases, parties to an arrangement are both resource-seekers and owners. These are often reciprocal arrangements which are less about revenue capture on behalf of the resource-owner and more about resource sharing and pooling (e.g., EU-Norway and the web of agreements in the East China and Yellow seas among China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan). Some developing country arrangements are reciprocal too, such as between Mauritius and Seychelles, but this agreement benefits vessels owned by European capital using the vessel registry in each country and, as such, these can be considered distant water fishing as per our definition.

Cooperation : access relations under transboundary fisheries typically require resource-owning and resource-seeking states to engage in collaborative, regional management, which can generate legal complexities and conflicts. Some of the largest fisheries in the world – such as the global tuna industry – contend with these challenges.

Jurisdiction : disputed claims over maritime boundaries can shape access relations. Sometimes pragmatic responses are evident, such as the East China and Yellow seas arrangements where geopolitical disputes over maritime territory may be (temporarily) parked to allow for the economic interest of sharing fisheries access. In other cases, ongoing tensions over maritime jurisdiction – and fisheries access – threaten regional stability, especially in the South China Sea.

Conflicts : Territorial Waters (the 12 nm zone) and their treatment often (but not always) exclude DWFs, but can result in tensions, including with local fishers.

Application of the geopolitical economy of access approach to country case studies

Resource-seeking firms engaged in distant water fishing in other countries’ waters are headquartered in a small number of countries, all supported, in different ways, by their “home” states. The “top five” in terms of kilowatt hours of effort (i.e., hours spent fishing multiplied by the power of the engine vessel) are China, the European Union (EU, mainly Spain and France), Japan, South Korea and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) 30 . Each of these resource-seekers’ approaches to FAAs are elaborated in Table 1 , which also includes the USA because of a distinctive FAA with the Pacific Islands. Resource-seekers engage in all types of FAAs, but generally DWF negotiators prefer to use a “blueprint” first generation FAA, which facilitate resource extraction and contain limited ties to resource-owners’ domestic economic activity.

Resource-owners engage in all types of FAAs, and some also play the leading role in pressing for second generation FAAs in an attempt to multiply the benefits and returns of FAAs to their domestic economies (see Figs. 2 and 3 ). Resource-owner approaches are shaped by a range of domestic priorities, with some states seeking to maximize licensing fees while others try to nurture linkages with the domestic economy. Historically, second-generation arrangements include JVEs between foreign firms (with home government support) and resource-owner governments (e.g., the USSR across Africa, Japanese multinationals in the Pacific Islands in the 1970s). More recent iterations are firm-led arrangements in which resource-owners offer fishing entities commercially significant concessions (e.g., on fishing licenses, access to land, tax breaks and other incentives) in exchange for building domestic onshore linkages (e.g., Ghana, Namibia and Papua New Guinea). Some countries have seen a rapid move towards second generation access as a strategy to increase domestic returns from access, though results are mixed for several reasons.

Resource-owners often are subject to manipulation by DWFs that use second-generation/ domestic development aspirations to maneuver for discounted, long-term strategic access. For example, DWFs use second-generation access to one EEZ to benefit from South-South cooperation arrangements that grant access to additional EEZs, such as French and Spanish-owned vessels that flag and register in Mauritius and Seychelles to use a reciprocal bilateral FAA between these two island states. Whilst Chinese and Taiwanese DWFs reflag to Pacific Islands to take advantage of small island developing state (SIDS) special dispensation for high seas fishing, discounted licenses, and/or exemptions from strict conservation measures that are permitted to support SIDS development goals. Such practices benefit DWFs, increase competition among SIDS, can result in deteriorating resources in the case of highly migratory and straddling stocks, and reduce access fee revenue capture by regional states.

Table 2 offers strategic overviews of the FAA strategies of selected resource-owners. These cases were selected to illustrate differences and the wide spectrum of resource-owner approaches (e.g., across the first - second generation spectrum, complete withdrawal from FAAs, and illicit), rather than to provide a representative sample.

Key findings from taking a geopolitical economy approach to study fisheries access arrangements in country case studies

The conceptual approach and empirical application here center access relations as a fundamental element of many marine fisheries worldwide. UNCLOS provides the legal constitution for the global ocean and fisheries access relations in particular, and establishes fisheries as a public asset. Understanding the choices that states make about their ocean spaces and resources, why they make them, and who benefits from them, requires a geopolitical-economy lens, especially in a moment in which the oceans are a space of heightening politics and rapid ecological change. Taking a geopolitical-economy approach to the study of FAAs directs attention to several key points that in turn help to elaborate how the promise of ownership of fisheries resources under UNCLOS has played out.

It bears repeating: inside of EEZs, fisheries are a public asset. Sovereign rights allow resource-owning states to impose access terms and conditions in relation to their national economic and environmental objectives, albeit mediated by the economic strategies of multinational firms and geopolitical forces.

Although access arrangements can be usefully typologized, their functioning and experience is place- and context-specific. Access relations are influenced by factors such as the presence or absence of civil society or organized labor, national institutions and juridical norms and practices, shifting geopolitics, ecological conditions, and dynamics in the value chains of which they are a part. These criteria differ from fishery to fishery. Thus, while efforts towards better practice in access arrangements are vital, the nature and consequences of access arrangements will ultimately be a case-specific empirical question.

Firms – predominately with capital headquartered in resource-seeking states – are the primary beneficiary of access relations. There is no quintessential business model or form of industrial organization in marine fisheries: firms range from small, private organizations to family business groups, and from vertically-integrated multinational corporations to state-owned enterprises 31 . Firms use a diversity of strategies for gaining access to resource-owners’ waters including flying the latter’s national flag, flying a third country flag, entering into joint-ventures, or complying with other requirements of resource-owning states that confer access. Firms also often work closely with their home states which leverage aid, diplomacy and geopolitics to the advantage of “their” businesses. This demonstrates the necessity to comprehend and analyze business strategy and structure to evaluate the potential economic, social and ecological implications of access techniques 32 , 33 , 34 .

Intersections across these factors illustrate that although fishery resources are public assets, control of and access to them are not exclusively national. Sovereign rights are only actualized when foreign firms and states enter access arrangements and carry out extraction. In other words, access arrangements are thoroughly relational. They are negotiated between states and firms; entangled in domestic, regional and global politics; scrutinized by civil society organizations and actors throughout global value chains; and, they materialize with and through the characteristics of the fishery in question and its rendering through extractive techniques, regulatory practices, and scientific knowledge and management.

Given this context, revenues from access arrangements should be seen as public assets. Particular care must be taken to ensure accountability and consider opportunity costs where access is provided for free or with discounts in arrangements that aim to encourage domestic economic development. If government revenue is gained, or forfeited to incentivize domestic development, then the public revenue – or loss thereof – must be accounted for, not least because the public record on the benefits of second generation access is mixed 16 , 17 . Models for public accounting exist: in fisheries, terms and conditions of some access arrangements are in the public domain and the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) is an example of a global initiative that encourages governments to publish information on access arrangements, including on revenues. Moves toward transparency help to address the bigger questions around access arrangements: who is benefitting, how, and why? Yet, transparency without accountability is not a silver bullet. Resource-owners often argue that they need some degree of secrecy on the prices paid for access to maintain their bargaining position with resource-seekers or risk losing a portion of the public asset as a result of asymmetrical power relations. This presents a genuinely difficult problem in refining transparency initiatives for access arrangements. One middle-ground argument is that full public disclosure of aggregated access revenues could contribute to bargaining power as resource-owner negotiators are incentivized to show their local population that they received a fair revenue from the public asset.

Finally: the relational geopolitical economy of access is ripe with tensions and contradictions; these tensions shape the ways that UNCLOS’ promise of resource ownership plays out via FAAs. Table 3 – deduced from the case studies outlined above – synthesizes the motivations of resource-seeking states and firms and places them alongside those of resource-owning states, though not all motivations apply to all resource seekers or holders. Looking within the resource-seeker or resource-owner column, it is evident that some motivations may overlap and complement each other. At times, however, motivations can be conflicting and require tradeoffs. For instance, for resource-seekers, profit maximization for firms may be in conflict with a state’s efforts to protect and expand an industry, which may require initial supporting less profitable firms via policy or subsidies; while domestic civil society organizations may object to such practices on sustainability grounds. A state’s geopolitical interests might mean that it desires its fleet’s presence in a location that may or may not align with the firm’s fishing priorities. That is to say, firms and home state interests in FAAs might be aligned or misaligned around each motivation. For resource-owners, tensions may also emerge between maximizing rent, increasing domestic investment, prioritizing sustainability, or using FAAs for geopolitical reasons.

Looking between columns highlights that motivations rarely correlate for resource-seekers and owners – most obviously in the struggle over value in the form of profit and rent. A potential exception is the growing commitment to fisheries management and environmental sustainability, though this too can be mobilized differently (and politically) for seekers and owners. The disconnect between the columns helps to explain uneven outcomes and stresses the centrality of geopolitical-economic dynamics in the formulation and functioning of FAAs. It also helps to illuminate and better explain what is obscured by narrow analysis of a specific fishery, of an individual FAA, or individual resource-owner or resource-seeker motivations. These distinctions offer openings for understanding the lasting and dynamic importance of relational power dynamics in variegated FAA outcomes, and as such, in the realization (or not) of the UNCLOS promise of redistribution of economic benefits though resource ownership.

Conclusions: a research agenda for the study of access arrangements

The conceptual approach and country cases presented here highlight common contours of marine fisheries access arrangements and their impacts. Together, they form a call for more policy attention and research on the modalities of FAAs that takes the geopolitical-economy of the oceans seriously, conceptually and methodologically. The lens presented in this article encourages critical examination of the economic surplus generated from ocean spaces and resources under national jurisdiction, as well as the externalities associated with putting them to use. It explores how state, firm, and civil society interests play out in cooperation, conflict and competition over spaces and resources, and turns attention to the size and relative importance of the central (but often opaque) question of the distribution of benefits from ocean economies. It is attentive to the changing environmental conditions of the oceans, and to the ways that these shape, and are shaped by, geopolitical-economic activity as the human imprint on the oceans continues to intensify, from the coasts outward. Finally, in the context of UNCLOS, a political-economy lens enables exploration of the capabilities of state and non-state actors to influence, eschew, and capture rents in the oceans – and in doing so, to realize the promise of resource ownership. As eyes increasingly turn to the oceans as a source of wealth and influence, a geopolitical-economy approach offers the tools required to account for the distributional concerns and conflicts that lay ahead.

More broadly, this approach offers openings for examining blue economy activities within EEZs in the context of ecological change and contention over the distribution of benefits and risks of established and emergent oceanic activities. Humanity’s claims on ocean space and resources have grown exponentially in the twenty-first century 35 , which, combined with climate change, increase pressure on coastal environments and communities worldwide 36 . The economic benefits from ocean use have been largely concentrated in wealthier countries and firms 34 , a pattern that mirrors uneven North-South relationships around climate change and biodiversity loss, among other global processes (e.g. ref. 37 ), and which members of the G-77 sought to realign via the UNCLOS agreement. Industrial fishing – and the role of FAAs therein – provides an important blue economy case study for understanding the unequal distribution of access to ocean spaces and resources between and among states and other interest groups 38 , 39 , 40 .

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the two peer reviewers for their insights and suggestions for improvements. We thank Marcio CastroDeSouza and Mariana Toussaint for their leadership, patience and support on the FAO research that underpins this paper; and Lorin Bruckner, Alex Claman and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library Data Services for assistance with figures.

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L.C. led the project. L.C. and E.H. conceptualized and drafted the manuscript, to which J.V. contributed. G.C. prepared Figs. 1 and 2, D.H. and E.H. prepared Figs. 3 and 4 . L.C. prepared Tables 1 and 2 , E.H. and J.V. prepared Table 3 ; all authors did the underpinning research and reviewed the manuscript.

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L.C. and E.H. work for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and K.M. for the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR). This article is written in their personal capacity and does not represent the positions nor thinking of FFA, AU-IBAR, nor their members.

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Campling, L., Havice, E., Virdin, J. et al. A geopolitical-economy of distant water fisheries access arrangements. npj Ocean Sustain 3 , 26 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00060-y

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