Interweaving temporal qualitative comparative analysis with necessary conditions analysis: an empirical application in the European monitoring systems context

There are very few empirical applications of Temporal Qualitative Comparative Analysis (TQCA). By interweaving TQCA with the necessary condition analysis stepwise procedure, I endeavour to compare instances of cheating and non-cheating practices within the European Social Fund context and unravel the multiple sequences of events leading to the outcome of interest. Implications for theory and practice are discussed by shedding a new light on the non-trivially necessary causes for both cheating and non-cheating activities.