Case Study Method and Methodological Innovation in Marxist Political Economy: An Examination Based on the Methodological Framework of Das Kapital

The application of case study methodology in the discipline of Marxist political economy remains relatively insufficient, with scarce systematic reflection at the methodological level. This study, grounded in the methodological framework of Das Kapital, demonstrates the inherent unity between case study methodology and the practice-cognition research approach in Marxist political economy, reveals its three distinctive features of practice orientation, essence insight, and people-centered stance, and elucidates the unique value of this method in explicating the economic development practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Through statistical analysis of six authoritative journals from 2013 to 2022, the study finds that the application of case study methodology exhibits significant disciplinary differentiation: management journals demonstrate substantially higher utilization rates compared to economics journals, while Marxist political economy journals have persistently limited case study outputs, reflecting insufficient attention to methodology and relatively weak research standardization. To address this predicament, it is imperative to construct a case study paradigm with distinctive disciplinary characteristics, aiming to provide methodological support for building China's autonomous economic knowledge system and advance the innovative development of 21st-century Marxist political economy.