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FedericaX: Comparative Research Designs and Methods

Explore comparative analysis and itsimportance in the social sciences. You'll learn howto use comparative methods for constructive explanation and theory building and applyit to real-world politics.

6 weeks
4–6 hours per week
Self-paced
Progress at your own speed
Free
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Starts Mar 19
Ends Dec 31

About this course

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This course is part of the IPSAMOOC project, a joint venture Federica Weblearning - IPSA, the International Political Science Association

Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern empirical social science, once stated that the comparative method is the only one that suits the social sciences. But Descartes hadposited that "comparaison n'est pas raison," which means that comparison is not reason (or theory) by itself. So what's the right answer?

This course provides an introduction and overview of systematic comparative analysis in the social sciences, and shows you how to use this method for constructive explanation and theory building.

A major portion of the course is devoted to new approaches and software that have been developed in recent yearsto handle highly complex cases. Such cases includecomparisons of EU member states, Latin American political systems,and particular policy areas. Procedures such as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and related methods are able to reduce complexity and to arrive at "configurational" solutions based on set theory and Boolean algebra. These are more meaningful in this context thancommonly used, broad-based statistical methods.

Inthe last section, these methods are contrasted with more common statistical comparative methods at the macro-level. We'll discuss various states or societies and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

At a glance

  • Institution: FedericaX
  • Subject: Social Sciences
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Prerequisites:

    Basic quantitative or qualitative methodological trainingwill be useful, but participants with little methodological training should find no major obstacles to following the course.

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated programs:
  • Associated skills:Statistical Methods, Latin, Joint Ventures, Research, Social Sciences, Set Theory, Digital Logic, Political Sciences, Comparative Analysis

What you'll learn

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  • An understanding of systematic comparative analysis and why it is more useful than other broad-based statistical methods
  • How to use systematic comparative analysis for constructive explanation and theory building
  • How to apply systematic comparative analysis to real-world politics

This course is part of Introduction to Political Science IPSAMOOC XSeries Program

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Expert instruction
5 high-quality courses
Self-paced
Progress at your own speed
8 months
4 - 6 hours per week

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