Short Methods Courses

Graduate Student Conference, University of Tartu, 10 July 2016

These one-day (five hour) courses will provide an overview of the main analytical and epistemological contours of their methodological field. What kinds of questions are asked by the method, how have these questions evolved, and how have particular techniques been developed and applied? None of the courses will involve lab sessions, advanced reading or homework, although may include in-class exercises. The courses are an ideal opportunity to provide participants with an outline of the method either for their general development, or a taster if they decide to attend a course at a future Winter or Summer School.

You do not need to attend the Graduate Student Conference to register for a place on one of these courses but you must have a MyECPR account. If you are planning to attend the Graduate Student Conference and one of these courses, you will need to register and pay for both events separately.

Online registration opens 9 March and closes 20 April 2016.

About the Courses
 

Cross-National Survey Data and Analysis
This course aims to give the participant an overview and introduction to the major theoretical and practical issues that are faced by the statistical analysis of cross-national comparative survey analysis. This course combines the learning of fundamental points about the statistical techniques used to analyse such surveys  and the learning of the practical problems encountered when using them.

Bruno Cautrès is attached to the CEVIPOF - Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (Paris) at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He is a senior CNRS research fellow with interests in voting behaviour, political attitudes and behaviours, comparative survey research and quantitative techniques. He is involved in European Social Survey, European Values Studies, International Social Survey Programme and European elections studies. He participates in the developments of the elections studies in France.  Its current research programme concerns political trust and attitudes to democracy in France. Email: bruno.cautres@sciencespo.fr Website: http://www.cevipof.fr/fr/l-equipe/les-chercheurs/chercheurs/bdd/equipe/7

Process-Tracing
Process-tracing is a within-case method that focuses on tracing causal mechanisms. This course will introduce you to the essentials of this method, its main underlying assumptions, and its applicability. We will discuss what understanding of causality underlies process-tracing, what causal mechanisms are, how we can `trace' them, and what kind of causal inferences we can draw on the bases of a process-tracing study. Moreover, to position PT in the broader methodological field we will look at how PT relates to, but differs from other (larger- and small-N) case study methods.

Hilde Van Meegdenburg is currently finalising her dissertation in International Relations at the Free University Berlin, and recently started working as a researcher and lecturer at the LMU in Munich. Specialised in International Security and the commercialisation of warfare she has had a keen interest for scientific methods since the beginning of her studies. As such Hilde has been involved in the ECPR method schools since 2012. First as a student, and later as Teaching Assistant to Ingo Rohlfing (Case Study Methods) and Derek Beach (Process Tracing) during several summer and winter schools. Email: van-meegdenburg@transnationalstudies.eu

Interpretive Methodologies and Methods: Introduction and Overview
This course explores the historical and methodological background leading to what today are increasingly being called 'interpretive' methods. The course will take up:

• An overview of interpretive approaches in social science – origins and recent developments;
• Discussion of the relationships among ontology, epistemology, and methodology in interpretive approaches;
• Implications for research practices, including research design, of doing interpretive social science; and
• Discussions of issues in interpretive research projects, as raised by course participants.

Dvora Yanow is a policy/political and organisational ethnographer and interpretive methodologist whose research and teaching are shaped by an overall interest in the generation and communication of knowing and meaning in organisational and policy settings. Research topics include state-created categories for race-ethnic identity, immigrant integration policies and citizen-making practices, research regulation (ethics board) policies, practice theory and the life cycle, science/technology museums and the idea of science, and built space/place analysis. Her most recent book, Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes (Routledge 2012), with Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, is the first volume in their co-edited Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. Email: Dvora.Yanow@wur.nl Website: http://wur.academia.edu/DvoraYanow

Course fees

€50 for participants from ECPR member institutions

€75 for participants from non-member institutions

See here to check if your institution is an ECPR member.

More information and full course outlines will be available soon. For general enquiries please contact Anna Foley afoley@ecpr.eu.