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Member rate £492.50
Non-Member rate £985.00
Save £45 Loyalty discount applied automatically*
Save 5% on each additional course booked
*If you attended our Methods School in the last calendar year, you qualify for £45 off your course fee.
Date: Monday 5 – Friday 9 February 2024
Duration: 3 hours of live teaching per day
Time: Monday – Wednesday, Friday 09:00 - 12:00 CET; Thursday 08:30 – 10:00 and 14:00 – 15:30
This course provides a highly interactive online teaching and learning environment, using state of the art online pedagogical tools. It is designed for a demanding audience (researchers, professional analysts, advanced students) and capped at a maximum of 16 participants so that the teaching team can cater to the specific needs of everyone.
Case studies are a core component of social science research, either as the main, qualitative methodological approach or as part of mixed-methods strategies. In this course, the students will be introduced to the logic of case study thinking, from a plurality of epistemological standpoints ranging from the positivist to the interpretivist.
The course starts from an introduction on what a case is before moving to different approaches to selection, case analysis and in combination with quantitative methods. At each session, a small group of students will have the opportunity to practice with their project and all students will have the opportunity to present at least once during the course. Each session will have two components: a lecture part in which key concepts will be presented and a discussion part in which students will animate the session and put in practice the key points learned during the session.
By the end of this course, the student will be able to
4 credits - Engage fully in class activities and complete a post-class assignment
Chiara Ruffa is a full professor in political science (specializing in International Relations) at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po. Before moving to Paris, she was an associate professor at the Swedish Defence University and an academy fellow at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.
Her research is about multilateralism on the ground, peacekeeping operations, norms, cultures and civil-military relations. In particular, her research agenda revolves around multilateral governance and management of peace and security across different regions. Her two main areas of expertise are (1) multilateralism on the ground, multinational governance and management of peace and security (UN peacekeeping, dynamics of transformations of multinational interventions with increased participation of non-Western contributors, and search and rescue missions at sea in particular) and (2) civil–military relations and the transformation of the state. She has written about methods, in particular about case studies, reflexivity and what causality means in qualitative research.
Her work has been published in the European Journal of International Relations, European Political Science Review, Security Studies, Acta Sociologica, International Peacekeeping, Armed Forces and Society, Security and Defence Analysis, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Comparative European Politics, and several edited volumes. She is the author of Military Cultures in Peace and Stability Operations, published with the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018 and of Composing Peace. Mission Composition in UN Peacekeeping with Vincenzo Bove and Andrea Ruggeri, Oxford University Press, April 2019. She is an editorial board member of Security Studies and Armed Forces and Society.
After the introduction to the course, we will delve into what a case is and different forms of case studies that exist. You will gain an understanding of types of cases in relation to different approaches to ontology and epistemologies (positivist vs. interpretivist) as well as in relation to concept formation. Through detailed discussions and examples, you will also learn about the different shapes that cases take at different levels of analysis and the trade-offs associated with it.
You will learn about different types of single case selection discussing their assumptions and reflecting on their trade-offs. You will also have the opportunity to practice those ways of selecting your case applies to your research idea
You will learn about different type of comparative logics, their pros and cons. You will also have the opportunity to practice those ways of selecting your case applies to your research idea.
In this session, we will talk about different types of case analysis, ranging from Structured Focused Comparison to Causal Process Observation to Process Tracing. We will discuss trade-offs with each, and you will have the opportunity to practice your case analysis.
This session concludes the course is partly dedicated to different ways of combining case study work with qualitative approaches. We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities of each of the facets of case study methods learned over the week.
The course is structured into five sessions spanning over five days, with two mini sessions per day, each lasting 1.5 hours. The course provides a safe and collaborative environment for discussing students' work and published research. Our ultimate goal is to make the course useful, and sessions 2-5 will focus on specific topics of interest to each student. Throughout the course, we will frequently discuss each student's research. You will be provided with methodological and applied readings to deepen your understanding of the methods we learn.
You should have some understanding of the social science research endeavour and have basic ideas about different ontologies and epistemologies.