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Monday 5 – Friday 9 August
Morning session 9:00–12:30
Afternoon session 14:00–16:30 (ending slightly earlier on Friday)
This hands-on Workshop Course provides you with the methodological tools to refine your use of process-tracing methods in your own substantive research, while enabling you to embed process-tracing case studies in mixed-methods research design. The course requires very active participation.
I will assume that you have taken previous courses on process tracing and/or in-depth case study methods.
In advance of the Workshop, I will ask you submit a theorised causal mechanism and at least one proposition about an observable that a part of the mechanism might leave in a case.
Morning sessions will be devoted to lectures and discussions about key methodological issues; during afternoon sessions we will discuss particular aspects of participants' projects.
Derek Beach is a professor of Political Science at Aarhus University.
He has authored articles, chapters, and books on case study research methodology, international negotiations, referendums, and European integration, and co-authored Process-tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (University of Michigan Press).
Derek has taught qualitative case study methods at ECPR, IPSA and ICPSR summer and winter schools, and numerous workshops and seminars on qualitative methods throughout the world. He is an academic co-convenor of the ECPR Methods School.
This hands-on Workshop Course provides you with the methodological tools to refine your use of process-tracing methods in your own substantive research, while enabling you to embed process-tracing case studies in mixed-methods research design. The course requires very active participation.
Morning sessions will be devoted to lectures and discussions about key methodological issues; during afternoon sessions we will discuss particular aspects of participants’ projects, including theories of causal mechanisms and how we can develop testable predictions about evidence that the activities associated with parts of mechanisms might leave in a given case.
The promise of process tracing as a methodological tool is that it enables the researcher to study more-or-less directly the causal mechanism(s) linking a cause (or set of causes) and an outcome, allowing us to open up the ‘black box’ of causality itself.
By unpacking causal mechanisms into their constituent parts, composed of entities engaging in activities, and then tracing the empirical manifestations these activities leave in actual cases, we are able to collect what has been termed mechanistic evidence upon which we can make causal inferences about how causal mechanisms actually work (Craver and Darden, 2013; Machamer, Darden and Craver, 2000; Machamer, 2004).
Strong causal inferences about the effect a cause has on an outcome are naturally only possible when we use evidence of difference-making that is produced through experimental manipulation across cases (Woodward, 2003).
However, when we use mechanistic evidence to make causal inferences, we are using observational, within-case evidence to make causal inferences about the actual operation of mechanisms in real world cases (Russo and Williamson, 2007; Illari, 2011; Waskan, 2011).
In other words, instead of studying causal effects we are studying how things work.
In the first morning session, we discuss how to differentiate process tracing from other methods; including large-n quantitative methods, but also other small-n methods such as analytical narratives, comparative case studies, etc. Here we define process tracing by the interest in studying causal mechanisms within single cases in ways that enable within-case causal inferences to be made.
We discuss the four variants of process tracing: theory testing, theory building, theoretical revision, and explaining outcome process tracing. This is followed by an in-depth look at the ontological underpinnings of process tracing in the second session of Day 1, and the full session of Day 2, focusing on how to understand causal mechanisms and how they differ from other types of causal theorisation.
In the Day 3 morning session, we discuss how inferences can be made using mechanistic evidence, focusing on how to operationalise theories of mechanisms using informal Bayesian logic. On Day 4, in a joint session with the Historical Methods course, we discuss challenges relating to the evaluation of evidence. On Day 5 we turn to questions of case selection and mixed/multi-methods.
The afternoon sessions on Days 1 and 2 will be devoted to presentation and discussion of participants’ theories of causal mechanisms. During the afternoon sessions on Days 3 and 4, participants will present and discuss observable manifestations of the activities of parts of mechanisms. On the afternoon of Day 5, we will discuss why participants chose particular cases.
You must already be using in-depth case study methods in your current research project (PhD, postdoc or other), and advanced enough in your research to have clear theoretical conjectures about processes, and ideas about potential empirical observations, that can be worked with during the course.
You must be familiar with the recent (post-2010) literature on case study methods, and with basic concepts related to process-tracing methods. In particular, you should have basic knowledge of debates about causal mechanisms and empirical tests, and how they are used in case studies. If you don't yet have this knowledge, take Introduction to Process Tracing Methodology.
I require submission before the course of a theorised causal mechanism and empirical proposition. I will provide information about this well in advance of the course.
Each course includes pre-course assignments, including readings and pre-recorded videos, as well as daily live lectures totalling at least two hours. The instructor will conduct live Q&A sessions and offer designated office hours for one-to-one consultations.
Please check your course format before registering.
Live classes will be held daily for two hours on a video meeting platform, allowing you to interact with both the instructor and other participants in real-time. To avoid online fatigue, the course employs a pedagogy that includes small-group work, short and focused tasks, as well as troubleshooting exercises that utilise a variety of online applications to facilitate collaboration and engagement with the course content.
In-person courses will consist of daily three-hour classroom sessions, featuring a range of interactive in-class activities including short lectures, peer feedback, group exercises, and presentations.
This course description may be subject to subsequent adaptations (e.g. taking into account new developments in the field, participant demands, group size, etc.). Registered participants will be informed at the time of change.
By registering for this course, you confirm that you possess the knowledge required to follow it. The instructor will not teach these prerequisite items. If in doubt, please contact us before registering.
Day | Topic | Details |
---|---|---|
1 | Morning: what is process tracing? Afternoon: presentations of mechanisms |
Morning session 9:00 – 12:30 |
2 | Morning: what are causal mechanisms? Afternoon: presentations of mechanisms |
Morning session 9:00 – 12:30 |
3 | Morning: operationalisation Afternoon: presentation of empirical tests |
Morning session 9:00 – 12:30 |
4 | Morning: evaluating evidence Afternoon: presentation of empirical tests |
Morning session 9:00 – 12:30 |
5 | Morning: case selection Afternoon: presentation of case selection |
Morning session 9:00 – 12:30 |
Day | Readings | ||
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1 |
Morning session, 9.00–12.30 – Introduction
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2 |
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3 |
Morning session, 9.00–12.30 – Operationalisation – basic principles Beach and Pedersen (2019) Process-tracing methods. 2nd Edition, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Chapter 5. |
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4 |
Morning session, 9.00–12.30 – Evaluating evidence
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5 |
Morning session, 9.00–12.30 – Mixed methods?
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See daily schedule.
Supplemental
Brady, Henry E. and David Collier (eds), 2010
Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools Shared Standards
2nd Edition. Lanham MD: Rowman Littlefield
Bunge, Mario, 2004
How Does It Work? The Search for Explanatory Mechanisms
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34(2): 182–210
Cartwright, Nancy, 2007
Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Central Intelligence Agency, 1968
Intelligence Report – Bayes’ Theorem in the Korean War
July 1968, No. 0605/68. (approved for release date April 2005)
Craver and Darden, 2013
In Search of Mechanisms
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Doyle, A. Conan, 1975
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
London: George Newnes
Fairfield, Tasha and Andrew E. Charman, 2017
Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing: Guidelines, Opportunities, and Caveats
Political Analysis, 25: 363–380
Gerring, John, 2006
Single-Outcome Studies: A Methodological Primer
International Sociology Vol. 21(5): 707–734
Gerring, 2007
Case Study Research
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Glennan, Stuart S, 2002
Rethinking mechanistic explanation
Philosophy of Science 69: 342–353
Groff, Ruth, 2011
Getting past Hume in the philosophy of social science
In Causality in the Sciences, edited by Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo and Jon Williamson
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 296–316
Gross, Neil, 2009
A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms
American Sociological Review 74 (3): 358–79
Grzymala-Busse, Anna, 2011
Time Will Tell? Temporality and the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms and Processes
Comparative Political Studies 44 (9): 1267–97
Hedström, Peter and Richard, Swedberg (ed), 1998
Social Mechanisms an Analytical Approach to Social Theory
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Illari, Phyllis and Federica Russo, 2014
Causality: Philosophical Theory meets Scientific Practice
Oxford: Oxford University Press
King, Keohane and Verba, 1994
Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research
Princeton: Princeton University Press
Mayntz, Renate, 2004
Mechanisms in the Analysis of Social Macro-Phenomena
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34(2): 237–259
Pierson, Paul, 2003
Big, Slow-Moving, and…Invisible: Macrosocial Processes in the Study of Comparative Politics
In Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences. Ed. Mahoney, James and D. Rueschemayer, 177–207
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Roberts, Clayton, 1996
The Logic of Historical Explanation
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press
Rueschmeyer, Dietrich, 2003
Can One or a Few Cases Yield Theoretical Gains?
In Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences. Ed. Mahoney, James and D. Rueschemayer, 305–337
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Summer School
Introduction to Process Tracing
Case Study Research: Method and Practice
Introduction to Historical Methods
Winter School
Introduction to Process Tracing
Comparative Research Designs
Summer School
Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets
Introduction to Historical Methods