Short Course: Causal Case Studies (QMMR 6)

Causal Case Studies (QMMR 6)

Half Day PM (1:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.)

After more than two decades after the publication of Designing Social Inquiry (King, Keohane and Verba, 1994), the field of qualitative, case-based research methods has reached a level of maturity where it is no longer necessary to define case study methods purely in terms of how they differ from quantitative, variation-based methods. Increasingly, the debate has shifted towards defining the nature and uses of different causal case study methods on their own terms.

This short course aims to exploring the state-of-the-art, focusing both on debates about the ontological and epistemological foundations of different case-based methods, along with developing a set of more practical guidelines for their use in alignment with different foundational assumptions. Three widely used case-based methods are discussed in this course are: small-n comparative methods, congruence methods, and process-tracing methods.

The goal of this course is twofold: 1) to provide participants with a better understanding of the debate about the logical foundations of different case study methods, in particular the different understandings of the nature of causal relationships that different method aim to analyze; and 2) to provide a set of practical guidelines that will enable scholars to utilize each of the causal case study methods in their own research that also enables their combination in logical consistent ways.

The course exposes how case-based methods are similar and different to each other in ways that have not been widely recognized, both as regards their ontological and epistemological foundations relating to different types of causal relationships (counterfactuals or mechanisms), the research situations in which they can be utilized, and the guidelines and best practices for their use.

**All Short Courses will take place on Wednesday, August 30 at the APSA 2017 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.**