Qualitative Comparative Analysis for SCJ students

This workshop has been organised by the Security, Conflict and Justice Pathway (SCJ) and is open to all ESRC and non-ESRC funded PhD and MA Social Research students within the WRDTP’s seven partner universities.

This is a hands-on, crash course on the set-theoretic logic for the social sciences. This logic emphasizes causal complexity (different casual paths can lead to similar outcomes) instead of statistical correlational approaches. The course aims at enabling students to think about ways in which they could actively use this method for their dissertations. Thus, this course provides both the formal set theoretical underpinnings of QCA and the technical and research practical skills necessary for performing a QCA (both crisp and fuzzy set versions).

It is suggested that attendees should read two articles before the course. The first one is about the rationale of Boolean logic (Schneider and Wagemann). And second, there will be two QCA analyses we will be replicating. Students should read at least one of them.

Carsten Schneider and Claudius Wagemann. 2012. Set-Theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences. Cambridge UP: Cambridge. Introduction.

Charlotte Fiedler and Karina Mross. 2023. “Dealing With the Past for a Peaceful Future?

Analysing the Effect of Transitional Justice

Instruments on Trust in Postconflict

Societies”. The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 17: 303–321.

Erik Plänitz. 2020. “Natural Disasters and Political Disorder: Why Urban Flooding Turns Violent. Applying a Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 26 (2): 20190046.