Aims

A critical and practical overview of the qualitative and quantitative methods used in political science.
The skilled use of conceptual, technical and statistical tools.

Main themes

General and specific epistemological aspects of political science.
The foundations of conceptual and empirical, and qualitative and quantitative, approaches.
An introduction to various approaches to research (experimentation, comparison and survey).
An introduction to specific, descriptive and explanatory methods.

Content and teaching methods

1. Epistemology of political science; and criteria of scientificity, reductionism and inter-disciplinarity.
2. Conceptualisation and theorisation; and the semantics of theories, levels of analysis.
3. Modelling: Description, explanation formal and causal, and prediction.
4. Research: Sampling, and approaches to research.
5. Qualitative monovariate analyses.
6. Polytomic and dichotomic bivariate analyses.
7. Multivariate analyses: Factorial analysis of correspondences.
8. Causal and systemic multivariate analyses.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

A syllabus. Selected reading.
Exercise sessions will be welcomed.

Other credits in programs