The seminar is for PhD students of the BGSS/SESS and advanced master students (RTP), only. It deals with questions and the logics of social science methods.
The course is an introduction into comparative methods and deals with logical issues of comparison, the rol social science concepts. Concepts are the intermediaries between the empirical world (data) and analysis. C theories operational for research. The structure of concepts, concept clarity, and concept-measurement con crucial for any analysis. Methodological issues will be discussed in a logical, partly formalized way. Secondly, the course introduces into classical and new approaches to comparative logic and analysis. It dea classical approaches of method of agreement and difference, Przeworski’s most similar and most differents and their critics.
Topics include:
• Theory and Empirics: Social Science Concepts and the role of theory
• Comparative Logic and comparison
• Causality: Probabilistic vs. deterministic
• Qualitative vs. quantitative research
The seminar is for PhD students of BGSS and SESS as well as advanced master students (RTP), only.