Process tracing methods – an introduction

This seminar aims to introduce process tracing methods. The seminar will discuss differences between variance based and case-based methods and will give answers to the questions of what we are actually tracing. Issues related to making inferences without variation as well as case selection and nesting will also be addressed. The seminar includes several group work sessions on mechanisms, causal mechanisms, and causal inferences and evidence where students will have the chance to discuss amongst others the following questions: how to develop a plausible causal explanation, how to develop a causal mechanism linking a cause and outcome from their own research, and how to develop tests from their own research.

About the lecturer

Derek Beach is a professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, where he teaches international relations, European integration and case study methodology. He has authored articles, chapters, and books on research methodology, international negotiations, referendums, and European integration, and co-authored the books Process-tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (2013) and Causal Case Study Methods: Comparing, Matching and Tracing (2016) (both with the University of Michigan Press). He has taught qualitative case study methods at ECPR and IPSA summer and winter schools, held short courses at the APSA annual meeting on Process-tracing, ICPSR (Michigan), and numerous workshops and seminars on qualitative methods throughout the world. He is an academic co-convenor of the ECPR Methods Schools.