On the Trade-Offs of Causal Inference

Description

The QUALITY project at CRASSH welcomes Prof Stathis Kalyvas (All Souls College, Oxford) to share some reflections on causal inference in political science, based on his fieldwork on civil war and political violence. This will be followed by a roundtable discussion and question session on the methodological issues arising from these reflections.

What is the proper use of case-studies and process-tracing in drawing causal inferences in the social sciences? What is the proper use of quantitative evidence and quantitative methods? To what extent is generalisation possible from case studies? What obstacles are there for causal inference in political science, and what methods offer the best chance to overcome these obstacles?

Attendance at this lecture is free, but places are limited so please book using the link on this page. If you have any questions, please email the project administrator.

 

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This event is hosted by the ERC-funded project ‘Qualitative and Quantitative Social Science: A Unified Logic of Causal Inference?’. QUALITY is funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (ERC grant agreement no. 715530)