On November 6-8, 2019 I teach a Guest Course on “The Politics of Multinational Military Operations” at the Department of International Relations at Charles University Prague (Syllabus here). Thanks to Head of Department Jan Karlas and Deputy Michal Parízek for the kind invitation! The three-day course introduces participants to current topics surrounding the politics of international security, and specifically political debates about countries’ participation in multinational military operations, taking a comparative perspective. It draws on work from a Special Forum in Contemporary Security Policy, which I co-edited together with Steve Saideman, as well as articles that appeared in the European Journal of International Security, and West European Politics, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations (a Special Issue co-edited with Dirk Peters and an article co-authored with Philippe Lagassé), among others. The content is split into six sessions, starting with (1) a general introduction to gain an overview over recent political and academic debates surrounding these topics. Individual sessions will focus on (2) party politics and security policy, (3) parliamentary involvement in decision-making on the use of military force, (4) the British parliament and war involvement, (5) coalition and alliance dynamics, including coalition formation, burden-sharing, and coalition withdrawal, and (6) national restrictions in multinational military operations.
Latest Updates
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Guest Course at Charles University, Prague
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DVPW-Tagung zu Methoden der Außenpolitikanalyse
Am 26. und 27. September 2019 findet im Internationalen Begegnungszentrum der Universität Erfurt die Tagung „Methoden der Außenpolitikanalyse: Ansätze, Daten und Perspektiven“ statt. Die Tagung wird von Dr. Patrick A. Mello, Gastwissenschaftler an der Willy Brandt School of Public Policy der Universität Erfurt und Dr. Falk Ostermann von der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen gemeinsam organisiert und ausgerichtet im Rahmen der Themengruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW). Die theoriegeleitete Außenpolitikforschung (Foreign Policy Analysis) hat sich als eigenständiges Feld innerhalb der politikwissenschaftlichen Disziplin Internationale Beziehungen etabliert. Aus methodologischer Sicht fehlt bislang jedoch eine eingehendere Auseinandersetzung mit vorhandenen Ansätzen, zugrundeliegenden Daten und Entwicklungsperspektiven zur Erforschung von Außenpolitik. Für welche Forschungszwecke sind welche methodischen Ansätze geeignet und was sind die Voraussetzungen für deren Anwendung? Mit welchen qualitativen und quantitativen Daten arbeitet die Außenpolitikanalyse und wie wirkt sich die technologische Entwicklung auf die Datengewinnung aus? Und welche Perspektiven bestehen für die weitere Entwicklung des vorhandenen Methodenspektrums? Im Rahmen der Tagung (Programm) soll diesen Fragen über fünf Panels und 16 Beiträge nachgegangen werden. Abgedeckt werden dabei so unterschiedliche Themen wie Narrativanalyse, Big Data und Social Media, Normen und Diskurs, quantitative und vergleichende Ansätze als auch historische und pragmatische Ansätze. Die Tagung wird durch die Willy Brandt School of Public Policy und die Forschungsförderung der Universität Erfurt unterstützt. Die Veranstaltung steht allen Interessierten offen. Aufgrund der begrenzten Plätze wird um vorherige Anmeldung unter aussenpolitik2019@mailbox.org gebeten.
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Swiss Summer School, Lugano 2019
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
Methods Course at the 23rd Swiss Summer School in Social Science Methods
From August 19-23, 2019 I taught a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), organized by FORS, the Swiss Foundation for Social Science Research and the Università della Svizzera Italiana in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. The course drew on my textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Research Design and Application, under contract with Georgetown University Press. From the course description: “The course provides participants with a thorough introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), both as a research approach and as a data analysis technique. In recent years, this set-theoretic method has gained recognition among social scientists as a methodological approach that holds specific benefits for comparative studies. The course begins by familiarizing participants with the foundations of set theory and the basic concepts of the methodological approach of QCA, including necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, and fuzzy logic. The next step is devoted to the calibration of empirical data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Once these essentials are in place, the course moves on to the construction and analysis of truth tables as the core of the QCA procedure. Here, we will also spend time to discuss typical challenges that arise during a truth table analysis, and techniques to overcome such problems. Finally, the course will introduce consistency and coverage as parameters of fit, as well as additional measures to assess the robustness of QCA results.”
Besides the technical introduction of QCA and its variants, the course will provide opportunities to discuss general aspects of comparative research design, including criteria for concept building and case selection, and data-related issues. Participants will be given the opportunity to present their own work and to receive individual feedback on their projects. Throughout the course, participants will conduct set-theoretic analyses within the R software environment (packages “QCA” and “SetMethods”). The software will be introduced on the first day and used for exercises and examples throughout the course, so that participants gain a level of proficiency that enables them to conduct their own QCA analyses upon the completion of the course. Participants are encouraged to bring their own qualitative and/or quantitative data for course exercises (if available, preliminary data is fine). In addition, datasets from published studies will be made available and used for in-course exercises.”