During the week of August 19-23, 2024, I returned to the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano, to teach Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the 28th Summer School in Social Science Methods. The intensive course covers the foundations and advanced uses of QCA and its application in R, based on my book Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press, 2021) and the accompanying R Manual (R Script and PDF freely available here). Workshop sessions are split into lectures and exercises, with dedicated time for individual consultation and feedback (see also the course description on the USI website). For impressions from previous years, see here. Thanks to the team at USI with Benedetto Lepori, Agata Lambrechts, and Eleonora Vicari for the smooth organization, including a wonderful reception on top of Monte Bré, and to all course participants for the constructive sessions!

The course program for 2025 will be decided upon in December this year, with registrations opening in January/February 2025. If you’re interested in participating in the QCA workshop and would like to be informed please let me know.

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Registration has opened for the 28th Summer School in Social Science Methods at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. As in previous years (see impressions here), I am offering a week-long in-presence workshop on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), taking place August 19-23, 2024.

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Throughout the workshop, participants are introduced to the foundations and advanced functions of QCA, while the course structure follows an ideal-typical research process. Starting with empirical illustrations that show how and for what purposes QCA is being used in the social sciences, the workshop proceeds with presenting the method’s core characteristics. This is followed by sessions on causation, causal complexity, and research design, to provide a basis for thinking about empirical applications. The ensuing sessions engage with QCA as an analytical approach, starting with set theory and concepts like necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, truth tables, and fuzzy sets. In calibrating sets, we look into approaches to transform empirical raw data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Next, the course examines various measures of fit that help in evaluating QCA results. The sessions on set-theoretic analysis put all the elements together and show how empirical data is analyzed and interpreted with QCA. During the second half of the workshop we explore advanced topics, which can be tailored based on participants’ background and research interests. Potential topics include multi-method research design, QCA variants, robustness tests in QCA, addressing critiques, and recent developments. Participants also have the opportunity to present and discuss their own work within the group. The workshop sessions are complemented by illustrations and exercises from the social sciences, using the R Software environment and relevant R Packages. The workshop includes dedicated timeslots for individual consultation with the lecturer, group discussions, and networking opportunities. Further details can be found here.

I’m honored to have joined the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly (ISQ), under the new lead editors Sam R. Bell, Elena McLean, and Jeffrey Pickering, and their team of associate editors, who picked up the reigns of ISQ from former lead editors Brandon Prins and Krista Wiegand at the start of 2024. ISQ remains the flagship journal of the International Studies Association (ISA) and I look forward to participating in the editorial board meetings and to working with the new team.