RSS01.C4-C5 Process Tracing Methods (Two week course)

Process tracing is a research method designed to learn how things work in real-world cases. Increasingly used across the social sciences and in applied policy evaluation, process tracing involves unpacking causal processes as they play out within cases and tracing them empirically, enabling within-case causal inferences about the processes that link causes and outcomes together.

The aim of this two-week course is to provide participants with a hands-on understanding of the core elements of process tracing as a distinct social science case study method and how it can be used in your own research. The three core components of process tracing are explored during the two weeks, using a combination of published examples and your own research. Participants are encouraged to use their own research in short daily exercises to explore how Process Tracing methods can improve their own design. This means most benefit is to be expected if participants are able to use parts of their own research, or research ideas, during the course.

During the course we will discuss what theories of causal processes and mechanisms are, how they advance our understanding of (social) phenomena, what it means to study them, and what conclusions can be drawn on the basis of a PT. We will slowly break open the “black-box of causation” and develop the theoretical background, conceptual knowledge, and practical skills necessary to conduct a full-fledged PT from theory development and case selection, to data-gathering, theoretical revisions and drawing conclusions.

Detailed program (pdf, 155 kB)