The Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) of the UK’s Political Studies Association and the Centre for Political Research, Panteion University are co-organising a two-day intensive seminar from the 18th and 19th of January on research methods. The course is designed to help postdoc, doctoral and advanced postgraduate students to develop their research skills in research methods and more specifically on Process Tracing.
Process tracing serves as a research approach crafted to comprehend the inner workings of real-world cases. Gaining prominence across the social sciences and in policy evaluation, process tracing entails dissecting causal sequences as they unfold within specific cases, empirically mapping them out to facilitate within-case causal inferences regarding the connections between causes and outcomes. The primary objective of course is to provide participants with a hands-on understanding of the fundamental components of process tracing as a unique method for social science case studies, elucidating its applicability in individual research endeavors. Participants are urged to incorporate their own research into brief daily exercises to explore how process tracing methods can enhance their own research designs.
During the course we will slowly break open the “black-box of causation”, using peer reviewed journal articles pertaining both to PT methodology and case studies where PT is used. In this manner participants will develop the theoretical background, conceptual knowledge, and practical skills necessary to conduct PT from theory development and case selection, theoretical revisions and drawing conclusions.
There is space for 20 participants. The deadline to fill the form is January the 8th. Selected participants will by informed by Friday the 12th of January. The lecture and the material will be in english. To fill the form please click here
The course will take place at Panteion University, at the Centre for Political Science, Room ΣΤ12, on the 6th floor. The full seminar programme will be made available shortly.
Eleftherios (Lefteris) Karchimakis is a lecturer and a PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science. In 2021 he was nominated for Leiden’s University teaching award. His research interests include the EU’s crisis-induced institutional evolution, organizational adaptation and the evolution of norms and ideas in EU governance. In terms of social sciences methodology, he specializes in process-tracing and since 2022 he has been contributing to the teaching of the corresponding class in the Methods-Net Social Sciences Research Methods (SSRM) summer school. Before joining Leiden Institute of Political Science, he obtained a bachelor’s in law from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and master’s in political science (cum laude) from Leiden University. His prior professional experience includes being a researcher at the international law department of the US congress, working as a junior lawyer in the Greek Banking sector and serving as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN.
