Introduction to Process Tracing

This course will give you an understanding of the foundations of PT methods, along with the practical insights and research tools to enable you to use PT in your own research.

The promise of PT as a methodological tool is that it enables the researcher to study more-or-less directly the causal mechanism(s) linking a trigger to a particular outcome, allowing us to open up the ‘black box’ of causality itself. 

In political science, PT is arguably the only method that allows us to study causal mechanisms and to understand how a trigger produces an outcome, instead of simply studying correlations and associations. PT is therefore an ‘…invaluable method that should be included in every researcher’s repertoire.’ (George and Bennett 2005:224).

Day 1

We start by differentiating PT from other methods; including large-n quantitative, frequentist methods but also other small-n methods such as analytical narratives, comparative case studies, congruence, etc. Here we define PT by the interest in studying causal mechanisms in single case studies, and we discuss the three variants of PT: theory-testing, theory-building, and explaining outcome PT. 

Day 2

We look closely at what causal mechanisms are and go into some detail about the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying PT. Most importantly, we will talk about causal mechanisms as made up out of entities engaging in activities ensuring the productive continuity in which we are interested. 

Day 3

We talk about 'concepts' and their causal attributes in PT. To give you an idea of the type of question we will aim to answer on this day, think about the following in relation to the Democratic Peace theory: What is it about democracy that causes peace (i.e. what are the causal properties of this concept)? 

Day 4

Dedicated to causal mechanism in practice. We go into more detail about how to draw a causal inference on the basis a of single case study and how to execute a PT project.

Day 5

We make time for some presentations (max. 5) of your own causal mechanisms and PT projects. We'll also go into detail about case selection, generalisation, and the (im)possibilities of combining PT with other methods.

By the end of the course, you will have gained insights into the recent debate on the role of causal mechanism in political science, and have all the basics of the PT method. 

Some background knowledge of qualitative case study methods would be helpful, including a rudimentary understanding of set-theory and the possibilities and limits of comparative case studies.