A special issue of Quality & Quantity focusing on “Causation, inferences, and solution types in configurational comparative methods,” co-edited by Tim Haesebrouck (Ghent University) and Eva Thomann (University of Konstanz), is now available on-line. An introduction to the issue is provided below, along with the direct links to the articles, which are available in the COMPASSS bibliography.

The 5th International QCA Paper Development Workshop will be a hybrid event held in Zurich and online, December 13 (and possibly the 14 as well). The call for abstracts is now available.

The PDW offers researchers embarking on QCA projects a venue to meet QCA experts, get feedback on their on-going research, and learn about the latest methodological developments in QCA. For more information, see the International QCA Workshops website.

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen is inviting
applications for a PhD fellowship (3-4 years; 100%) connected to the interdisciplinary
FRIPRO project “Advancing Causal Modeling with Coincidence Analysis”
(AdCNA) led by Prof. Michael Baumgartner. For details see:

https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/209600/phd-research-fellowship-in-philosophy-of-science

Information Systems Journal has issued a call for paper for a special issue focused on QCA in IS. The deadline of submissions is March 31, 2022.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/pb-assets/assets/13652575/ISJ%20SI%20TQQD-FINAL%20(002).pdf

Michael Baumgartner and his colleagues at the University of Bergen have been awarded a 12M (NOK) grant from the Norwegian Research Council to fund the further development of coincidence analysis. Congratulations to the entire CNA team!

https://www.uib.no/en/cna/146141/fripro-project-granted

Yunzhou Du (Southeast University, Nanjing, China) has translated Adrian Duşa’s QCA with R into Chinese. Publisher’s site: http://www.hzcourse.com/web/teachRes/detail/5192/34    

Luca Manucci (University of Lisbon, Portugal) has published Populism and Collective Memory: Comparing Fascist Legacies in Western Europe (2020, Routledge), which uses fsQCA to test the impact of collective memories on the social acceptability of populist discourses across Europe since the 1970s.

Right-wing populism is a global phenomenon that challenges several pillars of liberal democracy, and it is often described as a dangerous political ideology because it resonates with the fascist idea of power in terms of anti-pluralism and lack of minorities’ protection. In Western Europe, many political actors are exploiting the fears and insecurities linked to globalization, economic crisis, and mass migrations to attract voters. However, while right-wing populist discourses are mainstream in certain countries, they are almost completely taboo in others. Why is right-wing populism so successful in Italy, Austria, and France while in Germany it is marginal and socially unacceptable? It is because each country developed a certain collective memory of the fascist past, which stigmatizes that past to different levels. For this reason, right-wing populism can find favorable conditions to thrive in certain countries, while in others it is considered as an illegitimate and dangerous idea of power. Through a comparative study of eight European countries, this book shows that short-term factors linked to levels of corruption, economic situation, and quality of democracy interact with long-term cultural elements and collective memories in determining the social acceptability of right-wing populist discourses.

Situated at the chair of Public Administration / Public Policy, University of Konstanz, applications proposing a research project in the area of set-theoretic and qualitative comparative methodology are equally welcome.

• Postdoctoral Position, 1 year, 100%: https://stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/bc97725138d9793143aab99f666145756ae92b270
• Doctoral Position, 3 years, 65%: https://stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/dad9bbbccd9834ea917f1d5f8180ef469b164cbf0

Lasse Gerrits (IHS, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Sofia Pagliarin (University of Bamberg, Germany) recently presented a webinar at CECAN on trajectory-based QCA (TJ-QCA), a new way to account for and integrate processes over time in QCA both conceptually and methodologically. The recording is available below (via YouTube).

Gary Goertz’s (Univ. of Notre Dame) Social Science Concepts and Measurement is now available for pre-order from Princeton University Press, Amazon.com, and all major booksellers. The text is a completely updated and revised edition of his Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide (2005).

Also of note is that Professor Goertz has developed a set of hundreds of exercises for his methods books, including this text. If you would like a copy of these exercises to use in your class, you may email him at <ggoertz@nd.edu>.