The purpose of this course is to provide training on all aspects that enable a researcher to build and implement the most appropriate comparative research design – the latter broadly defined as any research enterprise that comprises at least two ‘cases’ or observations.

On the one hand, the course will cover a few fundamental upstream questions: why compare; what is the added value of comparison? What are the logical underpinnings and mental operations behind comparison? What should be the mindset of a good comparative researcher? What should be his/her goals? What is the link between a research puzzle and the choice for a comparative research design?

On the other hand, the practicalities of different types of comparative research designs will be examined in detail, by following all the hands-on steps:

(1) prior arbitrations and ‘casing’, i.e. the definition of the cases;

(2) case selection, through more basic or more advanced strategies;

(3) collecting and managing comparative data;

(4) comparative data analysis (qualitative, QCA and quantitative options).