welcome message

Welcome to the fourth ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques !

Social Science Methods: Between Unity, Diversity, and Complementarity

The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in its material
(Pearson)

The method risks to fetishize its cause and to become a fetish itself
(Adorno)

A solid training in methods is the fundament of successful research. A researcher should know what a method does, how it works, and how it should be applied, but also what its potentials and what its limits are. Hence methods training is a tightrope walk between the perils of overconfidence in a method’s capacity and underestimation of its potential.

The ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques provides ECTS accredited up to date training in specially selected methods in the whole spectrum of approaches used in the social sciences. In particular, it emphasises those methods which are particularly salient for research questions in political science broadly defined. It deals with all stages of a project, it caters to the needs of research set at the macro and at the micro level, and it covers quantitative and qualitative designs.

Disrespecting traditional divisions of the discipline, among which the quantitative/qualitative and the analytical/interpretive polarity are the most prominent, the Summer School fosters dialogue between various persuasions. To this end, besides the courses (refresher courses, two week courses and one week courses), "openings" to other methods, evening presentations and debates on contentious methodological issues, with the input of the participants themselves, are also offered.

We look forward to welcoming you to Ljubljana!

Profs. Bernhard Kittel (Universität Oldenburg) and Benoît Rihoux (Université catholique de Louvain), academic convenors