Methods resources

In the course of this module we will be encountering a variety of empirical methods and research designs. Below is an indicative list of methodological resources offering a useful entry point to both qualitative and quantitative research designs and methods. Consulting and translating into practice relevant methodological resources – not constrained to the list below – is particularly important for the assessment.

Quantitative methods

Huntington-Klein, Nick. The effect: An introduction to research design and causality. Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2021. link

Imbens, Guido W. “Causal inference in the social sciences.” Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 11 (2024): 123-152.

Spirling, Arthur, and Brandon M. Stewart. “What good is a regression? Inference to the best explanation and the practice of political science research.” The Journal of Politics 87, no. 4 (2025): 000-000.

Difference-in-differences

Roth, Jonathan, Pedro HC Sant’Anna, Alyssa Bilinski, and John Poe. “What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature.” Journal of Econometrics 235, no. 2 (2023): 2218-2244.

Callaway, Brantly, and Pedro HC Sant’Anna. “Difference-in-differences with multiple time periods.” Journal of Econometrics 225, no. 2 (2021): 200-230.

De Chaisemartin, Clément, and Xavier d’Haultfoeuille. “Difference-in-differences estimators of intertemporal treatment effects.” Review of Economics and Statistics (2024): 1-45.

Chiu, Albert, Xingchen Lan, Ziyi Liu, and Yiqing Xu. “Causal panel analysis under parallel trends: lessons from a large reanalysis study.” American Political Science Review (2025): 1-22.

Synthetic control

Abadie, Alberto. “Using synthetic controls: Feasibility, data requirements, and methodological aspects.” Journal of economic literature 59, no. 2 (2021): 391-425.

Arkhangelsky, Dmitry, Susan Athey, David A. Hirshberg, Guido W. Imbens, and Stefan Wager. “Synthetic difference-in-differences.” American Economic Review 111, no. 12 (2021): 4088-4118.

Abadie, Alberto, Alexis Diamond, and Jens Hainmueller. “Comparative politics and the synthetic control method.” American Journal of Political Science 59, no. 2 (2015): 495-510.

Regression discontinuity

Cattaneo, Matias D., and Rocio Titiunik. “Regression discontinuity designs.” Annual Review of Economics 14, no. 1 (2022): 821-851.

Stommes, Drew, P. M. Aronow, and Fredrik Sävje. “On the reliability of published findings using the regression discontinuity design in political science.” Research & Politics 10, no. 2 (2023).

Matching and weighting

Imai, Kosuke, In Song Kim, and Erik H. Wang. “Matching methods for causal inference with time‐series cross‐sectional data.” American Journal of Political Science 67, no. 3 (2023): 587-605.

Ho, Daniel E., Kosuke Imai, Gary King, and Elizabeth A. Stuart. “Matching as nonparametric preprocessing for reducing model dependence in parametric causal inference.” Political Analysis 15, no. 3 (2007): 199-236.

Hainmueller, Jens. “Entropy balancing for causal effects: A multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies.” Political Analysis 20, no. 1 (2012): 25-46.

Imai, Kosuke, and Marc Ratkovic. “Covariate balancing propensity score.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology 76, no. 1 (2014): 243-263.

Chernozhukov, Victor, Denis Chetverikov, Mert Demirer, Esther Duflo, Christian Hansen, Whitney Newey, and James Robins. “Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters.” The Econometrics Journal 21, no. 1 (2018): C1-C68.

Ideal point estimation

Morucci, Marco, Margaret J. Foster, Kaitlyn Webster, So Jin Lee, and David A. Siegel. “Measurement That Matches Theory: Theory-Driven Identification in Item Response Theory Models.” American Political Science Review 119, no. 2 (2025): 727-745.

Peress, Michael. “Large-scale ideal point estimation.” Political Analysis 30, no. 3 (2022): 346-363.

Martin, Andrew D., and Kevin M. Quinn. “Dynamic ideal point estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo for the US Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10, no. 2 (2002): 134-153.

Poole, Keith, Jeffrey B. Lewis, James Lo, and Royce Carroll. “Scaling roll call votes with wnominate in R.” Journal of Statistical Software 42 (2011): 1-21.

Instrumental variables

Felton, Chris, and Brandon M. Stewart. “Handle with care: A sociologist’s guide to causal inference with instrumental variables.” Sociological Methods & Research (2024).

Mellon, Jonathan. “Rain, rain, go away: 194 potential exclusion‐restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable.” American Journal of Political Science 69, no. 3 (2025): 881-898.

Lal, Apoorva, Mackenzie Lockhart, Yiqing Xu, and Ziwen Zu. “How much should we trust instrumental variable estimates in political science? Practical advice based on 67 replicated studies.” Political Analysis 32, no. 4 (2024): 521-540.

Sovey, Allison J., and Donald P. Green. “Instrumental variables estimation in political science: A readers’ guide.” American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 1 (2011): 188-200.

Qualitative methods

Gerring, John. “Qualitative methods.” Annual Review of Political Science 20, no. 1 (2017): 15-36.

Humphreys, Macartan, and Alan M. Jacobs. Integrated Inferences: Causal Models for Qualitative and Mixed-Method Research. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Rohlfing, Ingo, and Christina Isabel Zuber. “Check your truth conditions! Clarifying the relationship between theories of causation and social science methods for causal inference.” Sociological Methods & Research 50, no. 4 (2021): 1623-1659.

Collins, Caitlyn, Megan Tobias Neely, and Shamus Khan. ““Which cases do I need?” Constructing cases and observations in qualitative research.” Annual Review of Sociology 50 (2024): 21-40.

Process tracing

Ricks, Jacob I., and Amy H. Liu. “Process-tracing research designs: A practical guide.” PS: Political Science & Politics 51, no. 4 (2018): 842-846.

Beach, Derek. “It’s all about mechanisms–what process-tracing case studies should be tracing.” New Political Economy 21, no. 5 (2016): 463-472.

Gonzalez-Ocantos, Ezequiel, and Jody LaPorte. “Process tracing and the problem of missing data.” Sociological Methods & Research 50, no. 3 (2021): 1407-1435.

Controlled comparisons

Slater, Dan, and Daniel Ziblatt. “The enduring indispensability of the controlled comparison.” Comparative Political Studies 46, no. 10 (2013): 1301-1327.

Gisselquist, Rachel M. “Paired Comparison and Theory Development: Considerations for Case Selection.” PS: Political Science & Politics 47, no. 2 (2014): 477-484.

Tarrow, Sidney. “The strategy of paired comparison: Toward a theory of practice.” Comparative Political Studies 43, no. 2 (2010): 230-259.

Case studies

Gerring, John. “What is a case study and what is it good for?.” American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (2004): 341-354.

Seawright, Jason, and John Gerring. “Case selection techniques in case study research: A menu of qualitative and quantitative options.” Political research quarterly 61, no. 2 (2008): 294-308.