Political map of the world, 2001. Levanthal Map Center (CC BY 2.0)

My PowerPoint Presentation from Today

Using historical institutionalism as a method for qualitative process tracing in comparative politics from University of Canberra

The flyer for my presentation today The School of Politics, Economics and Society Presents September School Seminar   Presented by : Dr Michael de Percy FCILT

Using historical institutionalism as a method for qualitative process tracing in comparative politics Abstract Historical institutionalism (HI) is often regarded as the least rigorous and the more tautological of the ‘new institutionalisms’, but this reputation is undeserved. I argue that HI, when viewed as a method for, rather than a theory of, examining institutional stasis and change, can provide a rigorous approach to process tracing that is useful in examining the impact of institutional legacies on contemporary political issues. Famous HI scholars, including Kathleen Thelen, suggest that systematic approaches to comparative temporal analyses can help to overcome the shortcomings of the inductive method in comparative politics. While for Karl Popper the inductive method is, in effect, hopeless in its scientific utility, my contention is that the nature of the social sciences means that falsifiability is, for the most part, a bridge too far for comparative political research. Plausibility, as opposed to falsifiability, can be achieved using systematic HI processes that are more sophisticated than simply rummaging through the past to find evidence that supports a given hypothesis. In this seminar, I aim to present a method that is not only useful in conducting comparative political analysis over time, but that can also address some of the inevitable shortcomings inherent in the conduct of inductive, comparative political science research by providing a systematic and rigorous system of process tracing over time.   This seminar is aimed at improving my work-in-progress paper for a panel I am convening at the ACSPRI conference to be held via Zoom from Tuesday 1 December to Thursday 3 December 2020. The conference website details are here: https://conferences.acspri.org.au/2020/ and the call for papers here: https://conferences.acspri.org.au/2020/cfp. If you are interested in presenting, you can enter submissions until 8th October 2020 23:59 (Australia/Sydney time).   Bio Dr Michael de Percy FCILT is Senior Lecturer in Political Science in the Canberra School of Politics, Economics, and Society at the University of Canberra. He is a graduate of the Australian National University (PhD) and the Royal Military College Duntroon, and he is a Chartered Fellow (FCILT) of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. Michael maintains a blog on his research, teaching and community engagement activities at www.politicalscience.com.au and you can follow him on twitter @madepercy.