Thinking Like a Social Scientist

The core goal of this course is to start "handling the tools of the trade" using classics from the study of Social Sciences. We will read books and from them we will think systematically about research questions, concepts' building, analytical frameworks, mechanisms' elaboration, hypotheses' making and research designs. We aim to understand: I. the modalities of research questions; II. the role of conceptualization; III. the elaboration of theoretical mechanisms; IV. the empirical implications of theoretical models; V. the empirical evaluation of the core arguments.