The use of data analytics has exploded across almost every facet of life, from private businesses to policymaking to academic research. We have new techniques and methods to answer questions both old and new.

This course has two primary objectives. First, it introduces students to a wide range of methods and tools for empirical data analysis in social science research. Second, it aims to develop students’ skills in identifying good social science research questions and creating research designs that can best answer those questions, particularly focused on research topics related to Comparative Politics and International Relations. In other words, the goal of the course is to help you identify good questions to ask about the social world, and know what methods you can use to answer those questions. Examples of tools that we will discuss include geospatial data analysis, remote sensing, text as data, large language models (LLMs), and visual analytics. To be clear, you are not expected to master any of these tools, but rather become familiar with them enough to be able to more easily apply them in your own life should you choose to dedicate more time to them. We will also be reading and discussing published academic research that uses the methods that we will learn, to provide students examples of what research can look like.