Lucerne Cluster for Configurational Methods (LUCCS)

Commitment and Major Contributions

 

The Department of Political Science at the University of Lucerne unites a group of scholars who make major contributions to social science methodology at the crossroads between quantitative and qualitative research. What these scholars share is a commitment to “configurational thinking” and the application of such thinking to the formation of concepts and to empirical research. With this focus and concentration of competencies, LUCCS is internationally unique.

  • On the epistemological level, we develop research designs that do justice to configurational thinking
  • On the methodological level, we present and develop methods for configurational cross-case analysis and for configurational within-case analysis
  • On the conceptual level, we apply configurational thinking in order to reflect on fuzzy boundaries of concepts and on the aggregation of divergent dimensions
  • On the technical level, we develop algorithms, measures and procedures for performing configurational research
  • In our teaching, we seek to raise awareness of configurational thinking, and how it differs from other logics of description and inference

Current Members of the Cluster

Prof. Dr. Joachim Blatter

Prof. Dr. Alrik Thiem

Dr. Lusine Mkrtchyan

Francesco Veri