This course focuses on evaluating and conducting rigorous, epistemologically plural qualitative research, with an emphasis on practical application. It introduces key concepts and methods, such as case studies, positionality, ethnography, process tracing, and discourse analysis, and demonstrates their practical use. The goal is to equip students to be smart consumers and users of qualitative methods in their own studies, reading and theses. The course is structured into two main parts. The first part addresses foundational issues, exploring how different epistemological starting points shape qualitative methods and are suited to different types of research questions. This section also covers how our positionality influences our research and methods. The second and third parts of the course provide an in-depth introduction to various qualitative methods of data-collection and data-analysis. Each seminar session focuses on a particular technique, offering a critical assessment and discussion of how the method works through empirical research in social and political sciences. The seminar applies these methods across a variety of issue areas, including statehood, democracy, empire, and sexuality. It then follows this discussion with a practical exercise where students implement the method. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to practice and apply these methods to topics of interest. The seminar encourages exchange and collaboration among students through discussions, presentations, and other creative forms of engagement. The course adopts a portfolio system and students have to write two short essays (1700 words each) in which they analyse data they collected themselves using a method each from the course. Bemerkung This course introduces students to the study of security politics and presents a variety of methodological and thematic angles on what security is and how to conceptualise it. At the end of the course, students will be able (1) to understand, adequately select and apply the main qualitative methods of international relations and political science more broadly; (2) to critically assess existing methodological approaches to (the study of) International Relations; (3) to understand the relation between research question and research method; and (4) to use one or several qualitative methods for their own research projects. Schließen