As part of virtual micro courses that will be taking place throughout the semester, Carnegie Mellon faculty will be giving virtual lectures open to the CMU-Q community. Ignacio Arana, Assistant Teaching Professor at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University will be speaking on, “Challenges to Study the Politics of the Arabian Gulf from a Comparative Perspective”. 

Abstract: 

Comparativists face multiple challenges to conduct research, including measuring complex concepts, endogenous causal relations, and controlling for all the relevant variables that explain political outcomes. There are added difficulties to study the Arabian Gulf, such as low-quality data and limited access to such data. These challenges, nonetheless, can be increasingly overcome due to the ongoing data revolution in the social sciences and growing interdisciplinary research. How fast this will happen is likely to depend on the position that governments, research institutions, and multilateral organizations take.