COMPLEX-IT: A User-friendly platform for Combining QCA and Case-based Computational Modelling

 Lasse Gerrits and I would like to thank the Health and Social Theory Research group at Durham University for the chance to present today on COMPLEX-IT.

 Our presentation is based on The Atlas of Social Complexity, a book we recently completed, which will be launched spring 2024. Organised around six transdisciplinary themes and twenty-four topics the Atlas is an invaluable resource for all social science and complexity science scholars and students interested in new ideas and new ways of working in social complexity. It paves the way for the next generation of research in the study of social complexity.

One area of significant promise is the emergence of configurational social science (Chapter 20 and Chapter 30), which sits at the nexus of case-based configurational approaches – specifically QCA – intersectionality theory, critical complexity, and complex systems thinking.

 

 

QUICK OVERVIEW OF OUR PRESENTATION

While not widely recognized, the majority of computational methods are case-based and configurational e.g., online websites profiling users based on some configuration of factors. The challenge is making these methods accessible to social scientists, including qualitative researchers. Enter COMPLEX-IT, a freely available platform for users to explore data using a bespoke suite of computational methods: cluster analysis, machine learning, data visualisation, simulation, data forecasting and systems mapping. A key strength of COMPLEX-IT is that is works with set theoretic data so that users can explore their topic and its causality from a qualitative-comparative perspective (QCA), including modelling set-theoretic data across time. In this lecture, we introduce the field of configurative social science, the multi-methods involved in this approach and their linkages to QCA, and then, as demonstration, a case study to explore how COMPLEX-IT, a platform for multi-methods configurational research, can be used to engage in a QCA approach using the latest developments in computational methods.

 

HERE ARE LINKS TO MATERIALS FROM OUR PRESENTATION

CLICK HERE to learn more about The Atlas of Social Complexity.

CLICK HERE for a link to our POWER POINT presentation.

CLICK HERE to explore COMPLEX-IT, including tutorials and example dataset.

CLICKHERE for an introductory article on COMPLEX-IT

CLICK HERE for the article that our mock dataset is based on: Gerrits, L., Pagliarin, S., Klein, K. U., & Knieling, F. (2023). Tracing complex urban transformations in Germany, Switzerland and Austria using trajectory-based qualitative comparative analysis (TJ-QCA). Cities, 141, 104507.

CLICK HERE for the mock QCA Urban Transformation Datase

CLICK HERE for the mock DATA FORECASTING QCA Urban Transformation Datase