Reflection on the methods of political science on both sides of the atlantic

For its Ninth Congress in Toulouse (5–7 September 2007), the French Political Science Association (AFSP) invited the American Political Science Association (APSA) to hold a joint “tableronde” comparing methods on both sides of the Atlantic. It took the form of three consecutive panels, devoted to qualitative and qualitative approaches, to the dimension of time, and to contextual and inference problems. During three days, 18 papers were presented, over 60 participants attended, and contrasting ways to validate theories and models were discussed at length, illustrated by concrete research examples. The objective here is less to sum up all that was said than to outline the main differences and convergences of our methodologies.