​This course is about the application of qualitative methods to the study of civil war. It begins with an overview of the cutting edge in qualitative methods, intentionally casting its epistemological net broadly. We thus assess methods inspired by positivism (case studies, process tracing, counterfactual analysis) and those more interpretative in nature (discourse, ethnography, textual analysis) - the goal being to provide students with a robust set of tools for explaining and understanding the dynamics of civil war. The course also reviews the promise (and pitfalls) of methodological pluralism or so-called mixed methods. Key readings for this first part include work by Andrew Bennett, John Gerring, Ted Hopf, Evan Lieberman, James Mahoney, Jennifer Milliken and Sid Tarrow.