Following World War II, the study of comparative politics and government grew as historians and governments tried to gain an understanding on the types of policies that states should enact to ensure their future prosperity. Questions regarding research design immediately began popping up: How could causation be established between the passage of a policy and subsequent benefits or misfortunes? What is the extent to which generalizations regarding policy passage in countries or governing bodies across the world can be made? How can real, hard data and evidence be used in statistical experiments when determining a policy’s impact? All these questions held merit and required careful development of computational procedures in political science research to foster the field of comparative politics and guide government activity. To dig deep into the study of comparative politics and its evolution over time, we are joined by Dr. Evan Lieberman, Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa and Director of the Global Diversity Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With Dr. Lieberman, we discuss several comparative politics research techniques, as well as some of his own case studies conducted on Africa. Make sure to check out his most recently published work Until We Have Won Our Liberty: South Africa after Apartheid, in which he explores the success of South Africa’s democratic development since the end of Apartheid to their most recent national election in 2019 while carefully considering the complexities of the nation’s multiracial society.