Students of comparative politics are encountering a growing complexity in the study of political rules, agents, and ideas. Over the last two decades, policy-making has become increasingly multipolar, interconnected, and decentralized in character. In response to these analytical challenges, social scientists have intensified efforts to pool resources and transcend disciplinary and methodological boundaries. This paper introduces a syncretic framework – which we term ‘controlled multimethod policy analyses’ (COMPAS) – combining a controlled selection of case studies with statistical analyses of large-n datasets. Drawing on in-depth governance studies in Indonesia, this article provides a ‘hands-on’ example of the COMPAS-approach and, in particular, the ways in which qualitative and quantitative data can be integrated into balanced policy assessments.