Search Results

Causal Mechanisms and Process Tracing

Gary Goertz and James Mahoney

in A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences

This chapter examines how the qualitative and quantitative research traditions empirically assess theories about mechanisms when making causal inferences. In the qualitative paradigm, researchers ... More

This chapter examines how the qualitative and quantitative research traditions empirically assess theories about mechanisms when making causal inferences. In the qualitative paradigm, researchers carry out this assessment by attempting to observe causal mechanisms through process tracing and through the analysis of causal-process observations. In the qualitative paradigm, the within-case analysis of specific cases is combined with the effort to observe mechanisms. By contrast, statistical methods are not designed to observe mechanisms within particular cases. The chapter considers the importance of mechanisms in causal inference as well as the use of process tracing in multimethod vs. qualitative research. It shows that multimethod research, which integrates regression and case study analysis, is increasingly regarded as a best practice.Less

Causal mechanisms in the social realm

Daniel Little

in Causality in the Sciences

The chapter considers the specific characteristics of causal relations among social structures, processes, and activities. Against the Humean idea that causal relations are defined by facts about ... More

The chapter considers the specific characteristics of causal relations among social structures, processes, and activities. Against the Humean idea that causal relations are defined by facts about regular succession, the chapter argues that the notion of a causal mechanism is fundamental. Causal realism asserts that causal connections between events and conditions are real and are conveyed by the powers and properties of entities. It is therefore necessary to consider the ontology of a given realm in order to be able to identify how mechanisms work in this realm. In the social realm causal mechanisms are constituted by the purposive actions of agents within constraints. Examples of social mechanisms are considered at several levels of detail, and more extended treatments are offered for transportation, violent crime, epidemiological processes, and system safety as examples of social domains where we can analyse underlying social mechanisms in order to understand the outcomes. The view de‐emphasizes the feasibility of strong predictions in the social sciences; even when we have good reason to expect that a given set of social mechanisms are at work, it is often impossible to aggregate their interactions with confidence.Less

Three Principles for Cognitive Aging Research: Multiple Causes and Sequelae, Variance in Expression and Response, and the Need for Integrative Theory

Randy L. Buckner

in Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging: Linking cognitive and cerebral aging

This chapter discusses why variance might exist in cognitive decline, organizing the discussion around three principles. The first principle is that multiple, co-occurring causal mechanisms ... More

This chapter discusses why variance might exist in cognitive decline, organizing the discussion around three principles. The first principle is that multiple, co-occurring causal mechanisms contribute to cognitive decline in aging. The second principle is that variability exists in the expression of causal mechanisms across individuals and in individuals' responses to them. The final principle is that causal mechanisms should be studied within integrative theories that span different levels of organization—from the genetic to the behavioral.Less

Religious Trajectories from the Teenage Years: With Kyle Longest

Christian Smith

in Souls in Transition: The Religious Lives of Emerging Adults in America

This chapter identifies factors related to the teenage years that correlate statistically with religious differences during the emerging adult years and that act as causal influences of those ... More

This chapter identifies factors related to the teenage years that correlate statistically with religious differences during the emerging adult years and that act as causal influences of those differences. It also theorizes the causal social mechanisms that explain the associations between the identified teenage factors and the emerging adult religion outcomes. It examines combinations of factors that represent different paths to the same highly religious emerging adult outcome, as well as the main divergent paths that persons take through their religious and spiritual lives from the teenage years to the emerging adult years. Finally, the chapter examines the timing of first commitments to God, the question whether higher education corrodes religion, and the possibility that many emerging adults are subjectively but not objectively highly religious.Less

Teaching the Critics: One Route through The Elementary Forms

Terry F. Godlove, Jr.

in Teaching Durkheim

This chapter presents a sympathetic portrayal of Durkheim's “theory of religion” in the Elementary Forms of Religious Life (EF) in the context of major criticisms of that work. It shows that EF puts ... More

This chapter presents a sympathetic portrayal of Durkheim's “theory of religion” in the Elementary Forms of Religious Life (EF) in the context of major criticisms of that work. It shows that EF puts forward two independent approaches to its subject. One approach is functionalist; it tries to account for the existence and persistence of religion by appealing to the cohesion religion supplies to society; it accounts for the behavior and beliefs of individuals as an appeal to the needs of the whole. The other approach posits a causal mechanism by which religious ideas and symbols are generated in the very act of assembly — the theory of collective effervescence — what William Pickering calls “effervescent assembly” and Randall Collins “ritual solidarity”.Less

Manipulating Colour: Pounding an Almond

John Campbell

in Perceptual Experience

This chapter considers the role that the experience of colour plays in having colour concepts. It is argued that the experience which is relevant to having colour concepts is experience that informs ... More

This chapter considers the role that the experience of colour plays in having colour concepts. It is argued that the experience which is relevant to having colour concepts is experience that informs thoughts about what would happen if there were colour-affecting interventions on an object. Thus, the relevant kind of experience is conscious attention to the objects of colours as an aspect on which direct intervention is possible. However, an interventionist account of colour concepts requires that one can, in fact, directly intervene on colour. This issue is addressed by considering Locke's classic example of changing an almond's colour by pounding it. While Locke uses this example to argue for an error in our ordinary concept of colour, the chapter offers a vindication of our common-sense conception of colour, as something on which direct intervention is possible.Less

On the origin of causal understanding

Susan Carey

in Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate

This chapter examines the origins of causal understanding. It analyses studies where causal reasoning characterizes the basic causal mechanisms in terms of which people explain the world around them. ... More

This chapter examines the origins of causal understanding. It analyses studies where causal reasoning characterizes the basic causal mechanisms in terms of which people explain the world around them. It considers two distinct views of cognitive modules in the analysis of causal understanding: first, they are seen as analogous to input modules, and second, they are seen as intuitive theories. On both views, cognitive modules pick out a set of entities in the world and are responsible for processing privileged sorts of information about those entities.Less

Foundations: Causation and Causal Inference

Paul Shaffer

in Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis

This chapter begins the investigation of the causal stage in poverty analysis which asks ‘why are people poor’.It makes a case for causal pluralism on grounds that there are different conceptions of ... More

This chapter begins the investigation of the causal stage in poverty analysis which asks ‘why are people poor’.It makes a case for causal pluralism on grounds that there are different conceptions of causation, and associated models of causal inference, which reflect different intuitions about what it means for something to cause something else. Further, a wide range of approaches to causation may fruitfully be applied to facilitate explanation. Discussion proceeds to outline the core features of three approaches to causation, namely conditional association, counterfactual dependence, and mechanism-based approaches, which underlie causal claims made in the applied tradition of micro-econometrics, experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to impact assessment, and many dialogical approaches to inferring causation, respectively. The chapter maintains that understanding causal foundations is important because it explains how we understand, and go about answering, the question: why are people poor?Less

Q2 Causal Analysis: Exploring the Drivers of Poverty Status and Dynamics 1

Paul Shaffer

in Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis

This chapter examines the empirical application of the ‘conditional association’ and ‘mechanism-based’ approaches to causation. It makes a preliminary distinction between poverty status and dynamics, ... More

This chapter examines the empirical application of the ‘conditional association’ and ‘mechanism-based’ approaches to causation. It makes a preliminary distinction between poverty status and dynamics, based on the distinction between stocks and flows of poverty. An integrating framework is presented based on ways that mixed methods have improved, or broadened, four aspects of the causal framework, namely causal variables, weights, mechanisms and the causal tree, and facilitated external validity. A wide range of research strategies and approaches are reviewedsuch as combining outcomes and processes, interviewing the poverty transition matrix, as well as the rural livelihoods and stages of progress approaches. The contribution of mixed methods to specification of econometric models is also examined. The chapter concludes that the empirical case for the value-added of mixed methods in causal analysis of poverty is very strong.Less

Causal mechanisms for HIA: learning from epidemiology

John Kemm, Jayne Parry, and Stephen Palmer

in Health Impact Assessment

Health impact assessors who wish to advise policy makers and base their health impact assessment (HIA) on the fullest scientific evidence must understand the potential and pitfalls of epidemiology. ... More

Health impact assessors who wish to advise policy makers and base their health impact assessment (HIA) on the fullest scientific evidence must understand the potential and pitfalls of epidemiology. This chapter explores how epidemiological reasoning can give insight into the causal mechanisms by which decisions impact on health, goes some way towards estimating the size of those impacts, and thereby provide a basis for prediction.Less

How Generosity Enhances Well-Being

Beaster-Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson

in The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose

The second chapter turns to the crucial issue of cause and effect. Does generosity actually increase well-being or, rather, is it prior well-being that produces more generosity? It may be, some ... More

The second chapter turns to the crucial issue of cause and effect. Does generosity actually increase well-being or, rather, is it prior well-being that produces more generosity? It may be, some skeptics will suspect, that generosity does not itself enhance well-being. Rather, they might believe, happier, healthier, and more purposeful people simply tend to behave more generously, because those kinds of people have more energy, vision, and physical capacity to be generous than unhappy, unhealthy, purposeless people. Chapter 2 demonstrates that causality runs in both directions, and outlines nine central mechanisms. Greater well-being indeed often facilitates generosity. But, at the same time, generosity also enhances well-being. It does so through specific causal mechanisms that we can understand, explain, and test. This chapter also includes four ideal typical cases to demonstrate how these mechanisms operate over the course of a person’s life.Less

Processes of Change in International Organizations

Devesh Kapur

in Governing Globalization: Issues and Institutions

Although international institutions are a ubiquitous feature of international life, little is known about their trajectories of change. This chapter attempts to address this lacuna by examining ... More

Although international institutions are a ubiquitous feature of international life, little is known about their trajectories of change. This chapter attempts to address this lacuna by examining processes of change in international institutions, in particular the subset of international institutions known as intergovernmental organisations. The purpose of this chapter is not to develop a general theory of change in international institutions but rather to develop limited generalisations about causal mechanisms and their consequences. It first examines the rationale and purposes of international organisations before one can ask how and why particular types of organisations change, and why they exist in the first place. It then examines the trajectories of change in international organisations by posing three, interrelated, questions. The chapter concludes by examining some normative aspects of change in the context of global governance distinguishing between the feasible and the desirable.Less

Domestic Coalition Shifts in War Termination since 1862

in Paths to Peace: Domestic Coalition Shifts, War Termination and the Korean War

This chapter investigates the domestic coalition shift theory using quantitative analysis of all interstate wars since 1862. The dataset of interstate wars after World War II is reviewed, which ... More

This chapter investigates the domestic coalition shift theory using quantitative analysis of all interstate wars since 1862. The dataset of interstate wars after World War II is reviewed, which includes all domestic coalition shifts observed on a daily basis, to increase the understanding of this alternative causal pathway. The evidence indicates that both mechanisms by which domestic coalition shifts can theoretically impact the development of an overlapping bargaining space seem to have empirical support. It also showed that the first mechanism is dominant, but they do not necessarily rule out the second (signaling) mechanism. Taken with the detailed process tracing of the causal mechanisms in the Korean War case studies, these data strongly reveal that the patterns predicted by the domestic coalition shift theory hold over a broad universe of cases and greatly enhance the understanding of war duration and war termination.Less

Relating Citizenship Rights and Social Movements over Time

Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman

in Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis

This chapter turns to the relationship between rights and social movements, and deploys a variety of quantitative methods in order to examine this relationship both within and across cases. These ... More

This chapter turns to the relationship between rights and social movements, and deploys a variety of quantitative methods in order to examine this relationship both within and across cases. These methods carry the enquiry forward in three separate stages. First, the three rights measures (IPI, CRI, and the GAP) are correlated with the four measures of social movement activity (SMA and SR, SV, and SMA + SR) to reveal the ‘first order’ or descriptive associations that may exist between rights and social movements. Second, multiple regression is used to model the unidirectional and causal mechanisms that may configure the relationship both between rights and movements and between movements and rights. Third, a non-recursive model of simultaneous regression equations is used to test the assumption that citizenship rights and social movements are ‘mutually constitutive’, or, less boldly, that their presence and progress condition each other in a mutual way.Less

Are natural kinds and natural properties distinct?

Emma Tobin

in Metaphysics and Science

This chapter discusses the distinction between natural kinds and natural properties. Some theorists deny the distinction, and claim that natural kinds can be identified with properties. For example, ... More

This chapter discusses the distinction between natural kinds and natural properties. Some theorists deny the distinction, and claim that natural kinds can be identified with properties. For example, natural kinds might be understood as the perfectly natural properties, reducible to properties or the extensions of properties. Alternatively, one might argue that natural kinds and natural properties are distinct and that natural kinds could be considered as a sui generis type of entity. For example, one might hold that natural kinds require a distinct kind of universal, substantival universal, or sortal. Alternatively, one might claim that properties themselves form natural kind groupings, in virtue of causal mechanisms. This chapter argues that classification into natural kinds can reflect real differences between natural groups, without the supplementary ontological distinction between properties and kinds.Less

The Theoretical Model: Causal Mechanisms and Hypotheses

Michael Zürn

in A Theory of Global Governance: Authority, Legitimacy, and Contestation

The authority–legitimation link states that international institutions exercising authority need to nurture the belief in their legitimacy. The authority–legitimation link points to fundamental ... More

The authority–legitimation link states that international institutions exercising authority need to nurture the belief in their legitimacy. The authority–legitimation link points to fundamental challenges for the global governance system: with the rise of international authorities that are, at the same time, more intrusive, state consent is undermined and societies are affected directly. Consequently, legitimation problems arise, followed by processes of delegitimation, which then trigger responses by the challenged institutions. Using concepts of historical institutionalism, it is argued in this chapter that the authority–legitimation link produces reactive sequences either via the route of societal politicization or via counter-institutionalization by states. These reactive sequences may result in either a decline or a deepening of global governance depending on the responses of authority holders.Less

Between contextuality and comparability: a dilemma in qualitative comparative case studies

Pål Repstad

in Religion and Welfare in Europe: Gendered and Minority Perspectives

This chapter illustrates the challenge of obtaining notably rich data from the respective localities, while at the same time being able to draw effective and insightful comparisons. Comparative case ... More

This chapter illustrates the challenge of obtaining notably rich data from the respective localities, while at the same time being able to draw effective and insightful comparisons. Comparative case studies contain an inherent tension between offering a useful and problem-oriented opportunity for conducting research keeping the local situation in mind and seeking more general patterns, which may turn out to be fruitful and rewarding for social science in the long run. The inherent tension in the case study method shows that there is no perfect research design for study in social science. However, when an international group of researchers has been given the means to conduct a large international study and has succeeded in the painstaking job of establishing an international framework, there are some good arguments to develop a design for the study with a minimum level of standardisation, to increase the possibilities of identifying causal mechanisms.Less

Postscript

Frank C. Zagare

in Game Theory, Diplomatic History and Security Studies

In this chapter, developments in game theory over time are summarized, and the utility of game theory for analyzing conflictual interstate relationships is evaluated. The most important point to be ... More

In this chapter, developments in game theory over time are summarized, and the utility of game theory for analyzing conflictual interstate relationships is evaluated. The most important point to be taken from the collection of analytic narratives in this book is game theory’s ability to deliver an explicit causal mechanism upon which explanations can be constructed, and to do this in a transparent and logically consistent way. Game models, by their very nature, facilitate the assessment of logical consistency, minimize the probability of its absence, and encourage counterfactual or “off-the-equilibrium-path” reasoning, allowing for contingent theorizing inter alia. Causal mechanisms are especially valuable because they provide the element of necessity absent in standard (historical) narratives. Nonetheless, game-theoretic knowledge, like all knowledge, is always provisional, so an attitude of intellectual modesty, not arrogance, is the proper one.Less

Strategies

Neil M. Coe and Henry Wai-chung Yeung

in Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World

This chapter takes a second critical step towards theory development by connecting the dynamic drivers considered in the preceding chapter to the strategies of the key corporate actors within global ... More

This chapter takes a second critical step towards theory development by connecting the dynamic drivers considered in the preceding chapter to the strategies of the key corporate actors within global production networks. Extending existing work by drilling down beneath the industry level, the chapter seeks to reveal sectoral and firm complexity and variability. Four sets of strategies are explained in this chapter in relation to the dynamic drivers in Chapter 3. At the intra-firm level, it conceptualizes internalization as a firm-specific strategy for organizing global production networks driven by particular sets of competitive dynamics. At the inter-firm level, two strategies are particularly prominent in the contemporary organization of global production networks—coordination/control and partnership. Lastly, extra-firm bargaining is explored as the strategic interface through which capitalist firms interact with extra-firm actors. Taken together, Chapters 3 and 4 develop the causal mechanisms of global production networks.Less