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A Piece About CONTEXT and Its Important for HI Program in Comparative-Historical Social Science (CHSS) Northwestern University Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies Working Papers Academic Year 2006-07 Working Paper 3 March 2007 CONTEXT AND CAUSAL HETEROGENEITY * IN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS Tulia G. Falleti** Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Pennsylvania [email protected] Julia Lynch Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Pennsylvania [email protected] * Authors are listed alphabetically and both contributed equally to the elaboration of this paper. We are greatly indebted to Bear Braumoeller, Steven Hanson, Evelyne Huber, and Ian Lustick for their extensive and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper was presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (in Philadelphia, PA, August 31 - September 4, 2006) and at the Comparative Historical Analysis Study Group, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, November of 2006. **Ph.D., Northwestern University Department of Political Science, 2003. About the Program in Comparative Historical Social Science (CHSS): Co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science and Sociology, the Program in Comparative-Historical Social Science (CHSS) provides an institutional setting for faculty collaboration and graduate student training in comparative historical research. Students in the program complete their Ph.D. in either political science or sociology, but also receive a certificate from the University for expertise in the interdisciplinary area of CHSS. The program provides students with a common coursework structure integrated with their departmental curricula; resources for student research, including travel abroad; interdisciplinary venues at which to present work in progress and receive feedback; and opportunities for collaborative research. For additional information consult the program website at http://www.cics.northwestern.edu/GPCHS_Home.html The CHSS Working Paper series will offer CHSS students and faculty a venue to have their work in progress formally available to scholars within and outside of Northwestern University. The series will be directed by Professors Edward Gibson and James Mahoney. It will feature papers focused on comparative and/or historical work, very broadly defined. Students and faculty who would like to have their papers considered for this series should contact Gibson at [email protected] and Mahoney at [email protected] Working Papers: Academic Year 2006-07 • No. 1/07 Edward Gibson , Associate Professor, Political Science Department Julieta Suarez-Cao, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department "Competition and Power in Federalized Party Systems." January 2007 • No. 2/07 Arthur Stinchcombe, Professor, Sociology Department "Competition and Power in Federalized Party Systems." March 2007 • No. 3/07 Tulia G. Falleti, Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania Julia Lynch, Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania "Context and Causal Heterogeneity in Historical Analysis." March 2007 Abstract: Political scientists largely agree on the usefulness of causal mechanisms to open the black box that connects inputs and outcomes. Yet often overlooked in discussions of causal mechanisms is their particular relationship to context and the impact that context has on explanation. In this paper, we define causal mechanisms as portable concepts that can travel from one context to another. In turn, we define context as the relevant aspects of a setting (analytical, temporal, spatial, or institutional) in which an array of initial conditions leads to an outcome of a defined scope and meaning via a specified causal mechanism or a set of causal mechanisms. Drawing from these definitions, we study the ways in which causal mechanisms and layered contexts interact, discussing the implications for causal explanation and theory-building of different approaches to periodization in historical analysis. Keywords: Causal mechanism, context, critical juncture, historical institutionalism Truth does not have to be timeless.1 Ignoring context can be highly misleading, as can leaving the notion of context too vague.2 In the years since the publication in 1983 of Jon Elster’s Explaining Technical Change, a stimulating discussion of causal mechanisms has taken place in the social sciences. While there is little consensus on the appropriate definition of the concept3, we see (and in the first part of this paper advocate) some convergence upon a notion of social mechanisms as something other than intervening variables filling in the black box between inputs and outputs. Rather, social mechanisms should be viewed as relatively abstract concepts that can travel from one specific instance or “episode” (Tilly 2001, 26) of causation to another. In this paper we seek to demonstrate that this understanding of mechanisms implies that it is not the mechanism itself that causes an outcome, but rather the interaction between a mechanism and a given context. We then ask what are the consequences for historical institutionalist analysis of this understanding of social mechanisms. We focus in particular on the problems that arise for historically-oriented scholars in periodization and selecting starting points, both of which are central to specifying the temporal context within which a causal process plays out. And we emphasize the particular difficulties that attend to these tasks when we understand context to be composed of multiple, unsynchronized layers of institutions, policies, and background conditions. We close the paper by offering some partial and rather tentative 1 Paul Diesing (1991) How Does Social Science Work? Reflections on Practice, 91, cited in Davis (2005, 168). 2 Bunce (2003, 184). 3 In fact Norkus (2005, 350) bemoans the proliferation of definitions and warms that ill-informed “mechanisms talk” may come to replace theoretically-informed discussion of the concept – a charge of which, we hope, we remain innocent. 1 solutions to these problems, centering on the goal of building middle-range theories by making theory-guided choices about contextualization and periodization. CAUSAL MECHANISMS AND CONTEXT Despite a growing interest in causal mechanisms in the social sciences, expressed equally by scholars who subscribe to different epistemological and methodological traditions, there is very little consensus in the literature about what causal mechanisms are. Mahoney (2001, 579-80) identifies twenty-four definitions of causal mechanisms proposed by sociologists, political scientists, and philosophers of science in the last thirty five years, and even more definitions can be added to that list, some of which we discuss below. In political science, the plurality of definitions of causal mechanisms has, however, disguised some underlying similarities.4 First, causal mechanisms are most often conceptualized as links between inputs, or independent variables, and outcomes, or dependent variables. They serve to open the black box of law-like or probability statements that simply state the concurrence or correlation of certain phenomena or events. Statements of the type “if I then O” (I Æ O) become “if I, through M, then O” (I Æ M Æ O). Second, most definitions of causal mechanisms sustain that they should apply to units of a lower level of aggregation than the level of the phenomena the researcher seeks to explain. In other words, a macro-input through the operation of a micro-mechanism leads to a macro-output (Macro-I Æ Micro-M Æ Macro-O). Finally, 4 In other disciplines such as history, sociology, and even public policy, debates about causal mechanisms seem to have followed slightly different contours, perhaps reflecting historical differences in the dominant ontological and epistemological positions held in these disciplines as compared to political science. 2 and partially as an extension of the second common trait, most definitions of causal mechanisms used in political science are embedded in the methodological individualist paradigm, such that explanations of macro-level phenomena ultimately rest on mechanisms that apply to individual agents, their psychologies, or their cognitive skills. In this section we discuss each of these common factors, explain our position toward them, and elaborate what we see as a more tenable definition of causal mechanism and its relation to context. From I Æ M Æ O to I Æ M + C Æ O There is little disagreement, even among scholars subscribing to different research traditions within political science, about the usefulness of causal mechanisms for opening the black box that connects inputs and outputs. For example, King, Keohane, and Verba argue that “an emphasis on causal mechanisms makes intuitive sense: any coherent account of causality needs to specify how its effects are exerted” (1994, 85-6), and Kitschelt sustains that “[t]o accept something as a cause of a social phenomenon, we must identify the mechanism(s) that brought it about” (1999, 8). For King, Keohane, and Verba, the identification of mechanisms is an “operational procedure” (1994, 87) consisting of connecting the original posited cause and the ultimate effect in a causal chain of intervening variables. Thus, “greater minority disaffection under a presidential regime” and “lesser governmental decisiveness under a parliamentary regime” are some of the hypothetical mechanisms that explain the effect
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