Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences

Mind & Society, 2005

This paper discusses various problems of explanations by mechanisms. Two positions are distinguished: the narrow position claims that only explanations by mechanisms are acceptable. It is argued that this position leads to an infinite regress because the discovery of a mechanism must entail the search for other mechanisms etc. Another paradoxical consequence of this postulate is that every successful explanation by mechanisms is unsatisfactory because it generates new ''black box'' explanations. The second-liberal-position that is advanced in this paper regards, besides explanations by mechanisms, also the discovery of bivariate correlations as a first step of an explanation by mechanisms as meaningful. It is further argued that there is no contradiction between causal analysis and the explanation by mechanisms. Instead, explanations by mechanisms always presuppose the analysis of causal structures (but not vice versa). The final point is that an explanation by mechanisms is not inconsistent with the Hempel-Oppenheim scheme of explanation.

Analyse & Kritik, 2016

The revival of action based explanations as well as their formal structuring have been two of the most important topics within explanatory sociology since the 1980s. The two newly developed approaches, being structural individualism and analytical sociology based on mechanism models, will be outlined in this article. The article is dedicated to a comparison of the aims and the formal structure of both approaches. It is shown that explanations within analytical sociology tend to be more realistic but also more complex. They do not differentiate between micro and macro levels in analytical terms and use micro mechanisms instead of an analytically strong action theory that makes it difficult to systemize mechanism models. On the other hand, structural individualistic explanations that use a general action law from which social interdependencies are to be interpreted as an opportunity structure can formulate a default-option from which models can be expanded and also worked out to mecha...

J. Erola, P. Naumanen, H. Kettunen & V-M. Paasivaara (eds.). 2021. Norms, Moral and and Policy Changes: Essays in honor of Hannu Ruonavaara. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. pp.81-101.

Sociological Bulletin, 2018

Mechanism-based explanations are widely discussed in contemporary social science. A virtue of mechanism-based explanations is that they can tell us how social and psychological factors are related to each other and in addition provide explanatory depth. I will argue against an argument which contends that to describe underlying mechanisms at the individual level do not contribute to improve macroexplanations at the social level. However, the critics of the mechanism approach are right that under certain conditions there can be successful explanations without mentioning underlying mechanisms. Although the mechanism approach is a reductive strategy, it does not entail that the social sciences will lose their descriptively and explanatory autonomy. The debate about reductionism and explanation often take place at an abstract philosophical level, but it is argued that to what extent the mechanism approach will influence the autonomy of the social sciences is an empirical problem and cannot be decided a priori.

Mechanisms are very much a part of social life. For example, we can see that inequality has tended to increase over time, and that cities can become segregated. But how do such mechanisms work? Analytical sociology is an influential approach to sociology which holds that explanations of social phenomena should focus on the social mechanisms that bring them about. This book evaluates the major features of this approach, focusing on the significance of the notion of mechanism. Leading scholars seek to answer a number of questions in order to explore all the relevant dimensions of mechanism-based explanations in social sciences. How do social mechanisms link together individual actions and social environments? What is the role of multiagent modelling in the conceptualization of mechanisms? Does the notion of mechanism solve the problem of relevance in social sciences explanations?

Metascience

Review of P. Demeulenaere (ed.), Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Why should we introduce the notion of ‘analytical sociology’ into the field of sociology, and why should it be linked to the concept of ‘mechanism’? With these two principal questions, Pierre Demeulenaere, Professor of Sociological Theory and Philosophy of the Social Sciences at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, opens his Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms, a collection of thirteen papers written by social scientists and philosophers of the social sciences. Not every contributor should be considered an analytical sociologist. Rather than being a manifesto either pro or contra analytical sociology and the use of mechanisms, it is an attempt to reflect upon the key issues involved in sociological explanation. Even though several chapters raise very interesting points, the overall impression one gets from this book is that analytical sociology fails to redeem its main promise, viz. to add clarity, precision, and conceptual rigor to sociology, especially regarding one of its most central concepts: ‘mechanism’.

Philosophy of The Social Sciences, 2004

Several authors have claimed that mechanisms play a vital role in distinguishing between causation and mere correlation in the social sciences. Such claims are sometimes interpreted to mean that without mechanisms, causal inference in social science is impossible. The author agrees with critics of this proposition but explains how the account of how mechanisms aid causal inference can be interpreted in a way that does not depend on it. Nevertheless, he shows that this more charitable version of the account is still unsuccessful as it stands. Consequently, he advances a proposal for shoring up the account, which is founded on the possibility of acquiring knowledge of social mechanisms by linking together norms or practices found in a society.

Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms (edited by P. Demeulenaere), 2011

In this paper I will discuss mechanistic explanation in the social sciences from the point of view of the philosophical theory of explanation. My aim is to show that the current accounts of mechanistic explanation do not serve the agenda of analytical social science as well as they should. I will not challenge the idea that causal explanations in the social sciences involves mechanisms or that social scientists should seek causal explanations and a mechanistic understanding of social phenomena, but will argue that to improve explanatory practices in the social sciences analytical social scientists should employ tools more substantial than the metaphor of a mechanism.

Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2014

The aim of this paper is to examine the notion of social mechanisms by comparison with the notions of evolutionary and physical mechanisms. It is argued that social mechanisms are based on trends, and not lawlike regularities, so that social mechanisms are different from mechanisms in the natural sciences. Taking as an example of social causation the abolition of the slave trade, this paper argues that social mechanisms should be incorporated in Weber’s wider notion of adequate causation in order to achieve their explanatory purpose.

Industrial Marketing Management, 2013

Over 40 years of research in the IMP tradition has resulted in a variety of different kinds of published outputs; data, information, knowledge, concepts, stories, models, case studies, frameworks and even some things that we might like to call theories. The espoused objective of all this research is better understanding of the phenomenon of interest; Industrial Networks. However the nature and quality of those understandings varies enormously and depends not only on the character of the research and the objectives it was designed to achieve but also upon their, usually implied, epistemology and ontology. It is possible, though dangerous, to argue that in the social sciences there exist hierarchies of understandings. At the "base" there are very detailed descriptions of particular events and the entities that are involved. These descriptions are not usually generalisable. At the "summit" there are grand theories which explain, in some sense and according to particular ontological/epistemological schools of thought, the descriptions that are provided by "base" research findings. In sociology Merton proposed that there could be "Theories of the mid range". "They are theories intermediate to comprehensive analytical schema and detailed workaday hypotheses", (Merton, 1957:108). More recently there has emerged a school of sociology that seeks to conceptualise and deploy what they term social mechanisms (Hedstrom & Swedberg, 1998). To date there are over 600 citations of the Hedstrom and Swedberg book across many different social science fields. In this paper we describe the birth and development of the Causal Social Mechanism movement and proceed to a set of definitions. Next there is a section in which various possible ontologies are judged in terms of their compatibility with the concept. Examples of a wide range of Causal Social Mechanisms are then described and examples of those we judge may be relevant to Industrial Networks are presented. We suggest that the Causal Social Mechanisms approach is useful in helping theoreticians work across multiple ontologies and so offers significant opportunities for theory development.