A regularity theory of causality for the social sciences

James Mahoney; Laura Acosta

doi:10.1007/s11135-021-01190-y

A regularity theory of causality for the social sciences

James Mahoney^*, Laura Acosta

^*Corresponding author for this work

Political Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article discusses a regularity theory of causality (RTC) for the social sciences. With RTC, causality is a relationship between X and Y characterized by three features: (1) temporal order; (2) spatiotemporal connection; and (3) constant conjunction. The article discusses each of these three features, situating them within work in the social sciences. The article explores how scholars in the fields of comparative-historical analysis (CHA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) implicitly understand causality in terms of these three features. Special attention is focused on the concern of CHA with methods for establishing the spatiotemporal connection between cause and outcome. Likewise, special attention is focused on the concern of QCA with establishing constant conjunction in the form of non-spurious regularities. The article compares RTC with two other theories of causality: causal power theories, which focus on the activation of entities with generative capacities, and counterfactual theories, which view individual causes as difference-makers for outcomes. The article concludes with a call for scholars in the social sciences who implicitly use RTC to begin to do so explicitly and more self-consciously.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1889-1911
Number of pages	23
Journal	Quality and Quantity
Volume	56
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-021-01190-y
State	Published - Aug 2022

Funding

Earlier versions of this article were presented at Harvard University, Yale University, and the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. For helpful comments on previous drafts, we would like to thank the following individuals: Daniel Encinas, Emilio Lehoucq, Pilar Manzi, Eileen McDonagh, Daniel Quiroga, Bridget Ritz, Andrés Rodríguez-Cáceres, Andrés Schelp, Eva Thomann, Christopher Winship, Jason Wittenberg, the participants in our course on “Set-Theoretic Methods,” and the anonymous reviewers at Quality and Quantity.

Keywords

Causation
Comparative-historical analysis
Hume
QCA
Qualitative methodology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Statistics and Probability
General Social Sciences

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10.1007/s11135-021-01190-y

Cite this

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title = "A regularity theory of causality for the social sciences",

abstract = "This article discusses a regularity theory of causality (RTC) for the social sciences. With RTC, causality is a relationship between X and Y characterized by three features: (1) temporal order; (2) spatiotemporal connection; and (3) constant conjunction. The article discusses each of these three features, situating them within work in the social sciences. The article explores how scholars in the fields of comparative-historical analysis (CHA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) implicitly understand causality in terms of these three features. Special attention is focused on the concern of CHA with methods for establishing the spatiotemporal connection between cause and outcome. Likewise, special attention is focused on the concern of QCA with establishing constant conjunction in the form of non-spurious regularities. The article compares RTC with two other theories of causality: causal power theories, which focus on the activation of entities with generative capacities, and counterfactual theories, which view individual causes as difference-makers for outcomes. The article concludes with a call for scholars in the social sciences who implicitly use RTC to begin to do so explicitly and more self-consciously.",

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AB - This article discusses a regularity theory of causality (RTC) for the social sciences. With RTC, causality is a relationship between X and Y characterized by three features: (1) temporal order; (2) spatiotemporal connection; and (3) constant conjunction. The article discusses each of these three features, situating them within work in the social sciences. The article explores how scholars in the fields of comparative-historical analysis (CHA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) implicitly understand causality in terms of these three features. Special attention is focused on the concern of CHA with methods for establishing the spatiotemporal connection between cause and outcome. Likewise, special attention is focused on the concern of QCA with establishing constant conjunction in the form of non-spurious regularities. The article compares RTC with two other theories of causality: causal power theories, which focus on the activation of entities with generative capacities, and counterfactual theories, which view individual causes as difference-makers for outcomes. The article concludes with a call for scholars in the social sciences who implicitly use RTC to begin to do so explicitly and more self-consciously.

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A regularity theory of causality for the social sciences

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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