Causation in Meso-History

Dan LittleUniversity of Michigan-Dearborn

SSHA 2001

Goal of paper

– To identify the conditions involved inpostulating causal relations among historicalentities, structures and processes

– How do social structures exercise causalpowers?

– Do causal claims need to be generalizable?– How does the historian identify and justify a

causal hypothesis?

Conjunctural contingent meso-history

– There is a body of work in history andhistorical sociology in which it is possible toidentify the strands of a new paradigm ofhistorical inquiry—what might be called“meso-history.”

– contingency in historical causation– conjunctural causation– meso-level of analysis

Examples of meso-historicalcausal claims

– Population increase causes technologicalinnovation.

– A free press causes a low incidence of famine.– The fiscal system of the ancien regime caused

the collapse of the French monarchy.– Transport systems cause patterns of commerce

and habitation.– New market conditions cause changes in

systems of norms

Examples

– A new irrigation system causes changes infamily organization

– Concentrated urban demand causesdevelopment of an infrastructure to support aflow of timber and grain into the metropolis

– The principal-agent problem represented bycattle herding in Kenya causes the emergenceof the practice of bridewealth

– Citizens’ shared sense of justice causes stabilityof existing legal system

Patterns of causal relations

– change in structure causes change in behaviorchange in structure causes change in normschange in structure causes change in structurepersistence of norms causes persistence ofstructure

Patterns of causal relations

– persistence of structure causes persistence ofnormschange of material resources leads to change ofnorms and practiceschange in population or density causes changein structurechange in population or density causes changein process (e.g. technological innovation)

Causal realism

– The central idea of causal ascription is the ideaof causal powers and causal mechanisms: toassert that A causes B is to assert that A in thecontext of typical causal fields brings about B(or increases the probability of the occurrenceof B).

– There are real causal powers underlying causalrelations.

– Causal relations are not constituted byregularities or laws.

Causal realism

– Rather, social causal relations are constitutedby the causal powers and causal mechanisms ofvarious social events.

– Social entities exercise causal powers throughthe effects that they have on individual choices,preferences, and beliefs.

Singular and generic causalascription

– singular causation: an iceberg caused thesinking of the Titanic

– generic causation: hyperinflation causespolitical instability

– a singular causal judgment can be supported byhypotheses about generic causation

Causal properties of structuresand processes

– The historiography of meso-history postulatesthat there are real, causally influential structuresand processes which have genuine historicaleffects and which are amenable to rigorousscrutiny and explanation.

Explanatory goals of meso-history

– To seek out the specific institutions, structures,and processes that are embodied in a givenhistorical setting

– to identify the possibilities and constraints thatthese structures create for agents within thosesettings

– to construct explanations that link the causalproperties of those structures to the outcomesthat are found in the historical record.

Microfoundations

– There is no pure social-social causation.– The causal powers or capacities of a social

entity inhere in its power to affect individuals’behavior through incentives, preference-formation, belief-acquisition, or powers andopportunities.

– The causal capacities of social entities are to beexplained in terms of the structuring ofincentives and opportunities for agents.

Microfoundations

– Social entities possess causal powers in aderivative sense: they possess characteristicsthat affect individuals’ behavior in simple,widespread ways.

– Institutions have effects on individual behavior(incentives, constraints, indoctrination,preference formation), which in turn produceaggregate social outcomes.

Causal properties of socialentities

– Causal properties of social institutions derivefrom a common existential situation for a groupof agents; identify an accessible solution; andinfer that this institutional arrangement willrecur repeatedly.

– Social causal ascriptions thus depend oncommon characteristics of agents (e.g. thecentral axioms of rational choice theory).

Causal properties of socialentities

– Do social entities have causal properties:enduring causal dispositions to bring aboutcertain types of outcomes?

– The causal properties of a social entity consistin the structures that it embodies that affect theactions of individuals (through incentives,opportunities, powers, information).

Agents and structures

– There are two directions of influence betweenindividuals and institutions within the contextof the microfoundations framework.

– Structures constrain individuals.– Individuals through their actions affect, change,

and invent institutions.

Case-study method

– Causal realism gives a justification for theapplication of a common method of socialinquiry, the case-study method.

– The researcher needs to acquaint him/herselfwith a finegrained knowledge of the historicalcircumstances of the Chinese Revolution.

– The researcher must engage in an analysis thatwe may call “process-tracing”: he/she needs tobegin to offer hypotheses about the causalrelations among the factors that emerge fromthe case study.

– The case-study method is a legitimate method

Comparative methodology

– There are a small number of logical methods ofempirical inference through which a hypothesismay be tested.

Social theory and socialcausation

– The empirical procedures commonly used toprobe causation in the social sciences (Mill’smethods and its generalizations, and varioustests of statistical association) almost alwaysunderdetermine the true causal story for a givenensemble of phenomena.

Social theory and socialcausation

– Causal realism thus demands socialtheory—collective action theory, theory ofbureaucracies and institutions, class conflicttheory, economic geography, rational choicetheory, theory of social-property regimes,etc.—since we need to have an analysis of thecausal powers of the various factors in order toaccount for the links in the causal diagram.

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