Causal claims and causal explanation in international studies

Abstract

Existing neopositivist approaches to causal explanation focus their time and effort on the evaluation of nomothetic causal claims, and spend very little energy on the question of how, precisely, a nomothetic generalization explains a particular observed outcome. Against this approach I develop a more pragmatic analysis of the act of explanation in order to flesh out the context of causal explanation more broadly. Causal explanation, I argue, responds to a problem-situation in which the challenge involves how to do something, and unfolds by clarifying why and how some outcome rather than some other outcome came about — thus giving instructions on how to make the desired outcome happen. The resulting account of causal explanation encompasses a wide variety of explanatory strategies including the appeal to causal mechanisms, dispositional properties, everyday experiences, and even nomothetic generalisations; as such, it provides a better and broader basis for thinking about causal explanation in international studies than the restrictive neopositivist models presently on offer.