Rethinking mechanism and process in the geographical analysis of uneven development

Abstract

Speaking directly to economic and political geographers working on uneven development, this article critically examines the deployment of two key concepts, mechanism and process, as analytical tools for causal explanation in geographical analysis during the past two decades. Drawing upon critical realism to develop a theory of mechanism, this article clarifies the conceptual distinction between mechanism and process. Whereas process is conceived as a contingent change in the sequential series of entities and their relations, mechanism serves as a necessary relation to connect an initial causal condition with its particular socio-spatial outcomes in context. This analytical distinction between a contingent process of change and a necessary mechanism for an outcome requires a careful specification of the concrete outcomes to be explained and the working of various mechanisms. Illustrating my case through existing studies of neoliberalization and, briefly, path dependence, I argue that there is a tendency in the literature to conflate mechanism and process in different meso-level theories of socio-spatial change. This conflation, in turn, distorts the causal links in core concepts and reduces their explanatory efficacy in accounting for uneven development. Rethinking mechanism and process can therefore help revitalize systematic explanations of uneven development as one of geography’s core intellectual projects and contributions to the social sciences; it can also allow geographers to engage more productively with the rapidly growing mechanistic thought in analytical sociology, political science and the philosophy of social science during the past two decades.