Explanation In Social Sciences Research Articles

Hayekian psychological economics: a preliminary look

Abstract Recently, there has been a lively discussion of “Hayekian Behavioral Economics” in Behavioral Public Policy). We aim to contribute to this debate by identifying the main building blocks of a Hayekian psychology. We highlight that the starting point for Hayek was the quest to understand why humans are typically quite successful in navigating the world. In Hayek's framework, the individual mind is conceptualized as a “system within a system”, i.e., the mind is a complex adaptive system that is continuously interacting with the wider socio-cultural system. Three core ideas are central to a Hayekian psychology: subjectivity, learning and adaptation. We argue that these ideas are quite different from the still dominant heuristics-and-biases perspective and lead to different emphases in economic and social science explanations. One, economists should be cautious in their interpretation of experimental findings since subjective meaning is central to agents' behavior. Two, static and isolated models of individuals' biases might underestimate people's capacity to learn with and from others. And three, despite complex processes of adaptation of the mind and the market, a Hayekian framework is consistent with economists' “explanations of the principle” and “pattern predictions.”

Producing Locally Causal Explanations in Qualitative Research by Using a Realist Phenomenological Methodology

This article argues that qualitative researchers should focus more attention on producing locally causal explanations for social phenomena. To enable qualitative researchers to achieve this goal, this paper introduces a novel, step-by-step methodology for analysing qualitative data called the ‘Realist Phenomenological Method’. The Realist Phenomenological Method does not represent a novel philosophical insight because several studies have already adopted a realistic phenomenological approach in a philosophical context. Rather, this article’s novelty lies in its methodological contribution. The introduction of the Realist Phenomenological Method marks an advancement in qualitative research because it is the first formalized analytical methodology to merge methods inspired by critical realism and descriptive phenomenology. Furthermore, this method represents an advancement in qualitative research due to it enabling qualitative researchers to produce causal explanations for social phenomena. This advancement has important implications for qualitative researchers who aim to influence public policy, as any public policymaker who wants to suggest how a social problem can be addressed must first possess an awareness of what is causing the problem. This article begins by introducing the need for a new outlook on causality in qualitative research and outlining how inspiration has been taken from critical realism and descriptive phenomenology in designing the Realist Phenomenological Method. The step-by-step methodology of the Realist Phenomenological Method is then introduced, and an account is provided of how this novel methodology can advance understandings around causal explanations in qualitative research and social science. Interview extracts taken from the author’s doctoral dissertation are then used to frame each stage of the Realist Phenomenological Method and demonstrate how the method can be implemented effectively. The paper concludes that the Realist Phenomenological Method can be useful to both qualitative researchers and policymakers who aim to address social issues through effectively identifying the causes of such problems.

The social science perspective on the Fermi paradox

Abstract The Fermi paradox points to the apparent contradiction between the idea that the emergence of life and civilization on Earth is an objective process following the general rules of Nature and that there are no visible signs of other civilizations beyond Earth. The Fermi paradox is widely discussed in astronomical, biological and other natural sciences but almost totally ignored by social sciences, even though more than half of known explanations deal with intentions and behaviours of extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) or social aspects of the evolution of technological civilizations. The article analyses the problem and possible solutions to the Fermi paradox from the perspective of social sciences. In this article I argue that the Fermi paradox is primarily a social science problem, and the most plausible solutions have to contain some form of social science explanations. Three types of explanations are discussed, namely, those related to ETCs’ intentions, capacities and the consequences of their decisions and activities. I argue that attempts to explain the paradox by referring to specific goals and motives of ETCs are the least plausible. Arguments related to the capacities and consequences are more solid but do not convincingly solve the paradox. I conclude that the Fermi paradox is an important problem for social sciences whether ETCs exist or not, and it should attract greater attention from social scientists.

Darfur Model, Rwanda, and the ICTR: John Hagan’s Sociology of Genocide Continued

AbstractCore contributions from John Hagan’s scholarship on genocide are at stake in this article. First, this article examines, for the Rwandan genocide, the applicability of Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond’s multi-level causal model of genocide, developed in Darfur and the Crime of Genocide. Asking how causal factors and processes highlighted in that model play out in scholarship on the Rwandan genocide, it moves toward answering the question of external validity versus historical specificity. Second, the article examines, again with a focus on Rwanda, the relationship between social scientific explanation and judicial thought. While it highlights—in line with the first author’s previous work—how judicial narratives address or select out core factors highlighted in the Darfur model, the article focuses—in line with Hagan’s Justice in the Balkans—on the question of what knowledge social science can nevertheless gain from court proceedings. An analysis of a sample of cases processed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda identifies overlaps with social science analyses, but it also highlights distinctions.

Questions and Explanations in Sociology

This is a study of an action research project conducted in one of the biggest university departments for sociology in a Central Eastern European capital during the first half of the 2000s. The paper shows that researchers’ images of society have a strong impact on social scientific methodology, scientific explanations and narratives. I offer an example of how realist approaches to science and technology studies can be used in a field study and discuss the benefits and limitations of such an endeavor, which I define as an interpretive and explanatory social scientific work. The analysis shows ways in which latent knowledge structures influenced the wording of a questionnaire used in the research, the types of data that were gathered, and how the data were interpreted. These knowledge structures include notions concerning local policy discussions, different social policy traditions, and images of a Roma minority struggling with the effects of structural poverty and prejudices.

Replacement naturalism and the limits of experimental jurisprudence

ABSTRACT This essay is concerned with Brian Leiter’s so-called replacement naturalism, according to which the traditional methodology of conceptual jurisprudence ‘should be replaced by reliance on the best social scientific explanations of legal phenomena.’ I argue that, although the methodology of experimental jurisprudence is the only plausible replacement for the traditional methodology, it cannot can replace the philosophical methods traditionally used to address conceptual issues and, further, that experimental jurisprudence needs a theoretical foundation that properly locates its role relative to that of conceptual theorising and clarifies its methodology. To this end, I discuss three recent studies that attempt to ascertain the intuitions of competent speakers on three longstanding conceptual disputes about law: two attempt to show our folk concept of law is antipositivist, whereas the other attempts to show our folk concept of law is consistent with the existence of sanction-less legal systems. I argue that all three studies suffer from defects indicating the empirical methodology of experimental jurisprudence can supplement, but cannot replace, the traditional philosophical methodology for addressing conceptual questions. I argue, finally and far more worrisomely, that the last study calls into question its usefulness even in supplementing the traditional philosophical methodology.

An Analytical Approach to Culture

In this paper, I outline a general framework for cultural analysis consistent with an “analytic” approach to explanation in social science. The proposed approach provides coherent solutions to thorny problems in cultural theory. These include providing a coherent definition of culture (and the “cultural”), specifying the nature of cultural units (both simple and complex), and outlining the processes making possible episodes of cultural genesis, transformation, and reproduction within bounded units characterized as cultural causal systems.

World politics, critical realism and the future of humanity: an interview with Heikki Patomäki, Part 2

ABSTRACT In Part 1 of this interview, Professor Patomäki discussed his work and career up to the Global Financial Crisis. In Part 2 he turns to his later work. Questions and issues range over the use of retroduction and retrodiction, the degree of openness and closure of systems, and the role of iconic models, and scenario-building and counterfactuals in social scientific explanation and the exploration of possible and likely futures (distinguished from desirable futures). Patomäki suggests that a variant of his ‘scenario A’ captures significant features of an increasingly competitive and conflictual world. Among other matters, Patomäki also discusses his recent work on the war in Ukraine, his ‘field theory’ of global political economy, and the possibility of world statehood. The interview concludes with Patomäki’s views on the imperative of hope.

Explaining with Intentional Omissions

AbstractDetermining the human activity that social processes consist in is a central task for the philosophy of the social sciences. This paper asks: which conception of agency arising from contemporary action theory is the most suitable for social science explanation? It is argued that a movement‐centered, Davidsonian picture of agency is not suitable for explaining certain social processes such as strikes and boycotts because, instead of intentional bodily movements, they are explained by the intentional omissions of agents. I propose that instead of intentional bodily movements, social processes are better explained by phenomena in which an agent is taking an active relation both to her mental or bodily processes as well as to what is happening around her. Thus, to fully explain social processes, a comprehensive theory of agency that can account for intentional actions and intentional omissions and a conception of agency that includes both materialist and volitionalist aspects is needed.

Social Action Explanation and Intentions in Sociology and Social Sciences

Social Action Explanation and Intentions in Sociology and Social Sciences

Notes on Contributors

Previous article FreeNotes on ContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJacob Collins is associate professor of history at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, where he teaches courses in modern European history. His first book is The Anthropological Turn: French Political Thought after 1968 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). He is a member of the New Left Review’s editorial board, and his current book project is an intellectual history of autobiography.Inés Escobar González is an anthropologist specializing in social, economic, and political transformation in Mexico and the Americas. She is a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. Her recent publications include “L’informalité de l’inclusion: Réforme, logement et finances dans les nouvelles périphéries de Mexique, le cas de Guadalajara” (L’Harmattan, 2021). She teaches courses on ethnographic methods, financialization, and the political economy of poverty in Latin America. She is currently writing a book on the afterlives of inclusion in Mexico.Trevor Jackson is assistant professor in the Department of History at George Washington University, where he teaches and researches the history of inequality, capitalism, and financial crisis, mostly but not exclusively in early modern Europe. His first book, Impunity and Capitalism: Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690–1830, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.Jaewoong Jeon is assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University. His work is centered on the history of capitalism in East Asia and often takes the form of comparative macrohistory.Tad Skotnicki teaches and writes about the politics and culture of capitalism as well as social scientific reason. He is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and published The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture with Stanford University Press in 2021. His current research deals with futurelessness in capitalist societies, on the one hand, and the role of totalities in social scientific explanations, on the other.Matthew Soener is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses on social theory and political economy. His research centers on financialization, globalization, and inequality. More recently he has begun focusing on the political economy of climate change and fossil fuels. His work has been published in Socio-Economic Review, Economy and Society, New Political Economy, Sociological Forum, and Sociology Compass. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Historical Studies Volume 9, Number 2Fall 2022 Sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT) Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721839 © 2022 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Holdouts in the South Pacific: Explaining Death Penalty Retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga

The South Pacific forms a cohesive region with broadly similar cultural attributes, legal systems and colonial histories. A comparative analysis starts from the assumption that these countries should also have similar criminal justice policies. However, until 2022, both Papua New Guinea and Tonga were retentionist death penalty outliers in the South Pacific, a region home to seven other fully abolitionist members of the United Nations. In this article, we use the comparative method to explain why Papua New Guinea and Tonga have pursued a different death penalty trajectory than their regional neighbours. Eschewing the traditional social science explanations for death penalty retention, we suggest two novel explanations for ongoing retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga: the law and order crisis in the former and the traditionally powerful monarchy in the latter.

Foundations of Theory in PRC History: Mass Communications Research, Political Culture, and the Values Paradigm

AbstractThis article describes the US origins of the field of PRC history. It argues that research on PRC history is widely derived from an approach to knowledge that predates area studies: the theory that societies can be controlled and changed through the transformation of human cognition—referred to as “public opinion,” “values,” “culture,” “political culture,” “tradition,” or “belief”—by nonviolent means. The author calls this approach to knowledge the values paradigm. A separate, but related argument is that this paradigm has proven more important than the availability or content of new sources in determining how PRC history has been written. The aim behind these arguments is twofold: to highlight the intellectual debt (or burden) that links PRC history, via area studies, to policy science; and to elucidate other ways of guiding research in place of the increasingly exhausted values paradigm–based approach. The conclusions they lead to are that historical and social scientific explanations of political change in China have become intellectually dependent on the abstraction of mass consciousness, and that this abstraction has been used to obscure the endemic violence of Maoism.

Integrating explanation and prediction in computational social science.

Computational social science is more than just large repositories of digital data and the computational methods needed to construct and analyse them. It also represents a convergence of different fields with different ways of thinking about and doing science. The goal of this Perspective is to provide some clarity around how these approaches differ from one another and to propose how they might be productively integrated. Towards this end we make two contributions. The first is a schema for thinking about research activities along two dimensions-the extent to which work is explanatory, focusing on identifying and estimating causal effects, and the degree of consideration given to testing predictions of outcomes-and how these two priorities can complement, rather than compete with, one another. Our second contribution is to advocate that computational social scientists devote more attention to combining prediction and explanation, which we call integrative modelling, and to outline some practical suggestions for realizing this goal.

Описание и объяснение в социальных науках в рамках аналитической философии А. Данто

Описание и объяснение в социальных науках в рамках аналитической философии А. Данто

Excuse and justification: What’s explanation and understanding got to do with it?

A well-worn French proverb pronounces ‘ tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’ (‘to understand all is to forgive all’). Is forgiveness the inevitable consequence of social scientific understanding of the actions and lives of perpetrators of serious wrongdoing? Do social scientific explanations provide excuses or justifications for the perpetrators of the actions that the explanations purport to explain? In this essay, I seek clarification of these intertwined explanatory and moral questions.

Apocalypse without anxiety: the end times for a Caribbean religion

Affect has not been entirely established as a casual explanation in social science. The classic academic accounts of millennial movements emphasise both a period of ‘unease’ in the ambient atmosphere or ‘of tension’ at the actual start, and then a periodic culmination of fear or extreme emotion as the movement gains a following and the prophecy accelerates so much so, that ‘apocalyptic expectation’ equates with ‘anxiety’. In the instance examined here, a new Caribbean religion, there may well have been identified anxieties around the time of the founder’s visions, but once established the group have little strong emotion, negative or otherwise, although always facing the imminent end of all things.

Comparative Area Studies: Epistemological and Methodological Foundations and a Practical Application

In recent decades, area studies have been transformed from mostly descriptive ethnographic and historical accounts to theory-oriented and analytical approaches. They retain some of their depth and cultural specificity, but have been widened in a comparative sense to come up with some broader social scientific explanations. This has been enhanced by more recent systematic comparative methods such as “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” (QCA) and related procedures, which are particularly suitable for medium-N studies of specific regions at the macro-level and cross-area analyses in contrast to more common statistical approaches. This paper discusses the epistemological background of this approach as well as recent methodological developments. As an illustration, it provides an example of an ongoing large international “cross-area” research project concerned with successful democratic transformations in different world regions and more recent threats to democratic stability and some of their underlying causes. Here, in particular, the relationships between level of socio-economic development and liberal democracy (the “Lipset hypothesis”) and the effects of “good governance” in terms of the World Bank indicators on democratic stability are investigated. This is done on the basis of selected “cross-area” cases with the help of both crisp-set and fuzzy-set QCA. In this way, both the utility of this approach for “medium-range theorizing” in the social sciences and possible practical-political applications are demonstrated.

The Place of Max Weber in Ricœur’s Philosophy: Power, Ideology, Explanation

This article offers an encompassing interpretation of Paul Ricœur’s reception of Max Weber’s sociology. Three main domains in which Ricœur redeployed and revised insights from Weber are examined: (1) political responsibility and the definition of the state, (2) significant categories for understanding social interaction (notably ideology and authority) and the social ontology implied by this view on action and, finally, (3) the role of explanation in the interpretive social sciences. As a whole, this article argues that Weber was a significant interlocutor of Ricœur on a number of significant themes in the philosopher’s work. In particular, the article profiles the Weberian aspect of Ricœur’s social and political philosophy.

Mechanistic explanations in the cognitive social sciences: Lessons from three case studies

Discussions of the relations between the social sciences and the cognitive sciences have proliferated in recent years. Our article contributes to the philosophical and methodological foundations of the cognitive social sciences by proposing a framework based on contemporary mechanistic approaches to the philosophy of science to analyze the epistemological, ontological and methodological aspects of research programs at the intersection of the social sciences and the cognitive sciences. We apply this framework to three case studies which address the phenomena of social coordination, transactive memory, and ethnicity. We also assess how successful these research programs have been in providing mechanistic explanations for these phenomena, and where more work remains to be done.