Michael Baumgartner
Biographic Data
| ID | 3743297 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Baumgartner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Baumgartner |
| SIGNATURE | BAUMGARTNER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bergen |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1536-2816 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 277 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 35 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Musgrave, Thea (USA)
Constitution, Non-Causal Explanation, and Demarcation
In philosophy of science, constitutive explanations have attracted much attention since Craver’s influential book Explaining the Brain (2007). His Mutual Manipulability (MM) theory of constitution aimed to explicate constitution as a non-causal explanatory relation and to demarcate between constituents and non-constituents. But MM received decisive criticism. In response, Craver et al. (2021) have recently proposed a new theory, called Matched In…
Data Imbalances in Coincidence Analysis
In this paper, we investigate the conditions under which data imbalances, a common data characteristic that occurs when factor values are unevenly distributed, are problematic for the performance of Coincidence Analysis (CNA). We further examine how such imbalances relate to fragmentation and noise in data. We show that even extreme data imbalances, when not combined with fragmentation or noise, do not negatively affect CNA's performance. However…
Configurational Causal Modeling and Logic Regression
Configurational comparative methods (CCMs) and logic regression methods (LRMs) are two families of exploratory methods that employ very different techniques to analyze data generated by causal structures featuring conjunctural causation and equifinality. Aiming for the same by different means carries a substantive synergy potential, which, however, remains untapped so far because representatives of the two frameworks know little of each other. Th…
Optimizing Consistency and Coverage in Configurational Causal Modeling
Consistency and coverage are two core parameters of model fit used by configurational comparative methods (CCMs) of causal inference. Among causal models that perform equally well in other respects (e.g., robustness or compliance with background theories), those with higher consistency and coverage are typically considered preferable. Finding the optimally obtainable consistency and coverage scores for data [Formula: see text], so far, is a matte…
Boolean Difference-Making
A regularity theory of causation analyses type-level causation in terms of Boolean difference-making. The essential ingredient that helps this theoretical framework overcome the well-known problems of Hume's and Mill's classical regularity theoretic proposals is a principle of non-redundancy: only redundancy-free Boolean dependency structures track causation. The first part of this paper argues that the recent regularity theoretic literature has …
The PC Algorithm and the Inference to Constitution
Gebharter has proposed using one of the best known Bayesian network causal discovery algorithms, PC, to identify the constitutive dependencies underwriting mechanistic explanations. His proposal assumes that mechanistic constitution behaves like deterministic direct causation, such that PC is directly applicable to mixed variable sets featuring both causal and constitutive dependencies. Gebharter claims that such mixed sets, under certain restric…
Robustness and Model Selection in Configurational Causal Modeling
In recent years, proponents of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) have advanced various dimensions of robustness as instrumental to model selection. But these robustness considerations have not led to computable robustness measures, and they have typically been applied to the analysis of real-life data with unknown underlying causal structures, rendering it impossible to determine exactly how they influence the correctness of selected mod…
Qualitative Comparative Analysis and robust sufficiency
Some methodologists take the search target of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to be causal INUS-conditions, others contend that QCA should instead be used to search for some form of sufficiency that is more substantive than mere Boolean sufficiency. While the notion of an INUS-condition has a long and uncontroversial definitional history, Adrian Dusa, in a recent paper, is the first to explicitly define a notion of substantive sufficiency,…
Domination over the Risorgimento
In this article I argue that Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony assumes a pivotal role in advancing the romantically tinged narrative in Luchino Visconti’s film Senso (1954) through a politically recoded message. Visconti offers in this film a reflection upon the political climate in Venetia during the Risorgimento through the pre-eminent role of music. In particular, Bruckner’s music emphasizes the condition of the Venetians under Austrian rulers…
Jean-Luc Godard’s Prénom
In an interview discussing Prénom: Carmen (1983), Jean-Luc Godard underlines the correlation between the processes of music and filmmaking: ‘Making a film is like performing a quartet’. The emphasis on such a relationship between these two virtually different modes of artistic expression, the act of reflecting upon art in general, and the final artwork, represents Godard’s primary concern in this film. In order to emphasise this self-reflexive st…
Causal modeling with multi-value and fuzzy-set Coincidence Analysis
Coincidence Analysis (CNA) is a configurational comparative method of causal data analysis that is related to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) but, contrary to the latter, is custom-built for analyzing causal structures with multiple outcomes. So far, however, CNA has only been capable of processing dichotomous variables, which greatly limited its scope of applicability. This paper generalizes CNA for multi-value variables as well as contin…
Often Trusted but Never (Properly) Tested
To date, hundreds of researchers have employed the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of causal inference. In a recent series of simulation studies, however, several authors have questioned the correctness of QCA in this connection. Some prominent representatives of the method have replied in turn that simulations with artificial data are unsuited for assessing QCA. We take issue with either position in this impasse.…
Chanson, canzone, Schlager, and song
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is an event in which the cultural differences of many European countries are celebrated and renewed every year in a major televised media spectacle. Switzerland, with its four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romanic or "Romansch") and respective regional traditions, offers the most prominent example of multicultural national identity in the ESC. This chapter examines how Switzerland has pr…
An Abductive Theory of Constitution
The first part of this article finds Craver’s mutual manipulability theory (MM) of constitution inadequate, as it definitionally ties constitution to the feasibility of ideal experiments, which, however, are unrealizable in principle. As an alternative, the second part develops an abductive theory of constitution (NDC), which exploits the fact that phenomena and their constituents are unbreakably coupled via common causes. The best explanation fo…
Model Ambiguities in Configurational Comparative Research
For many years, sociologists, political scientists, and management scholars have readily relied on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of configurational causal modeling. However, this article reveals that a severe problem in the application of QCA has gone unnoticed so far: model ambiguities. These arise when multiple causal models fare equally well in accounting for configurational data. Mainly due to the uncritical import of…
Constitutive Relevance, Mutual Manipulability, and Fat-Handedness
The first part of this article argues that if Craver’s ([2007a], [2007b]) popular mutual manipulability account (MM) of mechanistic constitution is embedded within Woodward’s ([2003]) interventionist theory of causation—for which it is explicitly designed—it either undermines the mechanistic research paradigm by entailing that there do not exist relationships of constitutive relevance, or it gives rise to the unwanted consequence that constitutio…
Back to Square One
We thank the editors of Comparative Political Studies for having invited us to join this symposium. Rather than addressing separate points made by Munck, Paine, and Schneider, we focus on two related problems that unite their pieces, that are of high relevance beyond this symposium, and that we have addressed only indirectly in our original article. The first problem concerns the over-inflation of the Boolean concept of necessity in Qualitative C…
Still Lost in Translation! A Correction of Three Misunderstandings Between Configurational Comparativists and Regressional Analysts
Even after a quarter-century of debate in political science and sociology, representatives of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) and those of regressional analytic methods (RAMs) continue talking at cross purposes. In this article, we clear up three fundamental misunderstandings that have been widespread within and between the two communities, namely that (a) CCMs and RAMs use the same logic of inference, (b) the same hypotheses can be as…
Modeling Causal Irrelevance in Evaluations of Configurational Comparative Methods
In volume 44 of Sociological Methodology, Lucas and Szatrowski argued that the method of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) suffers from a built-in confirmation bias due to a proclivity for including conditions in its output models whose corresponding factors are not systematically correlated with the endogenous factor. The authors therefore urged that QCA be abandoned. With this comment, we pursue four related objectives: first, we explain w…
Lovano, Joe
Threadgill, Henry
Murray, David
Parsimony and Causality
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Still Lost in Translation! A Correction of Three Misunderstandings Between Configurational Comparativists and Regressional Analysts
Even after a quarter-century of debate in political science and sociology, representatives of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) and those of regressional analytic methods (RAMs) continue talking at cross purposes. In this article, we clear up three fundamental misunderstandings that have been widespread within and between the two communities, namely that (a) CCMs and RAMs use the same logic of inference, (b) the same hypotheses can be as…
Model Ambiguities in Configurational Comparative Research
For many years, sociologists, political scientists, and management scholars have readily relied on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of configurational causal modeling. However, this article reveals that a severe problem in the application of QCA has gone unnoticed so far: model ambiguities. These arise when multiple causal models fare equally well in accounting for configurational data. Mainly due to the uncritical import of…
Often Trusted but Never (Properly) Tested
To date, hundreds of researchers have employed the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of causal inference. In a recent series of simulation studies, however, several authors have questioned the correctness of QCA in this connection. Some prominent representatives of the method have replied in turn that simulations with artificial data are unsuited for assessing QCA. We take issue with either position in this impasse.…
Constitutive Relevance, Mutual Manipulability, and Fat-Handedness
The first part of this article argues that if Craver’s ([2007a], [2007b]) popular mutual manipulability account (MM) of mechanistic constitution is embedded within Woodward’s ([2003]) interventionist theory of causation—for which it is explicitly designed—it either undermines the mechanistic research paradigm by entailing that there do not exist relationships of constitutive relevance, or it gives rise to the unwanted consequence that constitutio…
Inferring Causal Complexity
In The Comparative Method, Ragin (1987) outlined a procedure of Boolean causal reasoning operating on pure coincidence data that has since become widely known as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) among social scientists. QCA-including its recent forms as presented in Ragin (2000, 2008)-is designed to analyze causal structures featuring no more than one effect and a possibly complex configuration of mutually independent direct causes of that …
An Abductive Theory of Constitution
The first part of this article finds Craver’s mutual manipulability theory (MM) of constitution inadequate, as it definitionally ties constitution to the feasibility of ideal experiments, which, however, are unrealizable in principle. As an alternative, the second part develops an abductive theory of constitution (NDC), which exploits the fact that phenomena and their constituents are unbreakably coupled via common causes. The best explanation fo…
Causal modeling with multi-value and fuzzy-set Coincidence Analysis
Coincidence Analysis (CNA) is a configurational comparative method of causal data analysis that is related to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) but, contrary to the latter, is custom-built for analyzing causal structures with multiple outcomes. So far, however, CNA has only been capable of processing dichotomous variables, which greatly limited its scope of applicability. This paper generalizes CNA for multi-value variables as well as contin…
Detecting Causal Chains in Small-n Data
The first part of this article shows that qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)-also in its most recent form as in Ragin (2008) -does not correctly analyze data generated by causal chains. The incorrect modeling of data originating from chains essentially stems from QCA's reliance on Quine-McCluskey optimization to eliminate redundancies from sufficient and necessary conditions. Baumgartner (2009a , 2009b ) has introduced a Boolean methodology, …
Back to Square One
We thank the editors of Comparative Political Studies for having invited us to join this symposium. Rather than addressing separate points made by Munck, Paine, and Schneider, we focus on two related problems that unite their pieces, that are of high relevance beyond this symposium, and that we have addressed only indirectly in our original article. The first problem concerns the over-inflation of the Boolean concept of necessity in Qualitative C…
Modeling Causal Irrelevance in Evaluations of Configurational Comparative Methods
In volume 44 of Sociological Methodology, Lucas and Szatrowski argued that the method of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) suffers from a built-in confirmation bias due to a proclivity for including conditions in its output models whose corresponding factors are not systematically correlated with the endogenous factor. The authors therefore urged that QCA be abandoned. With this comment, we pursue four related objectives: first, we explain w…
A Coincidence Analysis of a Causal Chain
This article applies coincidence analysis ( CNA), a Boolean method of causal analysis presented in Baumgartner (2009a), to configurational data on the Swiss minaret vote of 2009. CNA is related to qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) (Ragin 2008), but contrary to the latter does not minimize sufficient and necessary conditions by means of Quine-McCluskey optimization, but based on its own custom built optimization algorithm. The latter greatly …
Adequate formalization
Uncovering deterministic causal structures
Boolean Difference-Making
A regularity theory of causation analyses type-level causation in terms of Boolean difference-making. The essential ingredient that helps this theoretical framework overcome the well-known problems of Hume's and Mill's classical regularity theoretic proposals is a principle of non-redundancy: only redundancy-free Boolean dependency structures track causation. The first part of this paper argues that the recent regularity theoretic literature has …
Robustness and Model Selection in Configurational Causal Modeling
In recent years, proponents of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) have advanced various dimensions of robustness as instrumental to model selection. But these robustness considerations have not led to computable robustness measures, and they have typically been applied to the analysis of real-life data with unknown underlying causal structures, rendering it impossible to determine exactly how they influence the correctness of selected mod…
Data Imbalances in Coincidence Analysis
In this paper, we investigate the conditions under which data imbalances, a common data characteristic that occurs when factor values are unevenly distributed, are problematic for the performance of Coincidence Analysis (CNA). We further examine how such imbalances relate to fragmentation and noise in data. We show that even extreme data imbalances, when not combined with fragmentation or noise, do not negatively affect CNA's performance. However…
Optimizing Consistency and Coverage in Configurational Causal Modeling
Consistency and coverage are two core parameters of model fit used by configurational comparative methods (CCMs) of causal inference. Among causal models that perform equally well in other respects (e.g., robustness or compliance with background theories), those with higher consistency and coverage are typically considered preferable. Finding the optimally obtainable consistency and coverage scores for data [Formula: see text], so far, is a matte…
The PC Algorithm and the Inference to Constitution
Gebharter has proposed using one of the best known Bayesian network causal discovery algorithms, PC, to identify the constitutive dependencies underwriting mechanistic explanations. His proposal assumes that mechanistic constitution behaves like deterministic direct causation, such that PC is directly applicable to mixed variable sets featuring both causal and constitutive dependencies. Gebharter claims that such mixed sets, under certain restric…
Exhibiting interpretational and representational validity
Coates, Gloria
Adequate formalization
Uncovering deterministic causal structures
Inferring Causal Complexity
In The Comparative Method, Ragin (1987) outlined a procedure of Boolean causal reasoning operating on pure coincidence data that has since become widely known as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) among social scientists. QCA-including its recent forms as presented in Ragin (2000, 2008)-is designed to analyze causal structures featuring no more than one effect and a possibly complex configuration of mutually independent direct causes of that …
Frisell, Bill
Duke Ellington's “East St. Louis Toodle-O” Revisited
"East St. Louis Toodle-O" is probably the only Ellington composition which displays Ellington's mode of reworking and modernizing a work over the course of forty-five years, largely through a process of accommodating the individual characters of the different stylists he had at his disposal at different moments in time. In its first two arrangements, the composition reflects Ellington's rise to success in an exemplary fashion. The first arrangeme…
Detecting Causal Chains in Small-n Data
The first part of this article shows that qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)-also in its most recent form as in Ragin (2008) -does not correctly analyze data generated by causal chains. The incorrect modeling of data originating from chains essentially stems from QCA's reliance on Quine-McCluskey optimization to eliminate redundancies from sufficient and necessary conditions. Baumgartner (2009a , 2009b ) has introduced a Boolean methodology, …
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Braxton, Anthony
Exhibiting interpretational and representational validity
A Coincidence Analysis of a Causal Chain
This article applies coincidence analysis ( CNA), a Boolean method of causal analysis presented in Baumgartner (2009a), to configurational data on the Swiss minaret vote of 2009. CNA is related to qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) (Ragin 2008), but contrary to the latter does not minimize sufficient and necessary conditions by means of Quine-McCluskey optimization, but based on its own custom built optimization algorithm. The latter greatly …
Lovano, Joe
Threadgill, Henry
Murray, David
Parsimony and Causality
Constitutive Relevance, Mutual Manipulability, and Fat-Handedness
The first part of this article argues that if Craver’s ([2007a], [2007b]) popular mutual manipulability account (MM) of mechanistic constitution is embedded within Woodward’s ([2003]) interventionist theory of causation—for which it is explicitly designed—it either undermines the mechanistic research paradigm by entailing that there do not exist relationships of constitutive relevance, or it gives rise to the unwanted consequence that constitutio…
Back to Square One
We thank the editors of Comparative Political Studies for having invited us to join this symposium. Rather than addressing separate points made by Munck, Paine, and Schneider, we focus on two related problems that unite their pieces, that are of high relevance beyond this symposium, and that we have addressed only indirectly in our original article. The first problem concerns the over-inflation of the Boolean concept of necessity in Qualitative C…
Still Lost in Translation! A Correction of Three Misunderstandings Between Configurational Comparativists and Regressional Analysts
Even after a quarter-century of debate in political science and sociology, representatives of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) and those of regressional analytic methods (RAMs) continue talking at cross purposes. In this article, we clear up three fundamental misunderstandings that have been widespread within and between the two communities, namely that (a) CCMs and RAMs use the same logic of inference, (b) the same hypotheses can be as…
Modeling Causal Irrelevance in Evaluations of Configurational Comparative Methods
In volume 44 of Sociological Methodology, Lucas and Szatrowski argued that the method of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) suffers from a built-in confirmation bias due to a proclivity for including conditions in its output models whose corresponding factors are not systematically correlated with the endogenous factor. The authors therefore urged that QCA be abandoned. With this comment, we pursue four related objectives: first, we explain w…
Chanson, canzone, Schlager, and song
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is an event in which the cultural differences of many European countries are celebrated and renewed every year in a major televised media spectacle. Switzerland, with its four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romanic or "Romansch") and respective regional traditions, offers the most prominent example of multicultural national identity in the ESC. This chapter examines how Switzerland has pr…
An Abductive Theory of Constitution
The first part of this article finds Craver’s mutual manipulability theory (MM) of constitution inadequate, as it definitionally ties constitution to the feasibility of ideal experiments, which, however, are unrealizable in principle. As an alternative, the second part develops an abductive theory of constitution (NDC), which exploits the fact that phenomena and their constituents are unbreakably coupled via common causes. The best explanation fo…
Model Ambiguities in Configurational Comparative Research
For many years, sociologists, political scientists, and management scholars have readily relied on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of configurational causal modeling. However, this article reveals that a severe problem in the application of QCA has gone unnoticed so far: model ambiguities. These arise when multiple causal models fare equally well in accounting for configurational data. Mainly due to the uncritical import of…
Causal modeling with multi-value and fuzzy-set Coincidence Analysis
Coincidence Analysis (CNA) is a configurational comparative method of causal data analysis that is related to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) but, contrary to the latter, is custom-built for analyzing causal structures with multiple outcomes. So far, however, CNA has only been capable of processing dichotomous variables, which greatly limited its scope of applicability. This paper generalizes CNA for multi-value variables as well as contin…
Often Trusted but Never (Properly) Tested
To date, hundreds of researchers have employed the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the purpose of causal inference. In a recent series of simulation studies, however, several authors have questioned the correctness of QCA in this connection. Some prominent representatives of the method have replied in turn that simulations with artificial data are unsuited for assessing QCA. We take issue with either position in this impasse.…
Jean-Luc Godard’s Prénom
In an interview discussing Prénom: Carmen (1983), Jean-Luc Godard underlines the correlation between the processes of music and filmmaking: ‘Making a film is like performing a quartet’. The emphasis on such a relationship between these two virtually different modes of artistic expression, the act of reflecting upon art in general, and the final artwork, represents Godard’s primary concern in this film. In order to emphasise this self-reflexive st…
Computer Science (23 works) · Mathematics (17 works) · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research (16 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Statistics (11 works) · Econometrics (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Qualitative comparative analysis (10 works) · Advanced Causal Inference Techniques (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (8 works)