The Logic of Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6244272 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Mahoney (0000-0002-4913-4435, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois), Erin Kimball (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois), Kendra L Koivu (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois), Kendra Koivu (0000-0003-4579-023X, Northwestern University) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 114-146 |
| Publication date | 2009-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Political Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0010-4140 • E-ISSN: 1552-3829 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010414008325433 |
| OpenAlex | W2125202002 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 103 |
| References cited | 49 |
Historical explanations seek to identify the causes of outcomes in particular cases. Although social scientists commonly develop historical explanations, they lack criteria for distinguishing different types of causes and for evaluating the relative importance of alternative causes of the same outcome. This article first provides an inventory of the five types of causes that are normally used in historical explanations: (1) necessary but not sufficient, (2) sufficient but not necessary, (3) necessary and sufficient, (4) INUS, and (5) SUIN causes. It then introduces a new method—sequence elaboration—for evaluating the relative importance of causes. Sequence elaboration assesses the importance of causes through consideration of their position within a sequence and through consideration of the types of causes that make up the sequence as a whole. Throughout the article, methodological points are illustrated with substantive examples from the field of international and comparative studies
Economics · Elaboration · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Positive economics · Sequence (biology · Social science · Sociology · Mathematics · Policy Transfer and Learning · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research
Synchronous failure
Understanding Muslim Countries’ Support for China’s Actions in Xinjiang
Causal Inquiry in International Relations
The New Politics of Austerity
Historical Institutionalism in Political Science
The Politics of Higher Education Tuition Fees and Subsidies
The Historical Legacies of Communism
Regionalização em disputa
The role of dark commemorative and sport events in peaceful coexistence in the Western Balkans
A regularity theory of causality for the social sciences
How and Why Does History Matter for Development Policy
Islamic Politics, Muslim States, and Counterterrorism Tensions
Sociology as a Population Science
Finding Faith in Foreign Policy
Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using R
Set-Theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences
The Policy-Making Capacity of Foreign Ministries in Presidential Regimes
Explanations for adaptations, just‐so stories, and limitations on evidence in evolutionary biology
Fue la crisis de las Malvinas una guerra de distracción? Una reinterpretación del declive argentino a través de la teoría prospectiva
A Seat at the Top? A Historical Appraisal of Brazil’s Case for the UN Security Council
QCA in International Relations
A social milieu perspective of parental influence on adolescents’ entrepreneurial and employment intentions
What Can Causal Process Tracing Offer to Policy Studies? A Review of the Literature
Shifting perceptions of intra-party democracy
Differentiated policy implementation in food safety and animal welfare policymaking
Identifying diverse paths toward successful policy performance in Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) and European Union countries
Rethinking the Methodological Foundation of Historical Political Science
Politicized Transnationalism
Paths towards coalition defection
Causal Claims and the Study of Ethnic Conflict
Education as a Source and Tool of Soft Power in International Relations
The Politics of Marriage Equality
All roads lead to Rome? Analysing the electoral performance of populist radical left parties in Europe (2008-2018)
Causal claims and causal explanation in international studies
Comparison of Women’s Labor Market Participation between Types of Childcare Policies Based on Policy Tool Mix
Single case studies and theory-testing
The logico-formalist turn in comparative and case study methods
Arraying institutional layers in federalism reforms
Shaping EU policy in regional parliaments
The Counterfactual Definition of a Program Effect
Conducting Configurational Comparative Research With Qualitative Comparative Analysis
From Exclusion to Utopia
Africa’s roads to digital development
Political agency and violence
The role of a credit trap on paths to homelessness in the Czech Republic
Leader to Laggard
The socialization of civic participation norms in government
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in der Soziologie – Perspektiven, Potentiale und Anwendungsbereiche / Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Sociology – Perspectives, Potential, and Areas of Application
Soldiers and Protest
Explaining U.S. Military Strategy in Vietnam
Party Matters
Como selecionar casos a partir de diferentes alegações de causalidade
A developmental approach to historical causal inference
Planning for social distancing
Is “legitimized” policy always successful? Policy legitimacy and cultural policy in Korea
The empirical assessment of agency accountability
The curse of agility
Towards a new business history
Not playing the same game? European integration with regions in context
Discovering the prize
The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences
Revisiting the Issue of Democratic Deterioration in Venezuela, 1974-1998
Presidential Delegation to Foreign Ministries
Central banks, monetary stability, and the varieties of capital control liberalization
Goodbye Taiwan; Welcome China
After KKV
Community Policing in Guatemala
Understanding voluntary program performance
The Centralization of Australian Federalism 1901–2010
QCA, 25 Years after “The Comparative Method
Presidential Partisanship Reconsidered
Relationships Among Rivals (RAR)
Realists and Idealists in QCA
Standards of Good Practice and the Methodology of Necessary Conditions in Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Process Sequencing Policy Dynamics
Tales and theories as levers of expert influence
Historical Institutionalism in International Relations
The Global Economic Crisis and the Politics of Non-Transitions
Three strategies to track configurations over time with Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Contrasting and combining the historical counterfactual method and the synthetic control method
Back to Square One
Informative Regress
The Causal Logic of Critical Junctures
Set Diagrams and Qualitative Research
History Rhymes
Unveiling power, or why social science's task is explanation
The logic of counterfactual analysis in case-study explanation
From the Banestado Case to Operation Car Wash
O desenvolvimentismo como legado histórico
Dependência da trajetória e mudança institucional nos processos de desenvolvimento
Factors Driving the Promotion of Hydroelectricity
Political opportunities, not migration flows
The Problem of Infinite Regress
Critical Event Analysis in Case Study Research
Analyzing Relationships of Necessity Not Justin KindBut Alsoin Degree
A Unifying Framework for Causal Analysis in Set-Theoretic Multimethod Research
Fuzzy-set Case Studies
Case Studies Nested in Fuzzy-set QCA on Sufficiency
Comparative Hypothesis Testing Via Process Tracing
Combining QCA and Process Tracing in Set-Theoretic Multi-Method Research
The Military Revolution and Political Change
Fuzzy-Set Social Science
Hitler's willing executioners
Paradigms and Sand Castles
Demanding Democracy
The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism
State Building and Late Development
Politics in Time
Rethinking Social Inquiry
Comparative-historical analysis in contemporary political science
How Institutions Evolve
Explaining War and Peace
Remaking Modernity
The Comparative Method
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers
Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy
Power, Ideas, and New Evidence on the Cold War's End
Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War
Preferences, Constraints, and Choices in July 1914
From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research
Assessing the Trivialness, Relevance, and Relative Importance of Necessary or Sufficient Conditions in Social Science
Set Relations in Social Research
A Simple Multivariate Test for Asymmetric Hypotheses
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
The Rational Deterrence Debate
Causal Complexity and the Study of Politics
A Tale of Two Cultures
Causation
Explanatory Typologies in Qualitative Studies of International Politics
Evidence and Inference in the Comparative Case Study
The Costs of Marginalization
Toward a Unified Theory of Causality
Case Study Methods in the International Relations Subfield
The Methodology of Necessary Conditions
The Mechanismic Worldview
Contingency, Catalysts, and International System Change
Necessary Conditions
Goodness-of-Fit Tests and Descriptive Measures in Fuzzy-Set Analysis
Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisal in Macrocausal Analysis
| Unique citing works | 103 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,06 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2025 (17) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 101 |