Unequal polities

Most nations are at least nominally based on the idea of the legal equality of all citizens. This commitment provides a salient pathway through which even the most disadvantaged groups can pursue their goal of achieving greater equality for themselves and their communities, consistent with the defining values of the nation. Some countries, however, have embodied legal differences among groups of their citizens based on the religion or ethnicity of the person. And in these circumstances, pariah groups have no pathway -- legal or moral -- through which to attempt to create a non-violent pathway towards greater social justice for themselves.

Malaysia is a striking example of the latter circumstance. Its constitution and legal system give fundamental privileges to members of the Malay majority, referred to as "Bumiputra" privilege, and accord more limited rights and opportunities to non-Malay groups (Indian, Chinese, Christian, other). It is a polity based on differential rights for different ethnic and religious groups. Many of the most desirable opportunities in Malaysian society -- in employment, government office, contracting, and education -- are reserved or prioritized for Malays, defined as a racial group. It is hard to see how such a political system, defined on the premise of significant legal and economic inequality across different groups, could be justified to members of the subordinate groups. And, in fact, large street demonstrations in 2007 by the Indian community marked an exceptional indication of the discontent these policies create, and the lack of legitimacy these policies create in the whole population.

The question here is a fairly specific one: how can a polity founded on these sorts of invidious and permanent distinctions among groups of its citizens remain stable? Is it possible to generate any variety of "political legitimacy" across the whole population that contributes to political stability in these circumstances of extreme constitutional inequality among ethnic groups? How can the government maintain its power and ability to govern?

In the case of Malaysia the answer to the question about governing seems to be a combination of institution-rigging, force, and intimidation of the large ethnic populations. The constitution sets the stage with its stipulation of Bumiputra privilege. And electoral and parliamentary rules pretty much guarantee a permanent and large Malay majority in the parliament for parties such as the UMNO. So the political rules entrench the political hegemony of the Malay majority. This means that minority ethnic groups and parties have no hope of gaining progress towards legal equality of rights of citizenship through the legal process.

And this is where force and intimidation come in. It would seem that the strategy of mass demonstration and protest would be a natural recourse for large ethnic groups in Malaysia. But the state has made it clear that it will quickly suppress demonstrations with force -- in fact, the 2007 demonstrations were striking by their rarity in Malaysian public life.

But there is a deeper and more sinister kind of force in the air as well. This is the threat of largescale "race riots" directed against Malaysia's Indian and Chinese communities. The riots of 1969 were vicious and destructive, and they are remembered. The threat of pogrom and ethnic cleansing by Malays against Indian and Chinese Malaysians is not far from the surface and it is taken seriously. Rhetoric by UNMO politicians in speeches before parliament reinforce this sense of threat.

The theoretical questions at issue here can be posed from two angles -- the state and the group. From the state's point of view, the question is whether it is possible to navigate the fundamental conflict of interest that is created between Malays and the rest of Malaysian society through some combination of minor accommodation and the threat of repression. Can a consensus politics, backed by the perennial threat of force, emerge from this kind of fundamental inequality across groups? From the point of view of the large Indian or Chinese Malaysian populations, the question is whether there are tactics of collective action and popular mobilization that might allow them to pursue their demands of social and political equality effectively. Can they turn the tables on the Malay government? Can they gradually create the conditions in which the Malaysian state is compelled to accept the fundamental premises of a just civil society -- equality of all citizens and free rights of political participation for all?

Here is a link to an independent Malaysian news source that many Malaysians have confidence in.

Unequal polities

Most nations are at least nominally based on the idea of the legal equality of all citizens. This commitment provides a salient pathway through which even the most disadvantaged groups can pursue their goal of achieving greater equality for themselves and their communities, consistent with the defining values of the nation. Some countries, however, have embodied legal differences among groups of their citizens based on the religion or ethnicity of the person. And in these circumstances, pariah groups have no pathway -- legal or moral -- through which to attempt to create a non-violent pathway towards greater social justice for themselves.

Malaysia is a striking example of the latter circumstance. Its constitution and legal system give fundamental privileges to members of the Malay majority, referred to as "Bumiputra" privilege, and accord more limited rights and opportunities to non-Malay groups (Indian, Chinese, Christian, other). It is a polity based on differential rights for different ethnic and religious groups. Many of the most desirable opportunities in Malaysian society -- in employment, government office, contracting, and education -- are reserved or prioritized for Malays, defined as a racial group. It is hard to see how such a political system, defined on the premise of significant legal and economic inequality across different groups, could be justified to members of the subordinate groups. And, in fact, large street demonstrations in 2007 by the Indian community marked an exceptional indication of the discontent these policies create, and the lack of legitimacy these policies create in the whole population.

The question here is a fairly specific one: how can a polity founded on these sorts of invidious and permanent distinctions among groups of its citizens remain stable? Is it possible to generate any variety of "political legitimacy" across the whole population that contributes to political stability in these circumstances of extreme constitutional inequality among ethnic groups? How can the government maintain its power and ability to govern?

In the case of Malaysia the answer to the question about governing seems to be a combination of institution-rigging, force, and intimidation of the large ethnic populations. The constitution sets the stage with its stipulation of Bumiputra privilege. And electoral and parliamentary rules pretty much guarantee a permanent and large Malay majority in the parliament for parties such as the UMNO. So the political rules entrench the political hegemony of the Malay majority. This means that minority ethnic groups and parties have no hope of gaining progress towards legal equality of rights of citizenship through the legal process.

And this is where force and intimidation come in. It would seem that the strategy of mass demonstration and protest would be a natural recourse for large ethnic groups in Malaysia. But the state has made it clear that it will quickly suppress demonstrations with force -- in fact, the 2007 demonstrations were striking by their rarity in Malaysian public life.

But there is a deeper and more sinister kind of force in the air as well. This is the threat of largescale "race riots" directed against Malaysia's Indian and Chinese communities. The riots of 1969 were vicious and destructive, and they are remembered. The threat of pogrom and ethnic cleansing by Malays against Indian and Chinese Malaysians is not far from the surface and it is taken seriously. Rhetoric by UNMO politicians in speeches before parliament reinforce this sense of threat.

The theoretical questions at issue here can be posed from two angles -- the state and the group. From the state's point of view, the question is whether it is possible to navigate the fundamental conflict of interest that is created between Malays and the rest of Malaysian society through some combination of minor accommodation and the threat of repression. Can a consensus politics, backed by the perennial threat of force, emerge from this kind of fundamental inequality across groups? From the point of view of the large Indian or Chinese Malaysian populations, the question is whether there are tactics of collective action and popular mobilization that might allow them to pursue their demands of social and political equality effectively. Can they turn the tables on the Malay government? Can they gradually create the conditions in which the Malaysian state is compelled to accept the fundamental premises of a just civil society -- equality of all citizens and free rights of political participation for all?

Here is a link to an independent Malaysian news source that many Malaysians have confidence in.

Unequal polities

Most nations are at least nominally based on the idea of the legal equality of all citizens. This commitment provides a salient pathway through which even the most disadvantaged groups can pursue their goal of achieving greater equality for themselves and their communities, consistent with the defining values of the nation. Some countries, however, have embodied legal differences among groups of their citizens based on the religion or ethnicity of the person. And in these circumstances, pariah groups have no pathway -- legal or moral -- through which to attempt to create a non-violent pathway towards greater social justice for themselves.

Malaysia is a striking example of the latter circumstance. Its constitution and legal system give fundamental privileges to members of the Malay majority, referred to as "Bumiputra" privilege, and accord more limited rights and opportunities to non-Malay groups (Indian, Chinese, Christian, other). It is a polity based on differential rights for different ethnic and religious groups. Many of the most desirable opportunities in Malaysian society -- in employment, government office, contracting, and education -- are reserved or prioritized for Malays, defined as a racial group. It is hard to see how such a political system, defined on the premise of significant legal and economic inequality across different groups, could be justified to members of the subordinate groups. And, in fact, large street demonstrations in 2007 by the Indian community marked an exceptional indication of the discontent these policies create, and the lack of legitimacy these policies create in the whole population.

The question here is a fairly specific one: how can a polity founded on these sorts of invidious and permanent distinctions among groups of its citizens remain stable? Is it possible to generate any variety of "political legitimacy" across the whole population that contributes to political stability in these circumstances of extreme constitutional inequality among ethnic groups? How can the government maintain its power and ability to govern?

In the case of Malaysia the answer to the question about governing seems to be a combination of institution-rigging, force, and intimidation of the large ethnic populations. The constitution sets the stage with its stipulation of Bumiputra privilege. And electoral and parliamentary rules pretty much guarantee a permanent and large Malay majority in the parliament for parties such as the UMNO. So the political rules entrench the political hegemony of the Malay majority. This means that minority ethnic groups and parties have no hope of gaining progress towards legal equality of rights of citizenship through the legal process.

And this is where force and intimidation come in. It would seem that the strategy of mass demonstration and protest would be a natural recourse for large ethnic groups in Malaysia. But the state has made it clear that it will quickly suppress demonstrations with force -- in fact, the 2007 demonstrations were striking by their rarity in Malaysian public life.

But there is a deeper and more sinister kind of force in the air as well. This is the threat of largescale "race riots" directed against Malaysia's Indian and Chinese communities. The riots of 1969 were vicious and destructive, and they are remembered. The threat of pogrom and ethnic cleansing by Malays against Indian and Chinese Malaysians is not far from the surface and it is taken seriously. Rhetoric by UNMO politicians in speeches before parliament reinforce this sense of threat.

The theoretical questions at issue here can be posed from two angles -- the state and the group. From the state's point of view, the question is whether it is possible to navigate the fundamental conflict of interest that is created between Malays and the rest of Malaysian society through some combination of minor accommodation and the threat of repression. Can a consensus politics, backed by the perennial threat of force, emerge from this kind of fundamental inequality across groups? From the point of view of the large Indian or Chinese Malaysian populations, the question is whether there are tactics of collective action and popular mobilization that might allow them to pursue their demands of social and political equality effectively. Can they turn the tables on the Malay government? Can they gradually create the conditions in which the Malaysian state is compelled to accept the fundamental premises of a just civil society -- equality of all citizens and free rights of political participation for all?

Here is a link to an independent Malaysian news source that many Malaysians have confidence in.

Is there such a thing as human nature?

People often make claims about "human nature." For example -- "It is a part of human nature to be egoistic." "Human beings are naturally acquisitive." "Cooperation is a natural human instinct." "Human nature defines the way we learn language." "Violence is natural."

What would human nature look like? To start with a preliminary definition, we might say that human nature is a relatively fixed set of characteristics of psychology, motivation, and cognition that are not the product of learning. Or, at a slightly greater remove from behavior, we might include innate capacities that can be triggered by appropriate experiences, but may also remain latent if those experiences are not encountered. (This is roughly the way that Noam Chomsky thinks about language competence in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.)

When people have identified some psychological characteristics as being part of human nature, they usually have had one of three things in mind. First, thinkers have sometimes held that there are "innate ideas" -- beliefs and concepts that are hard-wired and are not learned through experience. For example, Kant holds that the ideas of space, time, and causality are a necessary part of any intelligent being's mental equipment. Second, thinkers have sometimes postulated that there are certain visceral emotions that come with the normal human equipment -- for example, fear of loud noises, love of infants, or empathy. And third, people sometimes assert that there are some fundamental dispositions to behavior that are a part of "human nature" -- for example, being self-interested, being amenable to the appeal of fairness, being monogomous or its opposites.

The logical contrary to the idea that there is a human nature, is the idea that human beings are simply general-purpose "learning machines," equipped with a pretty impressive inference engine and neurophysiological computer; so all our beliefs, emotions, and dispositions to behavior are learned through experience. (Even on this approach there is something "fixed" in the human apparatus -- the set of computational processes through which learning occurs. But everything else is variable and dependent upon the environment in which learning takes place.)

This is the "tabula rasa" theory -- the idea that the mind is a blank slate upon which experience inscribes specific knowledge and dispositions to behavior. On this approach, the mind consists of an extended inductive logic engine (permitting the acquisition of beliefs about the world); a "culture-acquisition device" (permitting the absorption of linguistic and normative practices from the surrounding community); and a "scenarios and actions" guidebook assembly kit (permitting the construction of a growing list of commands along the lines of "when such-and-so happens, do thus-and-so"). Altogether this being has the ability to gather empirical and causal beliefs, gain language and values, and acquire a set of guidelines about how to behave. And, according to the tabula rasa theory, the content of each of these attainments is governed only by the feedback of experience. Supply a different environment, and you get different knowledge, values, and behavior.

It is evident that much of an adult's mental makeup is the result of his/her history and the enveloping culture within which the individual has developed. Learning is a fundamental aspect of human life, and it occurs at virtually every level; modes of reasoning, self-control, willingness to cooperate with others, and definition of the appropriate distance of separation between two people in a conversation are all human performances that are culturally and individually variable. They are the outcome of social learning. Further, human culture fundamentally influences human behavior -- and culture is only transmitted through lived experience.

The question of human nature is whether there are any dispositions or behavioral outcomes that are largely independent from these learning and developmental processes. Are there any social behaviors, emotions, or impulses that are an innate part of the human mental system? The sociobiologists have offered one line of analysis on this question. They note that the human mental system -- cognition, emotions, and the control of behavior -- is embodied in an organ that is itself subject to natural selection and evolution, the central nervous system. So it seems logical to expect that this system will have acquired some socially specific characteristics through the evolution of hominids and modern human beings. Edward O. Wilson took a controversial stab at the question in On Human Nature. And Richard Dawkins tried to get a handle on the evolutionary biology of cooperation in The Selfish Gene. Each book has proven controversial over the decades since publication -- largely on grounds of the complaint that they are somewhat reductionist in their disregard of the causal importance of culture in the behaviors they describe. (See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology.)

But surely the foundation of the approach is a valid one: the human brain has been shaped through natural selection; skill in social relationships is relevant to reproductive success; so it is logical to expect that there has been specialized brain development around the challenges of social interaction. Allan Gibbard's Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment explores these ideas in some detail and in a way that is exempt from the accusation of reductionism.

The strongest case for mental features that might be part of human nature concerns what might be referred to as the social emotions and the foundations of social cognition. The social emotions might include a disposition towards reciprocity, an innate responsiveness towards infants, and a deep grounding of empathy for the suffering of other human beings. It is not difficult to put together an analysis that would show that these psychological traits might have differential reproductive advantage for the individuals who carry these traits. And the foundations of social cognition also seem to qualify as candidates for features of human nature as well: the ability to recognize and remember faces, the ability to "read" emotions and mental states in the speech and behavior of others, and the ability to quickly apprehend a social setting, for example. Here too there seem to be the makings of a selection-based explanation of the proliferation of these traits through a population; these cognitive abilities surely confer some reproductive benefits on the individuals who possess them. Another example of a mental trait that might be an enduring component of human nature is the ability to plan future actions, considering alternatives and choosing a series of actions that brings about the future outcome that the individual has selected. The cognitive abilities that underlie planning would appear to confer substantial evolutionary advantage.

What seems not to be justified is any form of simplistic "social Darwinism", leading to the assumptions of narrow self-interest as a component of permanent human nature. Here the error is an over-quick inference from the proposition that "evolution favors organisms that out-reproduce their fellows at a given time" to the conclusion that "organisms that maximize local self-interest will out-reproduce their fellows." This inference is unjustified, since we can readily describe models of populations in which reciprocity and altruism out-reproduce egoism and narrow self-interest.

Is there such a thing as human nature?

People often make claims about "human nature." For example -- "It is a part of human nature to be egoistic." "Human beings are naturally acquisitive." "Cooperation is a natural human instinct." "Human nature defines the way we learn language." "Violence is natural."

What would human nature look like? To start with a preliminary definition, we might say that human nature is a relatively fixed set of characteristics of psychology, motivation, and cognition that are not the product of learning. Or, at a slightly greater remove from behavior, we might include innate capacities that can be triggered by appropriate experiences, but may also remain latent if those experiences are not encountered. (This is roughly the way that Noam Chomsky thinks about language competence in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.)

When people have identified some psychological characteristics as being part of human nature, they usually have had one of three things in mind. First, thinkers have sometimes held that there are "innate ideas" -- beliefs and concepts that are hard-wired and are not learned through experience. For example, Kant holds that the ideas of space, time, and causality are a necessary part of any intelligent being's mental equipment. Second, thinkers have sometimes postulated that there are certain visceral emotions that come with the normal human equipment -- for example, fear of loud noises, love of infants, or empathy. And third, people sometimes assert that there are some fundamental dispositions to behavior that are a part of "human nature" -- for example, being self-interested, being amenable to the appeal of fairness, being monogomous or its opposites.

The logical contrary to the idea that there is a human nature, is the idea that human beings are simply general-purpose "learning machines," equipped with a pretty impressive inference engine and neurophysiological computer; so all our beliefs, emotions, and dispositions to behavior are learned through experience. (Even on this approach there is something "fixed" in the human apparatus -- the set of computational processes through which learning occurs. But everything else is variable and dependent upon the environment in which learning takes place.)

This is the "tabula rasa" theory -- the idea that the mind is a blank slate upon which experience inscribes specific knowledge and dispositions to behavior. On this approach, the mind consists of an extended inductive logic engine (permitting the acquisition of beliefs about the world); a "culture-acquisition device" (permitting the absorption of linguistic and normative practices from the surrounding community); and a "scenarios and actions" guidebook assembly kit (permitting the construction of a growing list of commands along the lines of "when such-and-so happens, do thus-and-so"). Altogether this being has the ability to gather empirical and causal beliefs, gain language and values, and acquire a set of guidelines about how to behave. And, according to the tabula rasa theory, the content of each of these attainments is governed only by the feedback of experience. Supply a different environment, and you get different knowledge, values, and behavior.

It is evident that much of an adult's mental makeup is the result of his/her history and the enveloping culture within which the individual has developed. Learning is a fundamental aspect of human life, and it occurs at virtually every level; modes of reasoning, self-control, willingness to cooperate with others, and definition of the appropriate distance of separation between two people in a conversation are all human performances that are culturally and individually variable. They are the outcome of social learning. Further, human culture fundamentally influences human behavior -- and culture is only transmitted through lived experience.

The question of human nature is whether there are any dispositions or behavioral outcomes that are largely independent from these learning and developmental processes. Are there any social behaviors, emotions, or impulses that are an innate part of the human mental system? The sociobiologists have offered one line of analysis on this question. They note that the human mental system -- cognition, emotions, and the control of behavior -- is embodied in an organ that is itself subject to natural selection and evolution, the central nervous system. So it seems logical to expect that this system will have acquired some socially specific characteristics through the evolution of hominids and modern human beings. Edward O. Wilson took a controversial stab at the question in On Human Nature. And Richard Dawkins tried to get a handle on the evolutionary biology of cooperation in The Selfish Gene. Each book has proven controversial over the decades since publication -- largely on grounds of the complaint that they are somewhat reductionist in their disregard of the causal importance of culture in the behaviors they describe. (See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology.)

But surely the foundation of the approach is a valid one: the human brain has been shaped through natural selection; skill in social relationships is relevant to reproductive success; so it is logical to expect that there has been specialized brain development around the challenges of social interaction. Allan Gibbard's Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment explores these ideas in some detail and in a way that is exempt from the accusation of reductionism.

The strongest case for mental features that might be part of human nature concerns what might be referred to as the social emotions and the foundations of social cognition. The social emotions might include a disposition towards reciprocity, an innate responsiveness towards infants, and a deep grounding of empathy for the suffering of other human beings. It is not difficult to put together an analysis that would show that these psychological traits might have differential reproductive advantage for the individuals who carry these traits. And the foundations of social cognition also seem to qualify as candidates for features of human nature as well: the ability to recognize and remember faces, the ability to "read" emotions and mental states in the speech and behavior of others, and the ability to quickly apprehend a social setting, for example. Here too there seem to be the makings of a selection-based explanation of the proliferation of these traits through a population; these cognitive abilities surely confer some reproductive benefits on the individuals who possess them. Another example of a mental trait that might be an enduring component of human nature is the ability to plan future actions, considering alternatives and choosing a series of actions that brings about the future outcome that the individual has selected. The cognitive abilities that underlie planning would appear to confer substantial evolutionary advantage.

What seems not to be justified is any form of simplistic "social Darwinism", leading to the assumptions of narrow self-interest as a component of permanent human nature. Here the error is an over-quick inference from the proposition that "evolution favors organisms that out-reproduce their fellows at a given time" to the conclusion that "organisms that maximize local self-interest will out-reproduce their fellows." This inference is unjustified, since we can readily describe models of populations in which reciprocity and altruism out-reproduce egoism and narrow self-interest.

Is there such a thing as human nature?

People often make claims about "human nature." For example -- "It is a part of human nature to be egoistic." "Human beings are naturally acquisitive." "Cooperation is a natural human instinct." "Human nature defines the way we learn language." "Violence is natural."

What would human nature look like? To start with a preliminary definition, we might say that human nature is a relatively fixed set of characteristics of psychology, motivation, and cognition that are not the product of learning. Or, at a slightly greater remove from behavior, we might include innate capacities that can be triggered by appropriate experiences, but may also remain latent if those experiences are not encountered. (This is roughly the way that Noam Chomsky thinks about language competence in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.)

When people have identified some psychological characteristics as being part of human nature, they usually have had one of three things in mind. First, thinkers have sometimes held that there are "innate ideas" -- beliefs and concepts that are hard-wired and are not learned through experience. For example, Kant holds that the ideas of space, time, and causality are a necessary part of any intelligent being's mental equipment. Second, thinkers have sometimes postulated that there are certain visceral emotions that come with the normal human equipment -- for example, fear of loud noises, love of infants, or empathy. And third, people sometimes assert that there are some fundamental dispositions to behavior that are a part of "human nature" -- for example, being self-interested, being amenable to the appeal of fairness, being monogomous or its opposites.

The logical contrary to the idea that there is a human nature, is the idea that human beings are simply general-purpose "learning machines," equipped with a pretty impressive inference engine and neurophysiological computer; so all our beliefs, emotions, and dispositions to behavior are learned through experience. (Even on this approach there is something "fixed" in the human apparatus -- the set of computational processes through which learning occurs. But everything else is variable and dependent upon the environment in which learning takes place.)

This is the "tabula rasa" theory -- the idea that the mind is a blank slate upon which experience inscribes specific knowledge and dispositions to behavior. On this approach, the mind consists of an extended inductive logic engine (permitting the acquisition of beliefs about the world); a "culture-acquisition device" (permitting the absorption of linguistic and normative practices from the surrounding community); and a "scenarios and actions" guidebook assembly kit (permitting the construction of a growing list of commands along the lines of "when such-and-so happens, do thus-and-so"). Altogether this being has the ability to gather empirical and causal beliefs, gain language and values, and acquire a set of guidelines about how to behave. And, according to the tabula rasa theory, the content of each of these attainments is governed only by the feedback of experience. Supply a different environment, and you get different knowledge, values, and behavior.

It is evident that much of an adult's mental makeup is the result of his/her history and the enveloping culture within which the individual has developed. Learning is a fundamental aspect of human life, and it occurs at virtually every level; modes of reasoning, self-control, willingness to cooperate with others, and definition of the appropriate distance of separation between two people in a conversation are all human performances that are culturally and individually variable. They are the outcome of social learning. Further, human culture fundamentally influences human behavior -- and culture is only transmitted through lived experience.

The question of human nature is whether there are any dispositions or behavioral outcomes that are largely independent from these learning and developmental processes. Are there any social behaviors, emotions, or impulses that are an innate part of the human mental system? The sociobiologists have offered one line of analysis on this question. They note that the human mental system -- cognition, emotions, and the control of behavior -- is embodied in an organ that is itself subject to natural selection and evolution, the central nervous system. So it seems logical to expect that this system will have acquired some socially specific characteristics through the evolution of hominids and modern human beings. Edward O. Wilson took a controversial stab at the question in On Human Nature. And Richard Dawkins tried to get a handle on the evolutionary biology of cooperation in The Selfish Gene. Each book has proven controversial over the decades since publication -- largely on grounds of the complaint that they are somewhat reductionist in their disregard of the causal importance of culture in the behaviors they describe. (See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology.)

But surely the foundation of the approach is a valid one: the human brain has been shaped through natural selection; skill in social relationships is relevant to reproductive success; so it is logical to expect that there has been specialized brain development around the challenges of social interaction. Allan Gibbard's Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment explores these ideas in some detail and in a way that is exempt from the accusation of reductionism.

The strongest case for mental features that might be part of human nature concerns what might be referred to as the social emotions and the foundations of social cognition. The social emotions might include a disposition towards reciprocity, an innate responsiveness towards infants, and a deep grounding of empathy for the suffering of other human beings. It is not difficult to put together an analysis that would show that these psychological traits might have differential reproductive advantage for the individuals who carry these traits. And the foundations of social cognition also seem to qualify as candidates for features of human nature as well: the ability to recognize and remember faces, the ability to "read" emotions and mental states in the speech and behavior of others, and the ability to quickly apprehend a social setting, for example. Here too there seem to be the makings of a selection-based explanation of the proliferation of these traits through a population; these cognitive abilities surely confer some reproductive benefits on the individuals who possess them. Another example of a mental trait that might be an enduring component of human nature is the ability to plan future actions, considering alternatives and choosing a series of actions that brings about the future outcome that the individual has selected. The cognitive abilities that underlie planning would appear to confer substantial evolutionary advantage.

What seems not to be justified is any form of simplistic "social Darwinism", leading to the assumptions of narrow self-interest as a component of permanent human nature. Here the error is an over-quick inference from the proposition that "evolution favors organisms that out-reproduce their fellows at a given time" to the conclusion that "organisms that maximize local self-interest will out-reproduce their fellows." This inference is unjustified, since we can readily describe models of populations in which reciprocity and altruism out-reproduce egoism and narrow self-interest.

Polling and social knowledge

Here's a pretty interesting graphic from Pollster.com:



As you can see, the graph summarizes a large number of individual polls measuring support for the two major party candidates from January 1 to October 26. The site indicates that it includes all publicly available polls during the time period. Each poll result is represented with two markers -- blue for Obama and red for McCain. The red and blue trend lines are "trend estimates" based on local regressions for the values of the corresponding measurements for a relatively short interval of time (the site doesn't explicitly say what the time interval is). So, for example, the trend estimate for August 1 appears to be approximately 47%:42% for the two candidates. As the site explains, 47% is not the average of poll results for Obama on August 1; instead, it is a regression result based on the trend of all of Obama's polling results for the previous several days.

There are a couple of things to observe about this graph and the underlying methodology. First, it's a version of the "wisdom of the crowd" idea, in that it arrives at an estimate based on a large number of less-reliable individual observations (the dozen or so polling results for the previous several days). Each of the individual poll results has an estimate-of-error which may be in the range of 3-5 percentage points; the hope is that the aggregate result has a higher degree of precision (a narrower error bar).

Second, the methodology attempts to incorporate an estimate of the direction and rate of movement of public opinion, by incorporating trend information based on the prior several days' polling results.

Third, it is evident that there is likely to be a range of degrees of credibility assigned to the various component polls; but the methodology doesn't assign greater weight to "more credible" polls. Ordinary readers might be inclined to assign greater weight to a Gallup poll or a CBS poll than a Research2000 or a DailyKos poll; but the methodology treats all results equally. Likewise, the critical reader might assign more credibility to a live phone-based poll than an internet-based or automated phone poll; but this version of the graph includes all polls. (On the website it is possible to filter out internet-generated or automated phone polling results; this doesn't seem to change the shape of the results noticeably.)

There is also a fundamental question of validity and reliability that the critical reader needs to ask: how valid and reliable are these estimates for a particular point in time? That is, how likely is it that the trend estimate of support for either candidate on a particular day is within a small range of error of the actual value? I assume there is some statistical method for estimating probable error for this methodology, though it doesn't appear to be explained on the website. But fundamentally, the question is whether we have a rational basis for drawing any of the inferences that the graph suggests -- for example, that Obama's lead over McCain is narrowing in the final 14 days of the race.

Finally, there is the narrative that we can extract from the graph, and it tells an interesting story. From January through March candidate Obama has a lead over candidate McCain; but of course both candidates are deeply engaged in their own primary campaigns. At the beginning of April the candidates are roughly tied at 45%. From April through September Obama rises slowly and maintains support at about 48%, while McCain falls in support until he reaches a low point of 43% in the beginning of August. Then the conventions take place in August and early September -- and McCain's numbers bump up to the point where Obama and McCain cross in the first week of September. McCain takes a brief lead in the trend estimates. His ticket seems to derive more benefit from his "convention bump" than Obama does. But in the early part of September the national financial crisis leaps to center stage and the two candidates fare very differently. Obama's support rises steeply and McCain's support falls at about the same rate, opening up a 7 percentage point gap in the trend estimates by the middle of October. From the middle of October the race begins to tighten; McCain's support picks up and Obama's begins to dip slightly at the end of October. But the election looms -- the trend estimates tell a story that's hard to read in any way but "too late, too little" for the McCain campaign.

And, of course, it will be fascinating to see where things stand a week from today.

Here is the explanation that the website offers of its methodology:

[quoting from Pollster.com:]

"Where do the numbers come from?

When you hold the mouse pointer over a state, you see a display of the latest "trend estimate" numbers from our charts of all available public polls for that race. The numbers for each candidate correspond to the most recent trend estimate -- that is the end point of the trend line that we draw for each candidate. If you click the state on the map, you will be taken to the page on Pollster.com that displays the chart and table of polls results for that race.

In most cases, the numbers are not an "average" but rather regression based trendlines. The specific methodology depends on the number of polls available.

• If we have at least 8 public polls, we fit a trend line to the dots represented by each poll using a "Loess" iterative locally weighted least squares regression.
  
• If we have between 4 and 7 polls, we fit a linear regression trend line (a straight line) to best fit the points.
  
• If we have 3 polls or fewer, we calculate a simple average of the available surveys.

How do regression trend lines differ from simple averages?

Charles Franklin, who created the statistical routines that plot our trend lines, provided the following explanation last year:

Our trend estimate is just that, an estimate of the trends and where the race stands as of the latest data available. It is NOT a simple average of recent polling but a "local regression" estimate of support as of the most recent poll. So if you are trying to [calculate] our trend estimates from just averaging the recent polls, you won't succeed.

Here is a way to think about this: suppose the last 5 polls in a race are 25, 27, 29, 31 and 33. Which is a better estimate of where the race stands today? 29 (the mean) or 33 (the local trend)? Since support has risen by 2 points in each successive poll, our estimator will say the trend is currently 33%, not the 29% the polls averaged over the past 2 or 3 weeks during which the last 5 polls were taken. Of course real data are more noisy than my example, so we have to fit the trend in a more complicated way than the example, but the logic is the same. Our trend estimates are local regression predictions, not simple averaging. If the data have been flat for a while, the trend and the mean will be quite close to each other. But if the polls are moving consistently either up or down, the trend estimate will be a better estimate of opinion as of today while the simple average will be an estimate of where the race was some 3 polls ago (for a 5 poll average-- longer ago as more polls are included in the average.) And that's why we estimate the trends the way we do."

Polling and social knowledge

Here's a pretty interesting graphic from Pollster.com:



As you can see, the graph summarizes a large number of individual polls measuring support for the two major party candidates from January 1 to October 26. The site indicates that it includes all publicly available polls during the time period. Each poll result is represented with two markers -- blue for Obama and red for McCain. The red and blue trend lines are "trend estimates" based on local regressions for the values of the corresponding measurements for a relatively short interval of time (the site doesn't explicitly say what the time interval is). So, for example, the trend estimate for August 1 appears to be approximately 47%:42% for the two candidates. As the site explains, 47% is not the average of poll results for Obama on August 1; instead, it is a regression result based on the trend of all of Obama's polling results for the previous several days.

There are a couple of things to observe about this graph and the underlying methodology. First, it's a version of the "wisdom of the crowd" idea, in that it arrives at an estimate based on a large number of less-reliable individual observations (the dozen or so polling results for the previous several days). Each of the individual poll results has an estimate-of-error which may be in the range of 3-5 percentage points; the hope is that the aggregate result has a higher degree of precision (a narrower error bar).

Second, the methodology attempts to incorporate an estimate of the direction and rate of movement of public opinion, by incorporating trend information based on the prior several days' polling results.

Third, it is evident that there is likely to be a range of degrees of credibility assigned to the various component polls; but the methodology doesn't assign greater weight to "more credible" polls. Ordinary readers might be inclined to assign greater weight to a Gallup poll or a CBS poll than a Research2000 or a DailyKos poll; but the methodology treats all results equally. Likewise, the critical reader might assign more credibility to a live phone-based poll than an internet-based or automated phone poll; but this version of the graph includes all polls. (On the website it is possible to filter out internet-generated or automated phone polling results; this doesn't seem to change the shape of the results noticeably.)

There is also a fundamental question of validity and reliability that the critical reader needs to ask: how valid and reliable are these estimates for a particular point in time? That is, how likely is it that the trend estimate of support for either candidate on a particular day is within a small range of error of the actual value? I assume there is some statistical method for estimating probable error for this methodology, though it doesn't appear to be explained on the website. But fundamentally, the question is whether we have a rational basis for drawing any of the inferences that the graph suggests -- for example, that Obama's lead over McCain is narrowing in the final 14 days of the race.

Finally, there is the narrative that we can extract from the graph, and it tells an interesting story. From January through March candidate Obama has a lead over candidate McCain; but of course both candidates are deeply engaged in their own primary campaigns. At the beginning of April the candidates are roughly tied at 45%. From April through September Obama rises slowly and maintains support at about 48%, while McCain falls in support until he reaches a low point of 43% in the beginning of August. Then the conventions take place in August and early September -- and McCain's numbers bump up to the point where Obama and McCain cross in the first week of September. McCain takes a brief lead in the trend estimates. His ticket seems to derive more benefit from his "convention bump" than Obama does. But in the early part of September the national financial crisis leaps to center stage and the two candidates fare very differently. Obama's support rises steeply and McCain's support falls at about the same rate, opening up a 7 percentage point gap in the trend estimates by the middle of October. From the middle of October the race begins to tighten; McCain's support picks up and Obama's begins to dip slightly at the end of October. But the election looms -- the trend estimates tell a story that's hard to read in any way but "too late, too little" for the McCain campaign.

And, of course, it will be fascinating to see where things stand a week from today.

Here is the explanation that the website offers of its methodology:

[quoting from Pollster.com:]

"Where do the numbers come from?

When you hold the mouse pointer over a state, you see a display of the latest "trend estimate" numbers from our charts of all available public polls for that race. The numbers for each candidate correspond to the most recent trend estimate -- that is the end point of the trend line that we draw for each candidate. If you click the state on the map, you will be taken to the page on Pollster.com that displays the chart and table of polls results for that race.

In most cases, the numbers are not an "average" but rather regression based trendlines. The specific methodology depends on the number of polls available.

• If we have at least 8 public polls, we fit a trend line to the dots represented by each poll using a "Loess" iterative locally weighted least squares regression.
  
• If we have between 4 and 7 polls, we fit a linear regression trend line (a straight line) to best fit the points.
  
• If we have 3 polls or fewer, we calculate a simple average of the available surveys.

How do regression trend lines differ from simple averages?

Charles Franklin, who created the statistical routines that plot our trend lines, provided the following explanation last year:

Our trend estimate is just that, an estimate of the trends and where the race stands as of the latest data available. It is NOT a simple average of recent polling but a "local regression" estimate of support as of the most recent poll. So if you are trying to [calculate] our trend estimates from just averaging the recent polls, you won't succeed.

Here is a way to think about this: suppose the last 5 polls in a race are 25, 27, 29, 31 and 33. Which is a better estimate of where the race stands today? 29 (the mean) or 33 (the local trend)? Since support has risen by 2 points in each successive poll, our estimator will say the trend is currently 33%, not the 29% the polls averaged over the past 2 or 3 weeks during which the last 5 polls were taken. Of course real data are more noisy than my example, so we have to fit the trend in a more complicated way than the example, but the logic is the same. Our trend estimates are local regression predictions, not simple averaging. If the data have been flat for a while, the trend and the mean will be quite close to each other. But if the polls are moving consistently either up or down, the trend estimate will be a better estimate of opinion as of today while the simple average will be an estimate of where the race was some 3 polls ago (for a 5 poll average-- longer ago as more polls are included in the average.) And that's why we estimate the trends the way we do."

Polling and social knowledge

Here's a pretty interesting graphic from Pollster.com:



As you can see, the graph summarizes a large number of individual polls measuring support for the two major party candidates from January 1 to October 26. The site indicates that it includes all publicly available polls during the time period. Each poll result is represented with two markers -- blue for Obama and red for McCain. The red and blue trend lines are "trend estimates" based on local regressions for the values of the corresponding measurements for a relatively short interval of time (the site doesn't explicitly say what the time interval is). So, for example, the trend estimate for August 1 appears to be approximately 47%:42% for the two candidates. As the site explains, 47% is not the average of poll results for Obama on August 1; instead, it is a regression result based on the trend of all of Obama's polling results for the previous several days.

There are a couple of things to observe about this graph and the underlying methodology. First, it's a version of the "wisdom of the crowd" idea, in that it arrives at an estimate based on a large number of less-reliable individual observations (the dozen or so polling results for the previous several days). Each of the individual poll results has an estimate-of-error which may be in the range of 3-5 percentage points; the hope is that the aggregate result has a higher degree of precision (a narrower error bar).

Second, the methodology attempts to incorporate an estimate of the direction and rate of movement of public opinion, by incorporating trend information based on the prior several days' polling results.

Third, it is evident that there is likely to be a range of degrees of credibility assigned to the various component polls; but the methodology doesn't assign greater weight to "more credible" polls. Ordinary readers might be inclined to assign greater weight to a Gallup poll or a CBS poll than a Research2000 or a DailyKos poll; but the methodology treats all results equally. Likewise, the critical reader might assign more credibility to a live phone-based poll than an internet-based or automated phone poll; but this version of the graph includes all polls. (On the website it is possible to filter out internet-generated or automated phone polling results; this doesn't seem to change the shape of the results noticeably.)

There is also a fundamental question of validity and reliability that the critical reader needs to ask: how valid and reliable are these estimates for a particular point in time? That is, how likely is it that the trend estimate of support for either candidate on a particular day is within a small range of error of the actual value? I assume there is some statistical method for estimating probable error for this methodology, though it doesn't appear to be explained on the website. But fundamentally, the question is whether we have a rational basis for drawing any of the inferences that the graph suggests -- for example, that Obama's lead over McCain is narrowing in the final 14 days of the race.

Finally, there is the narrative that we can extract from the graph, and it tells an interesting story. From January through March candidate Obama has a lead over candidate McCain; but of course both candidates are deeply engaged in their own primary campaigns. At the beginning of April the candidates are roughly tied at 45%. From April through September Obama rises slowly and maintains support at about 48%, while McCain falls in support until he reaches a low point of 43% in the beginning of August. Then the conventions take place in August and early September -- and McCain's numbers bump up to the point where Obama and McCain cross in the first week of September. McCain takes a brief lead in the trend estimates. His ticket seems to derive more benefit from his "convention bump" than Obama does. But in the early part of September the national financial crisis leaps to center stage and the two candidates fare very differently. Obama's support rises steeply and McCain's support falls at about the same rate, opening up a 7 percentage point gap in the trend estimates by the middle of October. From the middle of October the race begins to tighten; McCain's support picks up and Obama's begins to dip slightly at the end of October. But the election looms -- the trend estimates tell a story that's hard to read in any way but "too late, too little" for the McCain campaign.

And, of course, it will be fascinating to see where things stand a week from today.

Here is the explanation that the website offers of its methodology:

[quoting from Pollster.com:]

"Where do the numbers come from?

When you hold the mouse pointer over a state, you see a display of the latest "trend estimate" numbers from our charts of all available public polls for that race. The numbers for each candidate correspond to the most recent trend estimate -- that is the end point of the trend line that we draw for each candidate. If you click the state on the map, you will be taken to the page on Pollster.com that displays the chart and table of polls results for that race.

In most cases, the numbers are not an "average" but rather regression based trendlines. The specific methodology depends on the number of polls available.

• If we have at least 8 public polls, we fit a trend line to the dots represented by each poll using a "Loess" iterative locally weighted least squares regression.
  
• If we have between 4 and 7 polls, we fit a linear regression trend line (a straight line) to best fit the points.
  
• If we have 3 polls or fewer, we calculate a simple average of the available surveys.

How do regression trend lines differ from simple averages?

Charles Franklin, who created the statistical routines that plot our trend lines, provided the following explanation last year:

Our trend estimate is just that, an estimate of the trends and where the race stands as of the latest data available. It is NOT a simple average of recent polling but a "local regression" estimate of support as of the most recent poll. So if you are trying to [calculate] our trend estimates from just averaging the recent polls, you won't succeed.

Here is a way to think about this: suppose the last 5 polls in a race are 25, 27, 29, 31 and 33. Which is a better estimate of where the race stands today? 29 (the mean) or 33 (the local trend)? Since support has risen by 2 points in each successive poll, our estimator will say the trend is currently 33%, not the 29% the polls averaged over the past 2 or 3 weeks during which the last 5 polls were taken. Of course real data are more noisy than my example, so we have to fit the trend in a more complicated way than the example, but the logic is the same. Our trend estimates are local regression predictions, not simple averaging. If the data have been flat for a while, the trend and the mean will be quite close to each other. But if the polls are moving consistently either up or down, the trend estimate will be a better estimate of opinion as of today while the simple average will be an estimate of where the race was some 3 polls ago (for a 5 poll average-- longer ago as more polls are included in the average.) And that's why we estimate the trends the way we do."

Causal mechanisms

The central tenet of causal realism is a thesis about causal mechanisms or causal powers. We can only assert that there is a causal relationship between X and Y if we can offer a credible hypothesis of the sort of underlying mechanism that might connect X to the occurrence of Y. The sociologist Mats Ekström puts the view this way: “the essence of causal analysis is ... the elucidation of the processes that generate the objects, events, and actions we seek to explain” (Ekstrom 1992, p. 115). Authors who have urged the centrality of causal mechanisms for both explanatory and purposes include Nancy Cartwright (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements), Jon Elster (Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences), Rom Harré (Causal Powers), and Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World). (Hedstrom and Swedberg's collection, Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, is a useful source. An important advocate for a realist interpretation of science is Roy Bhaskar's A Realist Theory of Science.)

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most original voices within contemporary philosophy of science. Cartwright places real causal mechanisms at the center of her account of scientific knowledge. As she and John Dupré put the point, “things and events have causal capacities: in virtue of the properties they possess, they have the power to bring about other events or states” (Dupré and Cartwright 1988). Cartwright argues, for the natural sciences, that the concept of a real causal connection among a set of events is more fundamental than the concept of a law of nature. And most fundamentally, she argues that identifying causal relations requires substantive theories of the causal powers (capacities, in her language) that govern the entities in question. Causal relations cannot be directly inferred from facts about association among variables. As she puts the point, “No reduction of generic causation to regularities is possible” (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements, p. 90). The importance of this idea for sociological research is profound; it confirms the notion shared by many researchers that attribution of social causation depends inherently on the formulation of good, middle-level theories about the real causal properties of various social forces and entities.

What is a causal mechanism? Consider this formulation: a causal mechanism is a sequence of events, conditions, and processes leading from the explanans to the explanandum (Varieties Of Social Explanation, p. 15). A causal relation exists between X and Y if and only if there is a set of causal mechanisms that connect X to Y. This is an ontological premise, asserting that causal mechanisms are real and are the legitimate object of scientific investigation.

Aage Sørensen summarizes a causal realist position for sociology in these words: “Sociological ideas are best reintroduced into quantitative sociological research by focusing on specifying the mechanisms by which change is brought about in social processes” (Sørensen 1998, p. 264). He argues that sociology requires better integration of theory and evidence. Central to an adequate explanatory theory, however, is the specification of the mechanism that is hypothesized to underlie a given set of observations. “Developing theoretical ideas about social processes is to specify some concept of what brings about a certain outcome—a change in political regimes, a new job, an increase in corporate performance, … The development of the conceptualization of change amounts to proposing a mechanism for a social process” (239-240). Sørensen makes the critical point that one cannot select a statistical model for analysis of a set of data without first asking the question, what in the nature of the mechanisms we wish to postulate to link the influences of some variables with others? Rather, it is necessary to have a hypothesis of the mechanisms that link the variables before we can arrive at a justified estimate of the relative importance of the causal variables in bringing about the outcome.

The general nature of the mechanisms that underlie sociological causation has been very much the subject of debate. Two broad approaches may be identified: agent-based models and social influence models. The former follow the strategy of aggregating the results of individual-level choices into macro-level outcomes; the latter attempt to identify the factors that work behind the backs of agents to influence their choices. (Sørensen refers to these as “pull” and “push” models; Sørensen, 1998.) Thomas Schelling’s apt title Micromotives and Macrobehavior captures the logic of the former approach, and his work profoundly illustrates the sometimes highly unpredictable results of the interactions of locally rational behavior. Jon Elster has also shed light on the ways in which the tools of rational choice theory support the construction of largescale sociological explanations (The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order). The second approach (the “push” approach) attempts to identify socially salient influences such as race, gender, educational status, and to provide detailed accounts of how these factors influence or constrain individual trajectories—thereby affecting sociological outcomes.

Emphasis on causal mechanisms for adequate social explanation has several salutary effects on sociological method. It takes us away from uncritical reliance on uncritical statistical models. But it also may take us away from excessive emphasis on large-scale classification of events into revolutions, democracies, or religions, and toward more specific analysis of the processes and features that serve to discriminate among instances of large social categories. Charles Tilly emphasizes this point in his arguments for causal narratives in comparative sociology (Tilly 1995). He writes, “I am arguing that regularities in political life are very broad, indeed transhistorical, but do not operate in the form of recurrent structures and processes at a large scale. They consist of recurrent causes which in different circumstances and sequences compound into highly variable but nonetheless explicable effects” (Tilly 1995, p. 1601).

Citations

1. Dupré, John, and Nancy Cartwright. 1988. Probability and Causality: Why Hume and Indeterminism Don't Mix. Nous 22:521-536.
2. Ekstrom, Mats. 1992. Causal explanation of social action: The Contribution of Max Weber and of Critical Realism to a Generative View of Causal Explanation in the Social Sciences. Acta Sociologica 35 (2):107(16).
3. Sørensen, Aage B. 1998. Theoretical mechanisms and the empirical study of social processes. In Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, edited by P. Hedström and R. Swedberg.
4. Tilly, Charles. 1995. To Explain Political Processes. American Journal of Sociology.

Causal mechanisms

The central tenet of causal realism is a thesis about causal mechanisms or causal powers. We can only assert that there is a causal relationship between X and Y if we can offer a credible hypothesis of the sort of underlying mechanism that might connect X to the occurrence of Y. The sociologist Mats Ekström puts the view this way: “the essence of causal analysis is ... the elucidation of the processes that generate the objects, events, and actions we seek to explain” (Ekstrom 1992, p. 115). Authors who have urged the centrality of causal mechanisms for both explanatory and purposes include Nancy Cartwright (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements), Jon Elster (Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences), Rom Harré (Causal Powers), and Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World). (Hedstrom and Swedberg's collection, Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, is a useful source. An important advocate for a realist interpretation of science is Roy Bhaskar's A Realist Theory of Science.)

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most original voices within contemporary philosophy of science. Cartwright places real causal mechanisms at the center of her account of scientific knowledge. As she and John Dupré put the point, “things and events have causal capacities: in virtue of the properties they possess, they have the power to bring about other events or states” (Dupré and Cartwright 1988). Cartwright argues, for the natural sciences, that the concept of a real causal connection among a set of events is more fundamental than the concept of a law of nature. And most fundamentally, she argues that identifying causal relations requires substantive theories of the causal powers (capacities, in her language) that govern the entities in question. Causal relations cannot be directly inferred from facts about association among variables. As she puts the point, “No reduction of generic causation to regularities is possible” (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements, p. 90). The importance of this idea for sociological research is profound; it confirms the notion shared by many researchers that attribution of social causation depends inherently on the formulation of good, middle-level theories about the real causal properties of various social forces and entities.

What is a causal mechanism? Consider this formulation: a causal mechanism is a sequence of events, conditions, and processes leading from the explanans to the explanandum (Varieties Of Social Explanation, p. 15). A causal relation exists between X and Y if and only if there is a set of causal mechanisms that connect X to Y. This is an ontological premise, asserting that causal mechanisms are real and are the legitimate object of scientific investigation.

Aage Sørensen summarizes a causal realist position for sociology in these words: “Sociological ideas are best reintroduced into quantitative sociological research by focusing on specifying the mechanisms by which change is brought about in social processes” (Sørensen 1998, p. 264). He argues that sociology requires better integration of theory and evidence. Central to an adequate explanatory theory, however, is the specification of the mechanism that is hypothesized to underlie a given set of observations. “Developing theoretical ideas about social processes is to specify some concept of what brings about a certain outcome—a change in political regimes, a new job, an increase in corporate performance, … The development of the conceptualization of change amounts to proposing a mechanism for a social process” (239-240). Sørensen makes the critical point that one cannot select a statistical model for analysis of a set of data without first asking the question, what in the nature of the mechanisms we wish to postulate to link the influences of some variables with others? Rather, it is necessary to have a hypothesis of the mechanisms that link the variables before we can arrive at a justified estimate of the relative importance of the causal variables in bringing about the outcome.

The general nature of the mechanisms that underlie sociological causation has been very much the subject of debate. Two broad approaches may be identified: agent-based models and social influence models. The former follow the strategy of aggregating the results of individual-level choices into macro-level outcomes; the latter attempt to identify the factors that work behind the backs of agents to influence their choices. (Sørensen refers to these as “pull” and “push” models; Sørensen, 1998.) Thomas Schelling’s apt title Micromotives and Macrobehavior captures the logic of the former approach, and his work profoundly illustrates the sometimes highly unpredictable results of the interactions of locally rational behavior. Jon Elster has also shed light on the ways in which the tools of rational choice theory support the construction of largescale sociological explanations (The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order). The second approach (the “push” approach) attempts to identify socially salient influences such as race, gender, educational status, and to provide detailed accounts of how these factors influence or constrain individual trajectories—thereby affecting sociological outcomes.

Emphasis on causal mechanisms for adequate social explanation has several salutary effects on sociological method. It takes us away from uncritical reliance on uncritical statistical models. But it also may take us away from excessive emphasis on large-scale classification of events into revolutions, democracies, or religions, and toward more specific analysis of the processes and features that serve to discriminate among instances of large social categories. Charles Tilly emphasizes this point in his arguments for causal narratives in comparative sociology (Tilly 1995). He writes, “I am arguing that regularities in political life are very broad, indeed transhistorical, but do not operate in the form of recurrent structures and processes at a large scale. They consist of recurrent causes which in different circumstances and sequences compound into highly variable but nonetheless explicable effects” (Tilly 1995, p. 1601).

Citations

1. Dupré, John, and Nancy Cartwright. 1988. Probability and Causality: Why Hume and Indeterminism Don't Mix. Nous 22:521-536.
2. Ekstrom, Mats. 1992. Causal explanation of social action: The Contribution of Max Weber and of Critical Realism to a Generative View of Causal Explanation in the Social Sciences. Acta Sociologica 35 (2):107(16).
3. Sørensen, Aage B. 1998. Theoretical mechanisms and the empirical study of social processes. In Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, edited by P. Hedström and R. Swedberg.
4. Tilly, Charles. 1995. To Explain Political Processes. American Journal of Sociology.

Causal mechanisms

The central tenet of causal realism is a thesis about causal mechanisms or causal powers. We can only assert that there is a causal relationship between X and Y if we can offer a credible hypothesis of the sort of underlying mechanism that might connect X to the occurrence of Y. The sociologist Mats Ekström puts the view this way: “the essence of causal analysis is ... the elucidation of the processes that generate the objects, events, and actions we seek to explain” (Ekstrom 1992, p. 115). Authors who have urged the centrality of causal mechanisms for both explanatory and purposes include Nancy Cartwright (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements), Jon Elster (Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences), Rom Harré (Causal Powers), and Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World). (Hedstrom and Swedberg's collection, Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, is a useful source. An important advocate for a realist interpretation of science is Roy Bhaskar's A Realist Theory of Science.)

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most original voices within contemporary philosophy of science. Cartwright places real causal mechanisms at the center of her account of scientific knowledge. As she and John Dupré put the point, “things and events have causal capacities: in virtue of the properties they possess, they have the power to bring about other events or states” (Dupré and Cartwright 1988). Cartwright argues, for the natural sciences, that the concept of a real causal connection among a set of events is more fundamental than the concept of a law of nature. And most fundamentally, she argues that identifying causal relations requires substantive theories of the causal powers (capacities, in her language) that govern the entities in question. Causal relations cannot be directly inferred from facts about association among variables. As she puts the point, “No reduction of generic causation to regularities is possible” (Nature's Capacities and Their Measurements, p. 90). The importance of this idea for sociological research is profound; it confirms the notion shared by many researchers that attribution of social causation depends inherently on the formulation of good, middle-level theories about the real causal properties of various social forces and entities.

What is a causal mechanism? Consider this formulation: a causal mechanism is a sequence of events, conditions, and processes leading from the explanans to the explanandum (Varieties Of Social Explanation, p. 15). A causal relation exists between X and Y if and only if there is a set of causal mechanisms that connect X to Y. This is an ontological premise, asserting that causal mechanisms are real and are the legitimate object of scientific investigation.

Aage Sørensen summarizes a causal realist position for sociology in these words: “Sociological ideas are best reintroduced into quantitative sociological research by focusing on specifying the mechanisms by which change is brought about in social processes” (Sørensen 1998, p. 264). He argues that sociology requires better integration of theory and evidence. Central to an adequate explanatory theory, however, is the specification of the mechanism that is hypothesized to underlie a given set of observations. “Developing theoretical ideas about social processes is to specify some concept of what brings about a certain outcome—a change in political regimes, a new job, an increase in corporate performance, … The development of the conceptualization of change amounts to proposing a mechanism for a social process” (239-240). Sørensen makes the critical point that one cannot select a statistical model for analysis of a set of data without first asking the question, what in the nature of the mechanisms we wish to postulate to link the influences of some variables with others? Rather, it is necessary to have a hypothesis of the mechanisms that link the variables before we can arrive at a justified estimate of the relative importance of the causal variables in bringing about the outcome.

The general nature of the mechanisms that underlie sociological causation has been very much the subject of debate. Two broad approaches may be identified: agent-based models and social influence models. The former follow the strategy of aggregating the results of individual-level choices into macro-level outcomes; the latter attempt to identify the factors that work behind the backs of agents to influence their choices. (Sørensen refers to these as “pull” and “push” models; Sørensen, 1998.) Thomas Schelling’s apt title Micromotives and Macrobehavior captures the logic of the former approach, and his work profoundly illustrates the sometimes highly unpredictable results of the interactions of locally rational behavior. Jon Elster has also shed light on the ways in which the tools of rational choice theory support the construction of largescale sociological explanations (The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order). The second approach (the “push” approach) attempts to identify socially salient influences such as race, gender, educational status, and to provide detailed accounts of how these factors influence or constrain individual trajectories—thereby affecting sociological outcomes.

Emphasis on causal mechanisms for adequate social explanation has several salutary effects on sociological method. It takes us away from uncritical reliance on uncritical statistical models. But it also may take us away from excessive emphasis on large-scale classification of events into revolutions, democracies, or religions, and toward more specific analysis of the processes and features that serve to discriminate among instances of large social categories. Charles Tilly emphasizes this point in his arguments for causal narratives in comparative sociology (Tilly 1995). He writes, “I am arguing that regularities in political life are very broad, indeed transhistorical, but do not operate in the form of recurrent structures and processes at a large scale. They consist of recurrent causes which in different circumstances and sequences compound into highly variable but nonetheless explicable effects” (Tilly 1995, p. 1601).

Citations

1. Dupré, John, and Nancy Cartwright. 1988. Probability and Causality: Why Hume and Indeterminism Don't Mix. Nous 22:521-536.
2. Ekstrom, Mats. 1992. Causal explanation of social action: The Contribution of Max Weber and of Critical Realism to a Generative View of Causal Explanation in the Social Sciences. Acta Sociologica 35 (2):107(16).
3. Sørensen, Aage B. 1998. Theoretical mechanisms and the empirical study of social processes. In Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, edited by P. Hedström and R. Swedberg.
4. Tilly, Charles. 1995. To Explain Political Processes. American Journal of Sociology.