A History of Causal Analysis in the Social Sciences推荐.pdfVIP

Chapter 2 A History of Causal Analysis in the Social Sciences Sondra N. Barringer, Scott R. Eliason, and Erin Leahey Abstract In this chapter we provide an overview of the history of causal analysis in the social sciences. We review literature published from the mid-1800s to the present day, tracing the key strains of thought that lead to our current understandings of causal analysis in the social sciences. Given space limitations, we focus on three of the most important strands of causal analysis – those based on (1) constant conjunction and regularity accounts, (2) correlational and path analytic techniques, and (3) potential outcomes and counterfactual frameworks. We then return to the complexity of a Weberian approach, which contains nearly all of the elements of these three major frameworks into a single case-oriented method to causal analysis. We conclude by speculating on the future of causal analysis in the social sciences. Introduction A scant three decades after the United States Civil War, Albion Small, drawing largely on the work of Wilhelm Wundt ( 1883) and writing in the fledgling American Journal of Sociology , told his readers that “Radical error and persistent confusion would be forestalled, if students could be familiar from the start with the fact that sociology is not, first and foremost, a set of schemes to reform the world” (Small 1898: 113). Instead, this new discipline was to be focused on collecting and assessing empirical information about society, and a keen attention to research methods was required to gain legitimacy and success. Small went on to elaborate three stages in the “essential methodological process” ( 1898: 118) for this young science. The first was descriptive analysis of the basic components of the object of study. While descriptive analysis was seen by Small as a necessary first step in sociological understanding, the second was by its nature more interesting and important