Prof. Dr. Joachim Blatter Causal Process Tracing (CPT) 1. Goals and Research Questions 2. Ontological presuppositions of CPT as a coherent research design - Contingency - Causal conditions and configurations - Additive and interactive configurations - Causal chains and conjunctions - Social and causal mechanisms 3. Epistemological foundations: Causal-Process Observations - The added value of causal-process observations - The epistemological foundation of causal-process observations - Types of causal-process observations - Timing 4. Example: Henry Brady (2004) 5. Case Selection Strategies 6. Drawing Conclusions beyond the Cases under Investigation: Possibilistic and other forms of generalization
Causal-Process Tracing: Diverse goals and divergent understandings
Ontological presuppositions of CPT 1. Contingency = working of causal factors depends on other factors - space-time contingency - evolutionary contingency - multicomponent contingency - multilevel contingency 2. Causal conditions and configurations - Necessary conditions/configurations - Sufficient conditions/configurations 3. Additive and interactive configurations 4. Causal chains and conjunctions 5. Social and causal mechanisms
Relevant Understandings of Causal Configurations for a CPT Approach
Social And Causal Mechanisms
Epistemological foundations: Causal-Process Observations 1. The added value of causal-process observations 2. Definitions of causal process observations 3. The epistemological foundation of causal-process observations 4. Types of causal-process observations - Comprehensive story lines (sequences and turning points) - Smoking gun observations - Confessions 5. Temporality
Process Tracing as Complement to Co-variational Designs a) Reducing «over-determination» b) Increasing «internal validity» c) Identifying causal configurations (causal chains and conjunctions)
Causal-Process Observations: Two Definitions Source: Blatter and Haverland 2012: 23
Causal-Process Observations: Epistemological Foundation and Types Scientific Realism => Spatio-temporal continuity and contiguity Comprehensive Story Lines => Starting point, sequences, turning points («critical junctions») Smoking Gun Observations => Detailed picture of a situation that reveals a dense connection between cause and effect Confessions => Statements that reveal a deeper insight into the perceptions and motivations of actors
Temporality in Process Tracing Temporal contiguity as first evidence for causation
Example for Causal-Process Tracing: Brady, H. (2004): Data-Set Observations versus Causal-Process Observation: The 2000 Presidential Election; in Brady/Collier: Rethinking Social Inquiry Steps for making the claim that Bush lost almost no votes when the media declared Gore as winner before the polls closed in the panhandle counties in Florida: 1. Identification of conditions, which were necessary and together sufficient for swaying voters: a) voting right in panhandle counties b) intention to vote c) not voted yet d) exposed to media reports e) open to media influence f) intention to vote for Bush 2. Timing as crucial aspect: polls just 10 minutes open after media report -> estimations of the number of people who fulfilled the conditions a, b, and c on the basis of diverse empirical sources 3. «Counterfactual reasoning»: -> Those who have already voted, could not be influenced anymore -> Intermediate result: only 4200 people could have been swayed
Example for Causal-Process Tracing Brady, H. (2004): Data-Set Observations versus Causal-Process Observation: The 2000 Presidential Election; in Brady/Collier: Rethinking Social Inquiry 4. Further necessary and together sufficient conditions for swaying voters -> Complementing the time-centred approach with an explanatory approach that is based on causal mechanisms - situational mechanism: general knowledge of average media consumption: max. 20% - action-formation mechanism: general knowledge of average media influence: 10% - transformational mechanism: 66% of voters in panhandle counties voted for Bush 5. Final result: Bush lost 224 voters at the maximum
Criteria for Case Selection 1. Misleading Advice and Trade-Offs - more than one, and the more the better? - do not select on the dependent variable? - do not select only positive cases? 2. Accessibility - Quality of process tracing depends on getting deeper insights 3. Case Selection Strategies in Accordance with Research Goals - practical relevance - testing internal validity: selecting cases according to the COV approach - discovering distinct causal pathways: a. selecting positive cases b. selecting possible cases
Drawing conclusions beyond the case of investigation: Possibilistic and other kinds of generalization 1. Drawing conclusion towards sets of possible configurations A. Potential configurations => Developing/Enlarging the Property Space of Typological Theories B. Proven configurations => Developing/Enlarging the Population of Realized Causal Pathways 2. Drawing Conclusions towards two kinds of possible configurations A. Causal Conditions and Configuration (Low/Middle Range Theories) B. Social Mechanisms and Causal Mechanisms (Generic Theory Building) ---- 3. Drawing conclusions towards the validity of the results of a co-variational or correlational study 4. Explaining Deviant Cases => Discovering omitted variables, Delineating scope conditions 5. Drawing conclusions towards the validity of the results of a cross-case configurational study (QCA) 6. Revealing the Temporal Order of Causal Configurations: Transforming the result of a QCA study from a list of ingredients into a full-fledged recipe