CAUSALITY IN RESEARCH FULL
For a full list of categories of long term processes, see Pierson, chapter 3. A long time horizon of causes and a long time horizon of outcome, on the other hand, can produce ‘cumulative causes’ like global warming, in which the interaction of factors over a long period of time can have long-lasting impacts. For example, a long time horizon of causes and a short time horizon of outcome can create a ‘threshold effects,’ which, like an earthquake, have a minor impact until they reach a critical level at which point they cause major changes. Paul Pierson argues in Politics in time: history, institutions, and social analysis that each combination of different time horizons of causes and outcomes produce different categories of long term processes. The time horizons both of the cause (independent variable) and outcome (dependent variable) can impact a causal argument. When studying causality, it is also important to note that time matters.
Consequently, when designing a project, it may be useful to create diagrams in which causal mechanisms form the link or pathway from explanatory, independent variables to the outcome of interest.Īny causal claim cannot have reciprocal causation, that is, one variable must influence the other rather than multiple variables influencing each other. Nevertheless, causal theories that are designed to show the causes of a phenomenon are a pivotal part of political science research and may be a key component of a thesis research paper’s hypothesis. Determining causality can be challenging since causation does not equal correlation and in what is called the ‘fundamental problem of causal inference’, causal inferences can never be certain due to their theoretical nature. Much of political science research is aimed at determining causality, which is defined by Johnson, Reynolds, and Mycoff as “a connection between two entities that occurs because one produces, or brings about, the other with complete or great regularity.” Essentially, causality is rooted in ascertaining whether changes in outcomes (dependent variable) are based on variance of certain factors (independent variables).
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