• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1634 0

But he does not address the question of how this can be or is done, contenting himself with the observation that “reviewers and perceptive readers” can readily tell the difference between histories based on sound covering laws and those that are naïve and superficial.″ He adds that historians will occasionally make their supportive generalizations explicit, particularly when a controversy arises among historians over the truth of an explanation.457

In theory-based process-tracing, on the other hand, it is not desirable to rest explanations on implicit laws. Besides, the method of structured, focused comparison and process-tracing are employed not only in studies that attempt to provide explanations for specific cases but also to test and refine available theories and hypotheses, to develop new theories, and to produce generic knowledge of a given phenomenon. Given this theory development objective, it is all the more necessary to couch explanations in terms of theoretical variables and causal hypotheses.

In Chapter 6 on “The Logic of Colligation,” Roberts distinguishes eight different forms that process-tracing may take. Several of these are of interest for the present study. The simplest form of process-tracing, linear colligation, depicts ″a straightforward chain of events,″ which is often a naïve simplification of a complex phenomenon. Convergent colligation, on the other hand, depicts the outcome to be explained as flowing from the convergence of several conditions, independent variables, or causal chains. Skocpol’s study, discussed above, is an example of convergent colligation, showing how two processes set into motion, one by international pressures causing state breakdown and the other by peasant rebellions, converged to cause revolutionary social movements.

Another type of process-tracing, repetitive colligation, provides the basis for Roberts’ consideration of the relation of history to theory and science.458 Whereas history often limits itself to searching for the cause of a single event, “the purpose of science is to discover the laws governing the behavior of a phenomenon,” although laws of a correlational nature are used in the covering-law model of explanation. “To explain why a law exists, why a correlation occurs, one needs a theory,” one which contains “a model that shows how the system works, the system that gives rise to the uniformities observed.” It appears, here, that Roberts is alluding to what others have referred to as “causal mechanisms.”

Roberts notes that the corpus of historical writing contains few theories, the reason being that historians have been unable to find any general laws that stood the test of time. The implicit assumption he makes here, which may be questioned, is that absent “general laws,” formulation of theory is not possible. In fact, as we emphasize throughout the book, researchers can develop middle-range theories comprising conditional generalizations and typological theories. The general failure of the social sciences (with the partial exception of economics) to find meaningful laws, Roberts observed, has led Jon Elster to conclude that “the basic concept in the social sciences should be that of a mechanism rather than of a theory.” Roberts takes Elster’s observations as consistent with his own concept of historical explanation as being “a marriage of colligation [process-tracing] and correlation.”459

THE ROLE OF COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS IN HISTORICAL EXPLANATION

We discussed some important requirements of effective use of counterfactuals in Chapter 8. Resort to counterfactual analysis is indeed a common practice in many different types of research. Mental experiments in the service of theory development have a long and often distinguished history.460 Some writers have argued that, implicitly if not explicitly, all explanation and hypothesis testing require employment of counterfactual analysis or would benefit from it.

Here we add to the earlier discussion of counterfactuals by considering whether the within-case method employing process-tracing must be supported