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by a general law, and in that sense by a ‘black box’ about whose internal gears and wheels we remain ignorant. Yet for practical purposes—the purposes of the working social scientist—the place of emphasis is important. By concentrating on mechanisms, one captures the dynamic aspect of scientific explanation: the urge to produce explanations of ever finer grain.” Elster, Alchemies of the Mind, p. 4. See also Little, Microfoundations, pp. 210-211.

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Similarly, Arthur Stinchcombe discusses causal mechanisms in a manner that evokes the movable border between mechanisms and theories, and indicates why some are tempted to define mechanisms as theoretical rather than ontological entities:

“A mechanism becomes a theory when we can specify in a general way when the conditions for a theory for lower-level units of analysis hold so that the aggregate results of the operation of that mechanism hold at the higher level.” Stinchcombe, “The Conditions of Fruitfulness of Theorizing About Mechanisms in Social Science,” p. 31.

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Similarly, Sidney Tarrow classifies social mechanisms into the categories of cognitive, rational, and environmental mechanisms. Sidney Tarrow, “Expanding Paired Comparison: A Modest Proposal,” APSA—Comparative Politics Section Newsletter, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 9-12.

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Andrew Sayer, Method in Social Science, pp. 107, 111, 121. Sayer emphasizes, as we do, that “the operation of the same mechanism can produce quite different results and, alternatively, different mechanisms may produce the same empirical results.” Thus, Sayer takes into account the phenomena of equifinality and multifinality.

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Salmon, Four Decades, pp. 166-167, citing Paul Humphreys, “Aleatory Theory of Explanation,” Synthese, Vol. 48 (1981), pp. 225-232; and Paul Humphreys, “Aleatory Explanation Expanded,” in Peter Asquith and Thomas Nickles, eds., PSA 1982, Vol. 2 (Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1983), pp. 208-223.

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Elster, Political Psychology, p. 2.

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Elster, Political Psychology, p. 5. Elster also notes that while his examples of mechanisms are essentially psychological, the construction of sociological causal mechanisms is also possible (pp. 6-7).

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Elster, Political Psychology, p. 2. Similarly, Charles Tilly notes that “big case comparisons are properly disappearing” and adds that “social scientists should shift to the search for general causal mechanisms in multiple, never repeated, structures and processes.” Tilly, “Means and Ends of Comparison,” p. 43.

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This is similar to the notion of theories as “repertoires of causal mechanisms.” R.W. Miller, Fact and Method, p. 139. See also Dessler, “Beyond Correlations,” p. 343.

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Dessler, “Beyond Correlations;” Yee, “Causal Effects of Ideas;” and Little, Microfoundations.

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Little, Microfoundations, pp. 211-213. Little adds the caveat that in order to distinguish causal from accidental accounts, process-tracing should be combined with comparative or statistical study of multiple cases. This is consistent with our own emphasis on combining within-case and comparative analysis and on multi-method research more generally.

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Dessler, “Dimensions of Progress,” p. 395.

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This proposition is rejected by some rational choice theorists. Edgar Kiser and Michael Hechter argue that causal mechanisms cannot be derived inductively, but only from general theories. Edgar Kiser and Michael Hechter, “The Role of General Theory in Comparative Historical Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 1 (July 1991), pp. 4, 6, 23, 24.

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Arend Lijphart uses the term “comparable cases” for what we call “controlled comparison,” a term we prefer because of the explicit reference to the requirement that comparison be controlled. Lijphart reserves the term “comparative method” for the comparable cases strategy. See Lijphart, “The Comparable-Cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (July 1975), pp. 158-177. The term “controlled comparison” appears to have been originated by Fred Eggan, “Social