Comparative-Historical Methods by Matthew Lange

Author:Matthew Lange [Lange, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-11-12T02:00:00+00:00

Mechanistic Comparison

Ultimately, my process-oriented comparison of Mauritius, Guyana, Botswana, and other former British colonies highlights state-centered mechanisms that help to explain the diverse developmental legacies among former British colonies. Indeed, most process-oriented comparisons highlight causal mechanisms. These comparisons are not mechanistic comparisons , however, because process-oriented comparisons focus on processes more broadly and consider how processes unroll to gain insight into mechanisms. Alternatively, mechanistic comparisons explicitly focus on mechanisms linking causes and outcomes; thus, mechanisms—not processes—are compared. Most commonly, mechanistic comparison explores whether the absence or presence of mechanisms helps to explain similar or different outcomes among multiple cases. Mechanistic comparisons also frequently analyze contextual factors that shape mechanisms, exploring either how similar contexts promote the presence or absence of a mechanism or how different contexts cause the presence of the mechanism in one case but not another. For those who believe that mechanistic analysis must pay close attention to context (see Falleti and Lynch 2009), mechanistic comparisons are therefore vital .

Similar to process-oriented comparison, mechanistic comparison helps to strengthen within-case analysis. Important analytic differences exist between the two, however. Relative to process-oriented comparison, mechanistic comparison is generally used when researchers are more interested in nomothetic explanations. This is because causal processes are unique, but mechanisms are bits of mid-level theory that can usually be applied to numerous cases. Analyses using mechanistic comparisons are also usually less exploratory and much more focused than analyses using process-oriented comparisons.

Comparative-historical researchers have made mechanistic comparisons for some time, but such comparisons have become more common and explicit in recent years. One reason for their growing prominence is that comparative-historical researchers have placed more and more importance on mechanistic analysis. Relatedly, the rise of process tracing as a within-case method explicitly focuses on discovering causal mechanisms, and the method therefore privileges mechanistic comparison.

Charles Tilly’s comparative-historical work pays considerable attention to mechanisms, and many of his comparative-historical analyses make mechanistic comparisons; Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000 (2004) provides a notable example. It analyzes the competing historic trends of democratization and de-democratization in several countries, focusing on the Netherlands, Iberia, France, the British Isles, and Switzerland. His main argument is that democratization is inherently a contentious process and one that depends on three things: the segregation of categorical inequalities from public politics, the integration of trust networks into public politics, and the expansion of the breadth and complementarity of state–society relations. One major finding, in turn, is that the construction of powerful states promotes all three in different ways.

Despite his pursuit of general insight into democratization processes, Tilly notes that no two countries democratize in the same way, and sets out to explore the different ways countries have arrived at similar points. For this, he begins by outlining different mechanisms that can promote the three main determinants of democratization. Notably, he recognizes six mechanisms that can promote the segregation of categorical inequalities from public politics, eight mechanisms that help integrate trust networks into public politics, and seven mechanisms that promote state–society relations (Tilly 2004, 18–20). (To give an idea of what his mechanisms are like, Table 5.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.