The empirical investigation of causal relationships is an important but difficult scientific endeavor. In the social sciences, two understandings of causation have guided the empirical analysis of causal relationships: (1) Causation as robust dependence and (2) causation as consequential manipulation. Both approaches clearly have strengths and weaknesses for the social sciences which will be described in detail in this chapter. Based on this discussion, a third understanding of causation as generative process, proposed by David Cox, is then further developed. This idea seems to be particularly valuable for modern social sciences because it leads to a longitudinal analysis of social processes and can easily be combined with a narrative in terms of an actor’s objectives, knowledge, reasoning, and decisions (methodological individualism).
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Blossfeld, HP. (2009). Causation as a Generative Process. The Elaboration of an Idea for the Social Sciences and an Application to an Analysis of an Interdependent Dynamic Social System. In: Engelhardt, H., Kohler, HP., Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A. (eds) Causal Analysis in Population Studies. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9967-0_5
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