Mechanism-Based Causal Analysis

Over the past decades, ‘causal mechanisms’ have become an important part of social scientific explanation. Causal mechanisms now appear in annual review pieces, edited volumes, and occasional symposia. The publication of the Oxford Handbook of Analytic Sociology – a manifesto of the analytic paradigm that places mechanisms at the helm of its enterprise – is further evidence of this new focus. But what, precisely, are causal mechanisms? And how do they aid in explanation in the social sciences? This article investigates five major approaches to causal mechanisms toward the goal of identifying major points of consensus and contention. It further suggests that there are two distinct approaches to causal mechanisms: ‘top-down’ approaches that seek to generalize empirical events under widely instantiated causal patterns, and ‘bottom-up’ approaches that seek to disaggregate ‘average causal effects’ by opening up the ‘black-boxes.’