Social Mechanisms, Causal Inference, and the Policy Relevance of Social Science Export

@article{citeulike:1697529, abstract = {The paper has two aims. First, to show that we need social mechanisms to establish the policy relevance of causal claims, even if it is possible to build a good argument for those claims without knowledge of mechanisms. Second, to show that although social scientists can, in principle, do without social mechanisms when they argue for causal claims, in reality scientific practice contexts where they do not need mechanisms are very rare. 10.1177/0048393107303814}, author = {Weber, Erik}, booktitle = {Philosophy of the Social Sciences}, citeulike-article-id = {1697529}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0048393107303814}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://pos.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/3/348}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1177/0048393107303814}, journal = {Philosophy of the Social Sciences}, keywords = {inference, mechanisms, philosophy, policy, socialscience, sociology}, month = {September}, number = {3}, pages = {348--359}, posted-at = {2009-02-04 10:02:23}, priority = {3}, title = {Social Mechanisms, Causal Inference, and the Policy Relevance of Social Science}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0048393107303814}, volume = {37}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1697529 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1697529 N2 - The paper has two aims. First, to show that we need social mechanisms to establish the policy relevance of causal claims, even if it is possible to build a good argument for those claims without knowledge of mechanisms. Second, to show that although social scientists can, in principle, do without social mechanisms when they argue for causal claims, in reality scientific practice contexts where they do not need mechanisms are very rare. 10.1177/0048393107303814 IS - 3 JF - Philosophy of the Social Sciences EP - 359 TI - Social Mechanisms, Causal Inference, and the Policy Relevance of Social Science VL - 37 T2 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences SP - 348 KW - inference KW - mechanisms KW - philosophy KW - policy KW - socialscience KW - sociology AU - Weber, Erik PY - 2007/09/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0048393107303814 ER -