Local explosion modelling by non-causal process

Oftentimes, democracy is not spread out evenly over the territory of a country. Instead, pockets of authoritarianism can persist within a democratic system. A growing body of literature questions how such subnational authoritarian enclaves can be democratized. Despite fascinating insights, all existing pathways rely on the actions of elites and are therefore top-down. This article seeks to kick-start the discussion on a bottom-up pathway to subnational democratization, by proposing the attrition mechanism. This mechanism consists of four parts and is the product of abductive inference through theory-building causal process tracing. The building blocks consist of subnational democratization literature, social movement theory, and original empirical data gathered during extensive field research. This case study focuses on the ‘Dynasty Slayer’ in the province of Isabela, the Philippines, where civil society actors used the attrition mechanism to facilitate subnational democratization. This study implies that civil society actors in subnational authoritarian enclaves have agency.

The (co)evolution of human rights advocacy: Understanding human rights issue emergence over time

Cooperation and Conflict ◽

10.1177/0010836718808315 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 54 (3) ◽

pp. 313-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Baekkwan Park ◽

Amanda Murdie ◽

David R Davis

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Causal Process ◽

Change Over Time ◽

Advocacy Network ◽

Human Rights Advocacy ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

Rights Issue ◽

Relationship Of ◽

Rights Issues ◽

Over Time

How does the discussion of human rights issues change over time? Without advocates adopting a human rights issue in the first place, international ‘shaming’ cannot occur. In this article, we examine how human rights discussions converge and diverge around new frames and new issues over time. Human rights norms do not evolve alone; their prevalence, framing, and focus are all dependent on how they relate to other norms in the advocacy community. Drawing on over 30,000 documents from dozens of human rights organizations from 1990 to 2011, we provide a temporal overview and visualization of the ebb and flow of human rights issues. Using our new dataset and state-of-the-art methods from computer science, our approach allows us to quantitatively examine (a) how new issues emerge in the advocacy network, (b) the relationship of these new issues to extant human rights advocacy and information, and (c) how the framing and specificity of these issues change over time. By focusing on the process by which a new issue gets incorporated into the work of advocates, we provide an empirical assessment of the first step in the causal process connecting shaming to improvement in human rights practices.

Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2010.0306 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 366 (1566) ◽

pp. 785-792 ◽

Cited By ~ 156

Author(s):

Jeremy Kendal ◽

Jamshid J. Tehrani ◽

John Odling-Smee

Keyword(s):

Natural Selection ◽

Material Culture ◽

Niche Construction ◽

Cultural Knowledge ◽

Causal Process ◽

Genetic Inheritance ◽

Selection Pressures ◽

Ecological Inheritance ◽

Human Niche Construction ◽

The Social

Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution, reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection. It works by adding ecological inheritance , comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction, to genetic inheritance in evolution. Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species. Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent because it includes the social transmission and inheritance of cultural knowledge, and material culture. Human genetic inheritance in combination with human cultural inheritance thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution, and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution. Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences. We elaborate on these processes, and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

Species Selection As a Causal Process

Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.1007/978-1-4615-6983-1_3 ◽

1986 ◽

pp. 249-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Norman L. Gilinsky

Keyword(s):

Species Selection ◽

Causal Process

Sustainability of social economy organizations (SEOs): An analysis of the conditions for surviving and thriving

10.26686/wgtn.14376398.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Daewook Kim ◽

Wonhyuk Cho ◽

Barbara Allen

Keyword(s):

Social Economy ◽

Necessary Condition ◽

Causal Process ◽

Study Approach ◽

Collaborative Networking ◽

Social Economy Organizations ◽

And Performance ◽

Business Competitiveness

Social economy organizations (SEOs), designed to do good for society, have been attracting significant attention as an alternative to purely profit-driven businesses. However, the sustainability of these hybrid organizations has been questioned due to the challenges in meeting the dual bottom-lines of financial performance and social purpose. This article takes a causal-process tracing (CPT) case study approach and analyzes eight SEOs to investigate the common characteristics of sustainable SEOs. The results of the analysis show that effective leadership is a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for the survival of SEOs, while leadership is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for SEOs’ thriving. Business competitiveness is found to be necessary for SEOs’ long-term success and performance over time. Collaborative networking is a contributory condition for SEOs thriving but not a necessary condition for their survival.

Process Tracing in Crisis Decision Making

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1510 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Derek Beach

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Direct Evidence ◽

Process Tracing ◽

Causal Process ◽

Foreign Policy Analysis ◽

Case Study Method ◽

Causal Inferences ◽

Theoretical Understanding ◽

Causal Processes

Process tracing is an in-depth case study method that can be used to study how causal processes play out within cases. Given its focus on processes and temporality, process tracing is a useful method for analyzing crisis and crisis decision making in the fields of foreign policy analysis and public policy. As can be seen from its name, process tracing involves theorizing a causal process that is then traced by investigating the observable manifestations of the operation of the process as a whole in the more minimalist variant, or for each of its parts in the more maximalist variant. Minimalist process tracing is typically used early in a research program as a form of plausibility probe to understand what types of processes might be linking a crisis event with particular outcomes like policy change. Maximalist process tracing can then be used once there is preliminary knowledge about processes, and where the goals become gaining a better theoretical understanding of how they operate, and making stronger causal inferences using more direct evidence of their operation.

Causal-Process Tracing

Designing Case Studies ◽

10.1057/9781137016669_3 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 79-143 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Joachim Blatter ◽

Markus Haverland

Keyword(s):

Process Tracing ◽

Causal Process

Causal-Process Tracing

Designing Case Studies ◽

10.1057/9781137016669.0007 ◽

2014 ◽

Keyword(s):

Process Tracing ◽

Causal Process

Shaping Multi-Level Democracy

Multi-Level Democracy ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198833505.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Lori Thorlakson

Keyword(s):

Political Competition ◽

Party Systems ◽

Institutional Structure ◽

Political Life ◽

Causal Process ◽

Party Organization ◽

Political Space ◽

Two Stage ◽

Electoral Behaviour ◽

Multi Level

Why, in some multi-level systems, does political competition preserve highly independent spheres of political life across the units and levels of a federation, while in other multi-level systems, political competition results in the emergence of a shared political space? This chapter argues that these patterns of independent or integrated politics in multi-level systems are shaped in important ways by the federal institutional structure, which shapes the incentives that parties and voters alike face. Surveying the literature that identifies how institutions impact party organization, party systems, and electoral behaviour, this chapter sets out a two-stage causal process whereby institutions shape aspects of integrated politics and aspects of integrated politics reinforce each other.

Fueling rebellion: Maritime piracy and the duration of civil war

International Area Studies Review ◽

10.1177/2233865919833975 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 128-147

Author(s):

Brandon Prins ◽

Anup Phayal ◽

Ursula E Daxecker

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Natural Resources ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Causal Process ◽

Maritime Piracy ◽

Fighting Ability ◽

Rebel Groups ◽

Conflict Duration ◽

Resource Wealth

Extant research shows that the presence of natural resources can prolong civil wars. But research also indicates that as rebel groups become stronger, conflicts tend to shorten. These studies suggest an unclear association among the three variables—resources, rebel strength, and conflict duration. If resources increase the fighting ability of rebels, then why do they not shorten conflicts? To understand this relationship, we examine incidents of maritime piracy, which unlike other resources are more clearly exploited by rebel groups rather than states and offer new insight on how this might affect the persistence of civil war. The findings suggest that the use of piracy by weaker rebel groups shortens conflict but prolongs it when exploited by stronger rebel groups. We think our conditional analyses allow us to discern insurgencies driven at least in part by greedy rebels and therefore better illuminate the causal process by which resource wealth prolongs civil war.