KURKI, Milja Causes of a divided discipline Rethinking concept of cause in IR theory 2006

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Review of International Studies (2006), 32, 189–216 Copyright � British International Studies Association
doi:10.1017/S026021050600698X
Causes of a divided discipline: rethinking the
concept of cause in International Relations
theory
MILJA KURKI*
Abstract. During the last decades ‘causation’ has been a deeply divisive concept in Inter-
national Relations (IR) theory. While the positivist mainstream has extolled the virtues of
causal analysis, many post-positivist theorists have rejected the aims and methods of causal
explanation in favour of ‘constitutive’ theorising. It is argued here that the debates on
causation in IR have been misleading in that they have been premised on, and have helped to
reify, a rather narrow empiricist understanding of causal analysis. It is suggested that in order
to move IR theorising forward we need to deepen and broaden our understandings of the
concept of cause. Thereby, we can radically reinterpret the causal-constitutive theory divide in
IR, as well as redirect the study of world politics towards more constructive multi-causal and
complexity-sensitive analyses.
Introduction
In Explaining and Understanding International Relations Martin Hollis and Steve
Smith famously argued that there are always ‘two sorts of stories to tell’1 in the
discipline of International Relations (IR): one can explain international politics
through causal analysis of international processes or seek to understand international
politics through inquiring into the meanings of, and the ‘reasons for’, the actions of
world political actors.2 The assumption elicited by Hollis and Smith that there is a
fundamental dichotomy between causal and non-causal approaches to the social
world, has come to permeate the discipline of IR in the last decade or so. While the
so-called scientific theorists have advocated systematic causal analysis in IR3, the
so-called reflectivist ‘constitutive’ theorists have maintained that causal analysis is
neither a necessary, nor a desirable aim in understanding world politics.4 As a
* The author would like to thank Alexander Wendt, Colin Wight, Jonathan Joseph, Hidemi
Suganami and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
1 Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 1.
2 Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding, pp. 1–7.
3 G. King, R. O. Keohane and S. Verba, Designing Social Inquiry; Scientific Inference in Qualitative
Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
4 David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and Politics of Identity (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 4.
189
consequence of their disagreements the theorists in the different camps have tended
to eschew talking to each other – at least constructively – in providing accounts of
world political processes.5
Curiously, despite the fact that the contentions between these ‘camps’ have
centred around the concept of cause, there has been no real engagement in IR with
the source from which this dichotomisation of causal and non-causal forms of
theorising arises. This article argues that an uncritical acceptance of a so-called
Humean conception of causation is at the root of the disciplinary divisions in IR. A
Humean discourse of causation – a set of assumptions deeply embedded in modern
philosophy – has, it is argued, deeply informed most IR theorists’ engagements with
causation. The implicit influence of Humean assumptions has brought with it many
prejudices with regard to the way in which causes are discussed in IR. Thus, it is often
assumed that causes or causal analyses imply determinism, laws and objectivism. It
is also assumed that causes refer to ‘pushing and pulling’ forces.
It is suggested here that we need not conceptualise causation according to Humean
assumptions: we can, in fact, think of causation as a ‘common-sensical’ intuitive
notion with a multiplicity of different meanings, none of which entail laws or
determinism. We can also understand social scientific causal analysis as epistemically
reflective, methodologically pluralist and complexity-sensitive. It is seen that if we
draw on philosophies of causation with much richer and broader understandings of
the notion of cause we can start doing away with the prejudices that the Humean
discourse of causation has promulgated in IR. If the concept of cause is reconcep-
tualised on the lines suggested here, it emerges that, not only is the empiricist form
of causal analysis that dominates in IR problematic as a model of causal analysis, but
also that causal analysis in the wider reconceptualised sense is, in fact, something that
all IR theorists, including constitutive theorists, engage in. It is argued, then, that the
deeper and broader conception of causal analysis advanced here can, not only
improve causal analysis in IR, but also help forge constructive links between
theoretical camps in the ‘divided discipline’ of IR.
The reconceptualisation of causation is advanced in five sections. To contextualise
the discussion, the first section will trace how the Humean philosophy of causation
has come to influence the modern philosophy of science and social science. The focus
will then shift to the examination of Humean assumptions in IR debates on
causation. Then, the concept of cause will be reconceptualised in two interrelated
sections. First, it is argued that we need to challenge the influence of Humeanism
through adopting a ‘philosophically realist’ deeper conception of cause. The section
that follows argues that this move needs to be extended through the development of
a broader meaning for the concept of cause. It is suggested that IR theorising returns
to the insights of the Aristotelian conception of causation. The reconfigured deeper
and broader model of causal analysis has many metatheoretical, theoretical and
methodological implications for IR theorising and the disciplinary debates. These
will be reflected on in the final section.
5 There has been a tendency to see these approaches as mutually exclusive, incommensurable accounts
as Hollis and Smith portrayed them. Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding, pp. 196–216.
190 Milja Kurki
The dominance of Humeanism and the decline of causation
The concept of cause has been one of the central but also one of the most
controversial concepts in the history of philosophy and science. However, during the
last three hundred years a particular set of assumptions, arising from the empiricist
philosophy of David Hume, have come to dominate the way in which causes and
causal analysis have been understood. In order to gain a deeper understanding of IR
debates on causation, it is important to grasp the nature of the ‘Humean legacy’ in
modern philosophy and science.
The rise of Humeanism: the narrowing down and emptying out of the notion of cause
In ancient Greek philosophy, which first formulated the concept of cause, the notion
referred to that which ‘brought something about’ or ‘contributed’ in any way to the
existence of objects, or to change in or between them. It was accepted that nothing
in the world ‘comes from nothing’ and that the notion of aition (cause) provided an
open metaphor that referred to those forces that were ‘behind’ other things. There are
two aspects that are worth highlighting with regard to these early understandings of
causation.
First, for classical ancient thinkers, notably Aristotle, causes were understood as
‘ontologically real’. Although the concept of cause was seen as a ‘man-made’ concept
designed to help us to understand ‘why’ the world works as it does, this concept
was conceived to have an ontological reference point in the ‘real’ causal powers of
nature.6 Second, the conception of cause in ancient philosophy was plural. Aristotle,
with his ‘four causes’
account, recognised four main types of causes: material, formal,
final and efficient causes.7 Material and formal causes referred to the role of matter
and ‘ideas’ in shaping reality, efficient causes to ‘pushing and pulling’ ‘moving’
causes, and final causes to ends or purposes as causes. Crucially, these different types
of causes – which we will examine in more detail in the fourth section – were seen as
interlinked: any causal analysis would have to understand, not only different types of
causes on their own, but also their complex interplay in concrete situations.
Interestingly, in modern philosophy the Aristotelian ontologically grounded and
broad conception of cause has been sidelined in favour of a very different under-
standing of causation. During the sixteenth century important shifts took place in
theorising causation.8 Descartes initiated a ‘narrowing down’ of the concept of cause
by concentrating on the ‘mechanical’ meaning of the term cause: the notion of
efficient cause.9 Descartes rejected as vague and unsubstantiated the wider material,
formal and final cause meanings of the notion of cause and came to see causes strictly
6 For descriptions of early accounts of cause, see for example R. J. Hankinson, Cause and
Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Jonathan Lear, Aristotle;
the Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
7 Aristotle, Metaphysics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998), p. 115.
8 For an account of the historical changes in the concept of cause in the modern period see W.A.
Wallace, Causality and Scientific Explanation, vol. I (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1972),
and K. Clatterbaugh, Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy 1637–1739 (New York, London:
Routledge, 1999).
9 Rene Descartes, Key Philosophical Writings (Ware: Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, 1997).
The concept of cause in IR theory 191
as ‘pushing and pulling’, so-called efficient, forces. He argued that, rather than
attributing objects unobservable ‘occult qualities’ (material, formal or final causal
powers), the most useful way to think of causes was to trace the ‘pushing and pulling’
relations between things.10
Having concurred with the Cartesian ‘narrowing down’ of the meaning of
the concept of cause, David Hume’s eighteenth century philosophy initiated the
‘emptying out’ of the notion. Hume advanced a radical empiricist critique of
metaphysics according to which, in the search for reliable knowledge, human
perceptions should take precedence over any speculation about the nature of ‘reality’.
Through focusing the acquisition of knowledge on the observable, Hume’s empiricism
sought to challenge the ontological reality of causes. Hume had a profound
disagreement with all the philosophers before him who tried to define causes as
(ontologically) ‘naturally necessary’. He rejected all efforts to define causes on the
basis of ‘efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connexion, and productive
quality’.11 Hume contended that all we can say about causation must be based on our
experiences of the empirical world. This led Hume to the conclusion that, since there
is nothing that can be observed directly about causal connections, we cannot
attribute causal relations any ‘reality’ beyond our observations.
The notion of cause, for Hume, arose simply from human observations of
‘constant conjunctions’ of events. He argued that when regular successions of types
of events have been observed, the mind through ‘custom’ comes to associate these
events in such a way as to create the ‘illusionary belief’ in a causal connection. When
we have observed that billiard ball B has regularly moved after ball A has hit it, we
can say that A is the cause of B’s movement. There is nothing more to the causal
connection between these objects, however, or we cannot say whether there is, since
we have no observational evidence of ‘deeper’ causal connections. It follows that for
Hume ‘[causal] necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects . . . or
necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to
effects and from effects to causes, according to their experienc’d union’.12
Hume’s influential solution to the problem of causation entails certain important
assumptions that need to be drawn out. The Humean philosophy of causation, which
has been deeply entwined with the empiricist tradition in modern philosophy, has
entailed the following assumptions.
1. Causal relations are tied to regularities and causal analysis to finding associations
between patterns of regularities.
2. Causal relations are regularity relations of patterns of observables. As empiricism
dictates that only observable events/things can be the basis of knowledge, causality
has been reduced to a relation of observables.
3. Causal relations are seen as regularity-deterministic.13 Most Humeans have
assumed that, given certain regularities have been observed in the past, we can
make ‘when A, then B’ statements about the relations of certain types of events
(given regularities we can assume the existence of ‘closed systems’).
10 E. Chavez-Arvizo, ‘Introduction’, in Descartes, Key Philosophical Writings, p. ix.
11 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 157.
12 Hume, Treatise, pp. 165–6.
13 The term regularity-determinism was coined by Roy Bhaskar. Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of
Science (Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978), p. 69.
192 Milja Kurki
4. Beyond these strictly empiricist assumptions, it has also been assumed that causes
refer to ‘moving’ causes that ‘push and pull’, that is, so-called efficient causes.
These assumptions are referred to here as Humean assumptions. It will be seen that
they underlie many contemporary engagements with causation in philosophy of
science, social science and IR, even if often unsystematically or inadvertently.
Hume’s legacy in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of social science
The most influential advocates of Humeanism in twentieth century philosophy of
science can be found within the so-called ‘positivist’ tradition. Indeed, at the
beginning of the twentieth century the so-called logical positivists transformed the
Humean premises into a philosophy of science geared around the notion of ‘laws’. By
basing science on the analysis of laws (based on observed event regularities), it was
believed that science could get rid of all ‘metaphysical’ speculation.14 Popper’s and
Hempel’s later deductive-nomological (DN-) model explanation followed the same
Humean line of thought: although falsification and deductive methods were priori-
tised over verification and inductive methods, the basis of scientific theories was
conceived to lie in generalised patterns of observables. Without generalisations to
back it up a causal account was seen as unscientific and as mere speculation.15 Indeed,
in the course of the twentieth century causal explanation has become closely tied
up with analysis of ‘general laws’: science has come to be understood to be about
finding falsifiable, predictive, observation-based regularities, or generalisations.
Interestingly, Humean assumptions have become so widely accepted that they have
been increasingly ‘taken for granted’ in most philosophy of science debates.16
It is important to note that Humean assumptions have been dominant, not just in
the natural sciences, but also in the social sciences. The Humean assumptions were
given first truly ‘systematic’ guise by the behaviourist social scientists: causal analysis
in the social sciences became equated with looking for associations amongst patterns
of observed behaviour.17 Since the 1960s many social scientists have criticised the
strict regularity assumptions and quantitative methods of the 1960s behaviourists.
Yet, arguably the key assumptions of Humeanism still hold sway in many social
sciences through the influence of so-called ‘post-behaviourist positivism’. Social
14 Humean assumptions were accepted, however, with a distinct anti-causal twist. Logical positivists
argued that since we can only legitimately talk of regularities of events, we should refrain from
using causal terminology. Instead, they talked of ‘functionally determinate’ relations between ‘laws’.
See, for example, A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959), R. Carnap,
Logical Foundations of Probability (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950).
15 K.R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson of London, 1959), C. G.
Hempel (ed.), Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science (New
York: Free Press, 1965).
16 The influential ‘growth of knowledge’ debates on philosophy of science were, for example, implicitly
underpinned by Humean assumptions. Although the logical positivist and Popperian models of
scientific progress have come under criticism from philosophers such as Thomas Kuhn, Imre
Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, these attacks have not challenged the Humean notion of cause
embedded in these accounts of scientific progress.
17 For a classical logical positivist/behaviourist view of social sciences see Marie Neurath and Robert
S. Cohen (eds.), Otto Neurath: Empiricism and Sociology (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: D. Reidel
Publishing, 1973).
The concept of cause in IR theory 193
scientists now accept the legitimacy of qualitative methods and data, yet most social
scientists are still adamant that only careful observation of regularities (even if of
‘localised’ regularities) can give us an adequate understanding of human action and
society.18
Of course, the hermeneutic tradition in the social sciences disagrees with both
behaviourist and post-behaviourist forms of positivism and argues that mere
description of patterns of behaviour explains nothing about why people do what they
do: what we should do is analyse more carefully how people come to understand the
meaning of social situations. Causal descriptions of the social world have been
rejected by the hermeneutic theorists as invalid in the ‘interpretive understanding’ of
subjects. Social science, as Peter Winch famously argued, is about studying the
‘reasons’, not ‘causes’, of actions.19 The ‘internal relations’ between meanings, rules,
reasons and actions, it is argued, cannot be treated in the same way as the ‘external’
relations of events. It follows that social relations do not lend themselves to
generalisation and prediction in the same way as the relations that the natural
sciences study.20 Assessing human behaviour from the point of view of general
patterns of behaviour misses out the crucial role that rules and reasons play in
‘constituting’ the meaningful context of social action.
The disagreements over the legitimacy of the notion of cause have given rise to a
sharp dichotomisation of reasons and causes, understanding and explaining, as well
as causal and constitutive forms of inquiry in the social sciences. However, it is
crucial to notice that the hermeneutic rule-following accounts of the social world are
also based on a Humean understanding of causation. Rejecting a causal approach to
the social world has been relatively easy for these theorists because they have
uncritically accepted the positivist Humean understanding of causation as charac-
teristic of causal analysis. Winch, for example, rejects causes because assumptions of
‘lawfulness’ and ‘when A, then B’ (regularity-determinism, efficient causation) do not
seem to apply in the social world.21 Indeed, one of the key problems in the philosophy
of social sciences is that, because of the (often inadvertent) acceptance of the Humean
assumptions as the baseline for evaluating ‘causal approaches’, there has been little
engagement with alternative ways of thinking about causation. As we will see, the
discipline of IR has reproduced these problems by drawing on the terms of debate
between ‘positivist’ and ‘interpretive’ approaches to justify the present divided
disciplinary ‘self-image’.
Humeanism in International Relations theory
The goal of this section is, first, to identify the Humean assumptions operating within
contemporary IR theory. Humean assumptions, it is seen, characterise most contem-
porary IR theorists’ understandings of causation. However, it is also recognised that
18 C. Frankfort-Nachmias and D. Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences (London:
Edward Arnold, 1992); King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry.
19 Peter Winch, The Idea of Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1990).
20 Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985),
p. 56.
21 Winch, Idea of Social Science, p. xii.
194 Milja Kurki
even when Humean assumptions are accepted, more ‘common-sensical’ non-Humean
causal terminology can be detected in IR theorising. The latter sections will seek to
clarify the meaning of the implicit ‘non-Humean’ causal language through ‘opening
up’ the notion of cause.
Humeanism and ‘scientific’ causal analysis in IR
Arguably, a particular kind of orthodoxy has dominated the way in which causal
analysis has been thought about in contemporary IR theory: orthodoxy defined by
the advocates of a positivist, or as some term it, an empiricist, model of social
science.22 It is argued here that the positivist/empiricist mainstream in IR is deeply
informed by Humean assumptions, even though it does not necessarily advocate
Humeanism in the ‘hard’ form (exemplified by the more behaviourist approaches).23
It is seen that the acceptance of Humeanism creates some problems and inconsist-
encies in the mainstream approaches to causal analysis in IR.
To understand how ‘Humeanism’ functions in IR at present, King, Keohane and
Verba’s methodological thesis Designing Social Inquiry will be examined here. This
book has not only outlined the premises of social scientific causal analysis in an
admirably systematic manner, but has also become very influential as a guiding light
of causal analysis in political science and IR. Indeed, most IR theorists and
researchers in the American mainstream seek to follow precepts for causal analysis
that are in line with King, Keohane and Verba: not simply the ‘rationalist’ neorealist
and neoliberal theorists that have used an empiricist framework for some time, but
also researchers driven by more ‘historical’ interests.24
King, Keohane and Verba attempted to bring cohesion and order into social
scientific inquiry by outlining how we should conduct valid causal analysis. Causality
for King, Keohane and Verba is measured in terms of the ‘causal effect’ exerted by
an ‘explanatory’ variable on a ‘dependent’ variable. They propose that we measure
‘causal effect’ as ‘the difference between the systematic component of observations
made when an explanatory variable takes one value and the systematic component of
22 Positivism is understood here to refer to those approaches that (1) believe in ‘a scientific method’
that is applicable across sciences and hence (2) assume naturalism, (3) empiricism, (4) believe in
value-neutrality of scientific method and (5) emphasise the importance of instrumental (predictive)
knowledge. Gerard Delanty, Social Science: Beyond Constructivism and Realism, Concepts in Social
Sciences (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997), p. 12. Empiricism is more narrowly an
epistemological approach to the construction of knowledge (through empirical observation).
However, empiricist epistemology is understood to be a crucial ingredient of a positivist approach to
science.
23 Examples of the ‘harder’ Humean approach can be seen advocated explicitly in American journals,
such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution. Many democratic peace theorists can be seen as examples
of hard Humeanism because of their statistical approach. See, for example, Z. Maoz and B. Russett,
‘Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace 1946–1986’, American Political Science
Review, 87:3 (1993), pp. 624–38; R. I. Rummel, ‘Democracies Are Less Warlike Than Other
Regimes’, European Journal of International Relations, 1:4 (1995), pp. 457–79; Russett, Grasping the
Democratic Peace; Principles of Post-Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1993).
24 The neo-neo contenders share a common, arguably, empiricist conception of science as highlighted
by Baldwin. D. A. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 9. This conception is arguably largely compatible with
King, Keohane and Verba’s precepts. For an application of King, Keohane and Verba in a more
historical inquiry see, for example, Randall L. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s
Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
The concept of cause in IR theory 195
comparable observations when the explanatory variable takes on another value’.25 In
other words, when we assess causal relations we measure the average ‘effect’ that the
changing value of an explanatory variable has for the dependent variable. King,
Keohane and Verba acknowledge that we can never completely securely ‘rerun’
explanatory variables against dependent variables (as if in controlled experiments)
but argue that through a careful observation of some central rules of causal
inference – falsifiability, consistency, careful selection of dependent variables, max-
imisation of ‘concreteness’ and of ‘encompassing qualities’ of theories26 – we can
minimise ‘disturbances’ in causal explanations of the social world. Importantly,
King, Keohane and Verba argue that the rules and logic of causal inference that they
advance apply equally to quantitative and qualitative inferences.
King, Keohane and Verba’s model of causal analysis is steeped in Humean
assumptions, although this might not be immediately obvious. First, causal relations
are seen as relations between observables or patterns of observables. Importantly,
King, Keohane and Verba warn against utilising concepts that cannot be empirically
operationalised in testing of theories. This raises the question; what is the nature of
the causal relation for King, Keohane and Verba? These authors do not talk about
‘real’ (ontological) relations between things: causality for them is an epistemological
concept, and relations between observables (events, things) ‘logically’, rather than
‘naturally’, necessitating relations.
As for the key Humean assumption of regularity, although strict behaviourist
requirements of quantifiability have been left behind, King, Keohane and Verba’s
account still works on the basis of the expectation that the qualitative variables will
be expressed in quantifiable terms. Also, it is argued that the larger the samples, even
in qualitative inquiries, the better the reliability of the inquiry.27 Further, generali-
sation is prioritised over the particular: too much concentration on the complex and
the unique, it is argued, dampens the ‘efficiency’ of the explanation, and accounting
for too many contributory factors lowers the ‘mean causal effect’ of the key
variable.28 Importantly, while King, Keohane and Verba acknowledge that social
scientists can, and sometimes do, concentrate their study on the so-called ‘causal
mechanisms’ of social life, it is argued that accounts of causal mechanisms must
always be premised on the identification of appropriate empirical variables.29
The wide acceptance of King, Keohane and Verba’s understanding of causal
analysis in the mainstream of IR, and hence the reproduction of Humean assump-
tions in the discipline, has three important implications that must be drawn out. First,
the acceptance of Humean causal analysis has led to an empiricist form of causal
analysis being advocated as the norm. Methodologically, this has entailed a certain
degree of rigidity: King, Keohane and Verba’s conception of causal analysis does not
allow for a multiplicity of different types of evidence to be appreciated. Qualitative or
historical data, for example, are not evaluated on their own terms but are made to
conform to the regularity criteria. On the other hand, methods such as discourse
analysis are sidelined as they cannot be bent to fit in with the empiricist regularity-
driven assumptions. Besides generating a rather methodologically rigid conception of
25 King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, pp. 81–2.
26 Ibid., pp. 99–114.
27 Ibid., pp. 208–30.
28 Ibid., pp. 104, 182–3.
29 Ibid., p. 86.
196 Milja Kurki
causal analysis, the empiricist criteria for ‘scientific’ causal analysis put forward by
King, Keohane and Verba also imply the epistemological superiority of this form of
gaining knowledge, an assumption that has been strongly criticised by many
post-positivists and one that is, indeed, far from straightforward.
Moreover, Humeanism has also entailed adoption of particular ontological
assumptions. The mainstream empiricists have often not been able to focus on
explaining ‘why’ event-regularities come about. Crucially, because ‘explanation’ is
conceived to take place through the analysis of the logical relations of observable
variables, these theorists have not been very interested in forming understandings of
the ‘deep ontological’ structures, processes and conditions (the underlying unobserv-
able causal powers), which would provide so-called ‘depth explanations’ of the
patterns of observables identified. Thus, empiricist explanations of, for example,
democratic peace have mostly been focused on the analysis of the observable
‘independent’ variables and their logical relations (given patterns in quantitative or
qualitative data), rather than on conceptualising the complex ‘deep ontological’
social relations that underlie the empirically observed sets of variables.30 Also, as a
result of prioritising observability, the empiricists’ social ontologies have tended to be
atomistic, that is geared around methodological individualism.31
Third, it is also important to note that there is something of a paradox within the
empiricist approaches. While the empiricists claim that causation can only be talked
of when strict epistemological and methodological rules of the positivist model of
science are employed, causal language in a much more (for want of a better word)
‘common-sensical’ manner can also be detected in most mainstream causal analyses.
Indeed, if we start paying attention to causal terminology in a wider ‘everyday’
sense – to words such as ‘because’, ‘leads to’, ‘produces’, ‘makes’, ‘enables’ and
‘constrains’ – we can see that a great deal of broader (but only implicitly ‘causal’)
terminology is at work in empiricist IR theorising. Although ‘valid’ causal theorising
is seen as that backed up by observed regularities, IR theorists also make more
‘common-sensical’ assumptions about the ‘productive connections’ between things.
It is seen in the latter part of this article that these ‘common-sensical’ causal
statements demonstrate that causal analysis in a deeper non-Humean sense is
possible and infiltrates even the Humean frameworks. In this sense, the mainstream
‘scientific’ accounts of causal relations are not necessarily the final word on
causation, nor necessarily as internally consistent as is often thought.
Constitutive theorists: another case of Humeanism
The constitutive, sometimes also called reflectivist, theorists in IR are, as opposed
to mainstream ‘scientific’ causal analysts, wary of causal terminology. Causal
30 Especially evident in Maoz and Russett, ‘Normative and Structural Causes’, pp. 624–38.
31 Waltz’s work, for example, is geared around methodologically individualism and, also, ‘closed
system’ regularity-deterministic logic. Regularity of war is logically deduced from assumptions about
‘structure’ premised on an individualistic understanding of states as actors. Kenneth Waltz, Theory
of International Politics (London: McGraw-Hill, 1979). For an excellent critique of Waltz’s
individualism see Alexander Wendt, ‘Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory’,
International Organization, 41:3, (1987), pp. 335–70, Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy Is What States
Make of It’, International Organization, 46:2 (1992), pp. 391–425.
The concept of cause in IR theory 197
descriptions are seen as problematic by these theorists because causes, for them, tend
to imply deterministic and materialistic explanations. These theorists like to conduct
‘constitutive’ theorising and research instead. The term ‘constitutive’ has a range of
meanings. It is argued, for example, that ideas ‘constitute’ the meaning of material
forces. Others see rules, norms and discourses as sets of ‘constitutive’ forces in that
they provide the ‘constitutive’ framework within which human actors think and act.
Beyond this, it is also accepted by many constitutive theorists that our ‘theories’
about the world do not simply reflect the world but are also ‘constitutive’ of social
reality. By opening up this new way of talking about the social world the constitutive
theorists have opened up new important avenues of inquiry in IR. However, it is
important to note that causation is rejected by these theorists on curious grounds.
Reflectivists tend to favour ‘constitutive’ descriptions over causal ones because they
tend to associate causal analysis with the empiricist Humean view of social inquiry.
When critical theorists, for example, refer to causes they do so only when
criticising ‘positivist’ causal analysis. Robert Cox, for example, argues that the
concept of cause is applicable strictly to the positivist framework and that his
‘historical explanation’ cannot be equated with ‘causal explanation’ since ‘causal
explanation’ cannot capture the complexity of the social world as the historical mode
of analysis can.32 Causal analysis is associated with the ‘ahistorical’ neorealist
frameworks and the ‘scientific’ claims of objectivity of the mainstream. Causal
analysis, then, is understood in accordance with Humean assumptions and, as a
result, rejected altogether.
However, as we will see, we should resist the simple conclusion that Cox’s account
is void of causal concerns. It should be kept in mind that Cox’s account of world
politics seems to be based on careful outlining of ‘forces’ – material, ideational and
institutional – that ‘produce’ and ‘shape’ the world order and agents’ actions within
it. However, Cox describes the layered and interacting structural forces, not as
causes, but as ‘pressures and constraints’.33 It could be argued that to the extent that
this terminology implies a ‘productive’ meaning, and is drawn upon to explain ‘why’
things happen in certain ways rather than others, Cox is making ‘common-sensically’
or implicitly causal claims. However, because Cox associates causation with positiv-
ism, he does not recognise his own implicit interest in causal forces that shape the
world.
Poststructuralists also harbour a deep dislike of causation. On the basis of the
poststructuralist critique of knowledge, Jenny Edkins, for example, argues that the
notions of cause and effect are ‘untenable’.34 Moreover, she argues that looking for
‘causes’ has resulted in inadequate responses in the dealing with particular problems
in world politics and, hence, talk of causes should be avoided for practical reasons as
well as philosophical ones.
Processes of technologization and depoliticization can be seen in international politics itself,
as well as in the discipline that studies it. One example of this is found in responses to
famines, humanitarian crises, or complex political emergencies. Agencies and governments
outside the crisis area do not take account of the political processes that are under way, of
32 Robert Cox, ‘Realism, Positivism and Historicism’, in Robert Cox and Timothy Sinclair (eds.),
Approaches to World Order (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 51.
33 Cox, ‘Social forces, states, and world orders’, in Cox and Sinclair (eds.), Approaches, p. 98.
34 Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations: Bringing the Political Back In (London:
Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 15.
198 Milja Kurki
which the crisis is a symptom. Instead, they rely on interventions derived from abstract,
technical analysis of the situation, one that looks for ‘causes’, not political reasons or
motivations.35
While Edkins voices a fair criticism of some political science approaches to
humanitarian emergencies, her statement gives an unfair portrayal of the notion of
cause. Causal analyses can, of course, have adverse consequences for the way in
which concrete problems are dealt with. However, it must be noted that Edkins’s
assessment itself depends on an implicitly causal understanding of the situation:
presumably the political processes of which the crisis is a symptom, and the
contextual ‘political reasons’ or ‘motivations’, are in fact the (real) causes that should
be addressed in order to deal with the situation. Because of her seemingly positivist
understanding of causation, Edkins rejects the concept too swiftly and, thereby,
ignores her own ‘implicit’ causal claims.
The same paradox characterises David Campbell’s work. In Writing Security
Campbell declares that the interpretive position he associates himself with is opposed
to ‘cataloging, calculating and specifying ‘‘the real causes’’ ’;36 instead, Campbell
maintains that his poststructuralist theory aims to inquire into the ‘political
consequences of adopting one mode of representation over another’.37 While
appearing ‘anti-causal’, his statement evidences an implicit causal commitment:
representations matter precisely because they produce certain consequences. This
understanding of representations and discourses can be seen as causal, even if not in
a ‘when A, then B’ manner.38 Because Campbell, as other reflectivists, associates
causation with the ‘mainstream’ Humeanism in IR, he does not recognise the implicit
causal claims in his own work.
Constructivist oscillation
Constructivists have not rejected the notion of cause as readily as many critical
theorists and poststructuralists. There is a tendency in constructivist work to oscillate
between ‘reasons’ and ‘causes’ accounts, and between ‘causal’ and ‘constitutive’
theorising. However, the terms ‘causal’ and ‘constitutive’ seem to lack coherent
meaning for many constructivists.
Nicholas Onuf provides a good example. Onuf thinks there is something to the
notion of cause, but he also wants to resist accounting for social action in merely
causal terms. Onuf wants to give a special meaning to the intentionality, rules and
‘constitution’ of the social world that cannot, for him, be understood through a
causal approach.39 However, neither the concept of causation, nor the notion of
35 Edkins, Poststructuralism, p. 9–10.
36 Campbell, Writing Security, p. 4.
37 Ibid., p. 4.
38 In National Deconstruction, for example, Campbell argues that the ‘ontopology’ of binding together
of territoriality, statism and mono-culturalism in Western liberal discourses has had some crucial
implications on how the West viewed and dealt with the situation in Bosnia. David Campbell,
National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia (London: University of Minnesota
Press, 1998).
39 See his discussion of Bhaskar’s reasons as causes account. Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making:
Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia, CA: University of Southern
California Press, 1989), p. 49.
The concept of cause in IR theory 199
constitution, are clearly defined
and causal concerns, in the end, largely drop off the
agenda as the notion of constitutive rules is given priority in analysing how rules and
norms work.
Similar trends can be detected in the work of other constructivists such as
Friedrich Kratochwil. Kratochwil attacks the ‘mono-causal’ neorealist theorising
and its ‘inappropriate concept of causality’.40 However, despite his rejection of
outright Humeanism, what alternative assumptions about causation entail remains
unclear and, as a result, causation, again, disappears from the theoretical agenda.
Norms, for example, are not seen as causal but rather as ‘constitutive’.41 Ruggie, too,
despite recognising ‘ideational causation’, continually contrasts causal explanations
with the so-called constitutive ‘non-causal explanations’.42 Yet, it remains unclear
what he finds causal about causal explanations and non-causal about ‘constitutive’
explanations.
While they do not reject the concept of cause outright, these constructivists
arguably continue to attach certain deterministic and materialistic connotations to
the notion of cause and, as a result, remain unclear about its role in their own
explanations. One of the only openly constructivist theorists to take steps towards a
clearer understanding of causation has been Alexander Wendt, whose efforts to build
a ‘deeper’ account of cause will be discussed in the next section.
The failure of many IR theorists – empiricist, reflectivist and constructivist – to
give adequate emphasis to the conceptualisation of the notion of cause has had some
crucial effects on the discipline of IR. Crucially, the Humean discourse of causation
has had an overwhelmingly influential role in directing the assumptions attached to
the notion of cause. The wide acceptance of Humean assumptions on causation has
led to the empiricist form of causal analysis being treated as the only acceptable form
of causal inquiry in the discipline. This, in turn, has resulted in the dichotomisation
of ‘scientific’ causal and ‘reflectivist’ constitutive (non-causal) approaches in IR. As
the empiricist ‘scientists’ have insisted on the need for ‘systematic’ causal analysis as
defined by them (on Humean terms), the post-positivist ‘constitutive theorists’ have
rejected the validity of causal analysis altogether in an effort to avoid being forced
into a ‘straightjacket’ conception of how to analyse social affairs. Also, as a result of
the acceptance of Humeanism, theorists have not given adequate attention to the
many common-sensical assumptions at work in their theorising. It is argued here that
these common-sensical assumptions reveal that causation can, and in fact should, be
thought of in a much deeper and broader way than is recognised by the contemporary
‘causal’ or ‘non-causal’ theorists.
In order to solve the tensions and confusions that contemporary IR, with its
Humean framing of causation, is wedded to we must rethink and open up the concept
of cause altogether. The next section argues that we should accept the deeper notion
40 R. Koslowski and F. Kratochwil, ‘Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet
Empire’s Demise and the International System’, in T. Risse-Kappen et al. (eds.), International
Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995),
p. 136. See also F. Kratochwil, ‘Constructing a New Orthodoxy? Wendt’s Social Theory of
International Politics and the Constructivist Challenge’, Millennium, 29 (2000), pp. 73–101.
41 Koslowski and Kratochwil, ‘Understanding Change’, p. 137.
42 J. G. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Organization (London:
Routledge, 1998), p. 34. See also J. G. Ruggie, ‘What Makes the World Hang Together? The
Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge’, in Krasner et al. (eds.), Exploration and
Contestation in the Study of World Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 229.
200 Milja Kurki
of cause advocated by the philosophical realists. It is then argued that we must also
broaden the notion of cause away from the ‘pushing and pulling’ efficient cause
conception of causation. By taking these two steps we can comprehensively avoid
Humean assumptions and radically reconfigure causal analysis in IR.
Philosophical realism and a deeper conception of cause
This section argues that to escape from the problem-field that has plagued IR
theorists on all sides with regard to causal analysis, we need to first adopt a ‘deeper’
ontologically grounded conception of causation advanced in the philosophy of
science, and in IR, by the so-called philosophical realists. Philosophical realists aim
to put forward a new ontological framework for thinking about the objects of
science, which in turn necessitates a reconfiguration of the epistemological and
methodological parameters of ‘scientific causal analysis’. The philosophically realist
literature has already been drawn on in IR by certain key figures such as Alexander
Wendt, David Dessler, Heikki Patoma¨ki and Colin Wight. This section seeks to
explicate why the philosophically realist turn is important in redirecting causal
analysis, while also pointing out why we need to go beyond the ‘deepening’ of the
meaning of causation.
Towards a deeper conception of cause
The turn towards philosophical realism has been an important development in the
recent philosophy of science. It has had wide ranging implications within the
philosophy of science, social science and IR. This is because philosophical realism
aims to, and by and large succeeds, in solving a number of seemingly intractable
problems and debates in modern philosophy and social science.
What does philosophical realism as a general philosophy of science contribute to
our understanding of causation? First, philosophical realism has been important in
that it has allowed us to reclaim an ontological conception of causation that has been
lost for three hundred years or so. Realist philosophies of science and social science
have had as their aim the refocusing of debates in the contemporary philosophy of
science and social science on ontological questions.43 As a result, the philosophical
realists, importantly, advance a radically anti-Humean ontological understanding of
causation: causes, the realists argue, can be, or indeed, must be assumed to exist as
real ontological entities, that is, they are not mere creations of our imagination, but
have real existence in the world outside our thought and observations.44 Causal
analysis, then, is about analysing causes ‘out there’ (outside what we think or
observe), an assumption rejected by both Humean empiricists and many reflectivist
sceptics.
43 Note that philosophical realism should not be equated with the IR tradition of realism, which being
based on empiricist assumptions in many cases is, in fact, largely anti-realist.
44 Rom Harre and Edward H. Madden, Causal Powers: A Theory of Natural Necessity (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1975).
The concept of cause in IR theory 201
Second, in reclaiming the ontological meaning of the concept of cause, the
philosophically realist conception of cause allows us to transcend the regularity-
dependence of Humeanism. For philosophical realists, regularities, although
accepted as possibly indicative of underlying causal structures, are deemed neither
necessary nor sufficient for establishing a causal explanation.45 To grasp the real
underlying causes (why something happens), realists argue, we need knowledge based
on various types of evidence and, importantly, a conceptual framework that allows
us to conceptualise the real (ontological) unobservable causal powers that are behind
observable events (or regularities of events). Thus, while observed regularities are not
thrown away altogether, they are given a radically different role in this non-Humean
approach to causal analysis: they are only one form of data amongst many and
in
themselves cannot provide ‘scientifically objective’ causal analysis.
Third, philosophical realists also challenge the regularity-determinism of the
Humean empiricist model of causation. The realists emphasise that causes exist
outside closed systems and that the world, in fact, consists of ‘open systems’, where
multiple causes interact and counteract each other in complex and, importantly,
unpredictable ways. Thus, the central focus of causal analysis is not the analysis of
isolated independent variables (through statistical methods), but rather understand-
ing the complex interaction of a variety of different kinds of causal factors (through
the building of conceptual frameworks).
Furthermore, causation is defined much more openly, or common-sensically, by
the philosophical realists. Causes are defined rather loosely as all those things that
bring about, produce, direct or contribute to states of affairs or changes in the world.
This allows us to reclaim the diverse pragmatic causal language in common use and
reflects the ubiquity of causal analysis in our everyday lives. Causal analysis, then, is
not something that is uniquely abstract and ‘scientific’: rather scientific causal
analysis is a ‘refinement and extension of what we do in the practical functioning of
everyday life’.46
These philosophically realist arguments have important implications for the
analysis of the social world. Philosophical realists who concentrate on social inquiry
(often called critical realists)47 reject the terms of debate in much of the philosophy
of social science by arguing that the philosophy of social science has been deeply
informed by a misleading positivist stance on science.
The critical realists, in line with the general philosophically realist critiques, reject
the applicability of empiricist observation based scientific inquiry and the ‘closed
system’ model of explanation. As a result, they aim to reconfigure radically
philosophy of social science debates away from the positivist vs. hermeneutic theory
dichotomy. Notably, the reasons vs. causes debate is reconfigured by the critical
realists. The critical realists argue that, when we disentangle the notion of cause from
the Humean regularity-deterministic model of causation, we can accept that reasons
are, in fact, a type of cause. Critical realists argue that just because humans are
intentional, meaningful and human action ‘reasoned’ this does not mean that our
45 Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science (Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978), p. 12.
46 J. Lopez and G. Potter, ‘After Postmodernism: The Millennium’, in J. Lopez and G. Potter (eds.),
After Postmodernism: an Introduction to Critical Realism (London: Athlore Press, 2001), p. 9.
47 Short for realist ‘critical naturalism’ Roy Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism: A Critique of the
Contemporary Human Sciences, 3rd edn. (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 28.
202 Milja Kurki
actions, and the rules and reasons that inform our actions are non-causal (or
uncaused) .48 On the contrary ideas, meanings and reasons are important in the social
world precisely because they are causal.49
It follows that interpretive methods, far from being anti-causal or non-scientific,
are seen as necessary in order to conduct social scientific causal analysis: hermeneutic,
historical and qualitative methods are seen as fundamentally important in getting
to grips with the complex nature of social relations. Critical realists advance a
methodologically pluralist approach to social science accepting the validity of both
‘extensive’ statistical methods and ‘intensive’ qualitative and interpretive methods.50
Critical realists also avoid the epistemologically objectivist tendencies of the
empiricists. Although realists accept that the world is characterised by ontologically
real things and processes, they accept that in coming to know those forces, we will
always be inevitably informed by the social and political context that we inhabit.
Indeed, all knowledge about the world is deeply constrained and enabled by the
linguistic conventions, conceptual systems and the social-political backgrounds that
we ‘know’ within. This means that science is never purely objective. However, science
is not ‘relativistic’ either because our knowledge is always of something, that is, our
accounts of the world are not merely ‘imagined’ but make projections about really
existing ontological objects, relations and processes.51
Philosophical and critical realism allow us to deeply challenge the dominance of
the traditional positivist model of science, and the ‘taken-for-granted’ nature of the
Humean model of causal analysis attached to it. They introduce a new ontological
approach to causal analysis and, in so doing, transcend the epistemological and
methodological ‘deadlocks’ between the traditional contenders in the social sciences.
The advancement of realist ideas in IR has been very important in redirecting IR
theory. The works of Wendt, Dessler, Patomaki and Wight have opened important
new theoretical and empirical avenues in IR.52 Wendt has demonstrated that the
philosophically realist logic can be used to bridge the gap between rationalist and
reflectivist theorising in IR, while Dessler has demonstrated that philosophical
realism directs us towards more integrative analysis of world political processes.
Patoma¨ki and Wight, on the other hand, have demonstrated the deep embeddedness
of IR theoretical approaches in an ‘anti-realist’ problem-field that has weakened
IR theorising ontologically, epistemologically and methodologically. Notably, all
these theorists have challenged the taken-for-granted conception of science in IR
and, hence, have directed IR theorisations towards more ontologically and
epistemologically reflective and methodologically pluralist frameworks.
These theorists have also made important contributions in rethinking causation:
Wendt and Dessler have emphasised the analysis of ‘causal mechanisms’ over
48 Paul Lewis, ‘Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon’, Politics,
22:1 (2002), pp. 17–23.
49 Andrew Sayer, Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 111.
50 See, for example, Sayer, Method in Social Science.
51 Heikki Patomäki, After International Relations; Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World
Politics (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 79.
52 See, for example, Heikki Patomäki and Colin Wight, ‘After Post-Positivism? The Promises of
Critical Realism’, International Studies Quarterly, 44 (2000), pp. 213–37; Patomäki, After
International Relations; Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1999); David Dessler, ‘Beyond Correlations: Towards a Causal Theory
of War’, International Studies Quarterly, 35:3 (1991), pp. 337–55.
The concept of cause in IR theory 203
regularities in analysing world politics, and have raised concerns about the rigidity of
the causal-constitutive theory divide in IR. Patoma¨ki and Wight, on the other hand,
have argued for more multi-causal inquiries through advancing the notion of ‘causal
complex’. However, more could be done to develop the philosophically realist
conception of causation. Indeed, the next section will point out that we should go
beyond advocating ‘deeper’ analysis of causation by coherently ‘broadening’ out the
meaning of causation. This provides the philosophically realist approaches with a
sharper focus in analysing the multiplicity of social causes.
Beyond the deeper conception of cause?
While providing a useful corrective to the dominant positivist model of science in IR,
and, hence, enabling the opening up of new conceptual and methodological avenues,
the philosophically realist critiques have not gone far enough in challenging the
Humean discourse of causation in philosophy of science, social science and in IR.
This is because the philosophical realists seem to have been unnecessarily wedded to
the ‘efficient’ cause understanding of causation. As will be seen, more can and should
be done to open up systematically the meaning of the notion of cause beyond the
‘pushing and pulling’ efficient cause metaphor.
When we examine the philosophically realist accounts more closely, we can see
that many of them retain a belief in a ‘pushing and pulling’ understanding of
causation, the so-called ‘efficient cause’ understanding of causation. For example,
Harre and Madden, the theorists behind the turn towards the study of ontological
‘causal powers’, define causation and causal powers squarely through the metaphor
of efficient cause. Causation, for them, ‘always involves a material particular which
produces or generates something’, that is, ‘[powerful] particulars are to be conceived
as causal agents’.53 This follows closely the post-Cartesian assumption that, when we
talk about causes, we only talk about ‘pushing and pulling’ causes: causation is
defined by the ability of objects to ‘bring about change’ through ‘agential’ action.
Importantly, because they accept this assumption of causal powers as ‘agential’
movers, Harre and Madden have accepted that in the social world the only important
causal force is the ‘active’ human action by individuals.54
Some critical realists in Roy Bhaskar’s tradition have challenged this reduction of
social causality to ‘active human action’ because this is perceived to lead to methodo-
logical individualism. As a result, some Bhaskarian critical realists have started to
open up the meaning of the notion of cause away from the ‘efficient’ cause connota-
tions. First, these Bhaskarian critical realists have argued for a wider conception of
efficient cause, one that encapsulates not only human action, but also ideas, rules and
reasons: these too ‘cause’ states of affairs, although not necessarily in a ‘when A, then
B’ manner.55 Second, however, the critical realists have also come to argue that the
only way in which we can grasp the causal nature of factors such as ‘social structures’
is by accepting that social structures do not necessarily ‘push and pull’, rather they
53 Harre and Madden, Causal Powers, p. 5.
54 Paul Lewis, ‘Realism, Causality and the Problem of Social Structure’, Journal for the Theory of
Social Behaviour, 30: 3 (2000), pp 255–7.
55 Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 89, Sayer, Method in Social Science, p. 111.
204 Milja Kurki
‘constrain and enable’. To conceptualise these non-pushing and pulling types of causes
the Bhaskarian critical realists have utilised the Aristotelian metaphor of ‘material
cause’. As Paul Lewis explains:
Just as a sculptor fashions a product out of the raw materials and tools available to him, so
social actors produce their actions out of pre-existing social structure. Like the medium in
which the sculptor works, pre-existing social structure lacks the capacity to initiate activity
and make things of its own accord – social actors are the only efficient causes or prime
movers in society – but it does affect the course of events in the social world by influencing
the actions that people choose to undertake . . And by influencing the behaviour of social
actors, pre-existing social structure makes a difference to and hence exerts a (material)
causal influence over social life.56
The opening up of the possibility that there might be other types of causes than
efficient causes in social life is important and promising. However, the broader
conception of causation has not been developed fully by the philosophical realists.
The use of the Aristotelian material cause analogy, for example, is not adequately
developed as many would question the similarity of material and ‘social structural’
causes. Also, there is no explicit acceptance among the philosophical realists of the
general principle that when we talk about causation we are actually talking about
many different types of causes, nor real willingness to develop broader categorisa-
tions of different types of causes. Thus, the different ways in which ideas, discourses
and reasons, for example, ‘cause’ are not examined but subsumed under the now
rather broad efficient cause heading. If there are different types of causes at work in
social life, why should we think only in terms of material and efficient causes? It is
argued in the following section that it is, indeed, useful to draw on the Aristotelian
account to develop a more pluralistic understanding of causation, but that this
broadening out should be done more consistently and holistically.
Furthermore, the implications of a wider conception of cause should be developed
in more detail in the IR theoretical context. While the followers of philosophical
realism in IR have rethought causation on deeper lines, and have been sceptical of
mono-causal explanations, these theorists have not so far focused on drawing out the
implications of broadening out the notion of cause in IR context.
An interesting exception in this regard is Alexander Wendt who in his recent work
has shown interest in exploring the broader conceptions of cause. Importantly, in his
article ‘Why the World State is Inevitable’, Alexander Wendt turned to the
Aristotelian notion of cause in order to elucidate a ‘teleological’ logic for the
development of the world state.57 While Wendt focused on developing the notion of
final cause, he also pointed out that parallels can be drawn between constitutive
analyses in IR and the Aristotelian causal categories.58 Thus, Wendt has opened up
the possibility of broadening out the notion of cause for the purposes of IR
theorising. The following section seeks to take further Wendt’s reflections by
systematically exploring the import of the Aristotelian philosophy of causation for
the purposes of IR theorising.
56 Lewis, ‘Agency’, pp. 20–21.
57 Alexander Wendt, ‘Why a World State is Inevitable’, European Journal of International Relations,
9:4 (2003), pp. 491–542.
58 Wendt, ‘Why A World State?’, p. 495.
The concept of cause in IR theory 205
Aristotle revisited: broadening the concept of cause
While being the oldest and most famous account of causation, Aristotle’s philosophy
of causation has been largely forgotten during the last centuries. This section seeks to
show that if we revisit the broader Aristotelian logic of causal explanation we gain a
radically reconfigured understanding of causal analysis – philosophically and for the
purposes of IR theorising. It is accepted here that, contrary to what Hume, the
empiricists and even many philosophical realists assume, ‘causation is not a single,
monolithic concept’59 and, hence, causal analysis involves the careful identification of
various different types of causes and understanding their complex interactions.
Aristotle’s ‘four causes’ account
As was seen in the first section, the original meaning of the word cause, the Greek
word aition, did not have a precise meaning in the sense that modern philosophy has
tried to establish. An aition was anything that contributed in any way to the
producing or maintaining of a certain reality, or whatever one could cite as an answer
to a why-question.60 Crucially, for Aristotle, different causes – material, formal,
efficient and final – ‘cause’ in different ways. Aristotle saw efficient causes (by which
something is made) and final causes (for the sake of which something is made) as
‘active’ or extrinsic causes that cause by lending an influence or activity to the
producing of something. On the other hand, an intrinsic cause, for Aristotle, was that
which causes through ‘constituting’ an object or thing.61 Within his framework of
four causes (‘constitutive causes’ of reality) could be thought to consist of material
causes (material out of which something is made) and formal causes (ideas or
relations according to which something is made). Aristotle
saw the world as shaped
through the complex interaction of all these different types of causal forces. To
explain why any change or thing has come about one would need to refer to all these
different categories of cause and the relations between them.
The Aristotelian categories of thinking about the meaning of causation allow us to
open up the meaning of the notion of cause and to explore the plurality of meanings
of the concept, something that has been pushed aside since Descartes ‘narrowing
down’ of the concept of cause. What do the categories mean and how can we use
them to understand the social world in better ways?
Material causes, for Aristotle, were a fundamental part of any explanation in the
sense that all accounts of the world would have to refer to the matter ‘out of which’
things come to be. Material causes simply referred to the passive potentiality of
matter as a type of cause that enables and delimits possible ways of being or
changing. Importantly, in the Aristotelian framework the notion of material cause
has different meanings in different explanatory contexts: thus, while ‘things’ such as
a table or a gun, can be treated as material causes in one instance, these things
59 Nancy Cartwright, ‘Causation: One Word, Many Things’, Philosophy of Science, 71 (2004), p. 805.
60 Lear, Aristotle, p. 6.
61 S. Waterlow, Nature, Change and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982),
p. 11.
206 Milja Kurki
can also be understood to have material causes themselves in the constitution of
substances (wood, metal).62
What does this notion of material cause contribute to our understanding of
causation? The first contribution of the Aristotelian understanding of material causes
is that it points us to recognise that material causes are fundamental in any
explanation. It directs us to accept that without accounting for material potentiality,
and the various forms that matter takes, any account of the world is limited. At the
same time, the Aristotelian notion of material cause also allows us to use material
causes as a flexible category that refers to a wide range of material substances, things
and resources and allows us to conceptualise these material resources as ‘constraining
and enabling’ causes, not as mechanical ‘pushing and pulling’ causes often implied in
modern materialist accounts. This framing is useful in the social sciences as it gets us
away from complete rejection of material factors (exemplified by idealist strands of
thinking) as well as the deterministic overtones often attached to more materially
based explanations of the social world. To give an example from IR context, we can
recognise that the availability of guns in a crisis situation is an important causal
factor that conditions the conflict, while realising that this material cause in itself does
not ‘determine’ outcomes, nor does it provide an adequate explanation in and of
itself. Indeed, in order to understand the nature and role of material causes we need
to consider three other types of cause.
Formal causes, for Aristotle, referred to that which shapes or defines matter. For
Aristotle, a formal cause is that which makes or defines a given thing, its ‘structure’,
its qualities and its properties. In modern discourse formal causes are often
understood ‘ideationally’ (in the Platonic sense), that is, a form is taken to refer to the
‘idea’ of a thing. While this is, indeed, a valid interpretation, it is useful to remember
that Aristotelian formal causes were not defined by ‘ideationality’ alone, but rather
by relationality (which ideas can reflect): formal causes describe and define
the structure or ‘internal relations’ that give meaning and ‘being’ to things. If the
material cause of a table is the wood it is made of, the formal cause of it is the
structure (embodied in the ‘idea’ of a table) that defines the relationship between
pieces of wood to make it into a ‘table’.
Why are formal causes useful for our understanding of causal relations? First
and foremost, because it seems that in the social world, ideas, rules, norms and
discourses – often interpreted as non-causal ‘constitutive’ forces – can usefully be
understood through the notion of formal cause. Rules, norms and discourses, are
causes, then: as formal causes, they define and structure social relations, that is, they
relate agents to each other, their social roles and the meanings of their practices. They
describe the rules and relations that define social positions and relationships, and
hence can be seen as ‘that according to which’ social reality works. Crucially, the
Aristotelian conception of formal cause allows us to understand rules, norms and
discourses as ‘constraining and enabling’ causes, and gets us away from the ‘pushing
and pulling’ model of framing the causal role of ideas, rules, norms and discourses –
the model that the ‘reflectivist’ constitutive theorists in IR have always been wary of.
Crucially, both material and formal causes break the mould of modern causal
analysis in the sense that they do not conform to the commonly elicited assumption
62 F. A. Lewis, ‘Aristotle on the Relation between a Thing and its Matter’, in M. L. Gill (ed.), Unity,
Identity and Explanation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 248.
The concept of cause in IR theory 207
that causes should ‘temporally precede’ and be ‘independent’ of effects. It could be
argued that these two criteria often advanced by Humeans, as well as by some
philosophical realists,63 confuse more than they clarify in the light of the analysis
advanced here. This is because these criteria, which arguably have their origins in
Humean qualifications for how to distinguish between causes and effects,64 restrict us
from accepting as ‘causal’ certain important ‘conditioning’ or constitutive causal
powers. The key contribution of the Aristotelian notion of ‘constitutive causes’,
exemplified by material and formal causes, is that it directs us to accept the
‘constraining and enabling’ conditions of social life as real and as causal, thus
exposing a deeper level of causality in the social world than is often recognised,
especially by those focused on analysing merely observable patterns of behaviour.
However, there is also place for the traditional ‘active’ causes within this
framework. The ‘active’ causes, as opposed to ‘conditioning’ causes, for Aristotle,
were efficient and final causes, as these causes, through their activity, go towards
producing change. Aristotelian notion of efficient cause refers to a so-called ‘primary
mover’, or ‘a source of change’, for example, a carpenter as the ‘maker’ of a table.
Importantly, Aristotelian efficient causality does not have modern ‘mechanistic’
overtones as efficient causes, for Aristotle, were fundamentally embedded within, and
in relation to, other types of causes and could not in and of themselves explain
anything.
Conceiving of the causal actions and causal conditions of agency in the
Aristotelian manner is useful in that the Aristotelian conceptualisation of efficient
causes gets us away from the mechanistic ways of thinking of agency as well as from
the individualist tendencies to isolate agents as the only type of cause in the social
world (agency is conceived as embedded in a complex causal social environment,
material and formal). Also, it is useful because it allows us to link efficient causes
closely with so-called final causes.
Final causes, for Aristotle, referred to the ends and purposes that go towards
‘making things happen’, to ‘that for the sake of which’ something happens or is done.
Final form of causality was, for Aristotle, an irreducible form of causality in the
social as well as the natural world.65 Many would doubt the applicability of teleology
in natural sciences. One might also doubt the kind of teleological explanations of
social processes as outlined, for example,
by Wendt.66 However, whether one accepts
these forms of final causality or not, in one simple sense final causes seem like an
inherently important type of cause in the social world. Social action, even when
unplanned and spontaneous, is inevitably premised on the intentionality of human
agency, which in turn can be seen as a form of final causality.67 When we talk of the
intentions, motivations or, in certain contexts reasons, that direct actors, we are in fact
referring to the final causes ‘because of which’ certain (efficient) actions are taken.
63 Wendt, Social Theory, pp. 77–88.
64 For Hume, causes had to be observed independently from effects, and causes were identified as
defining them as those observables that were observed before the ‘effects’.
65 E. Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and
Evolution (Indiana, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 5.
66 Wendt, ‘Why the World State is Inevitable’.
67 D. V. Porpora, ‘On the Post-Wittgenstein Critique of the Concept of Action in Sociology’, Journal
for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 13 (1983), pp. 129–46. For a similar account of reasons as final
causes see Ruth Groff, Critical Realism, Postpositivism and the Possibility of Knowledge (London:
Routledge, 2004).
208 Milja Kurki
Crucially, acceptance of the Aristotelian conception of final causality does not
necessitate a ‘mechanistic’ or deterministic understanding of causality. Intentions and
reasons should not be conceived to ‘push and pull’ in the same sense as efficient
causes: instead, they are causal in the sense that they signify a contributory cause,
that ‘for the sake of which’ something is done. It must also be noted that, against
common misconceptions, accepting the notion of final causality in this sense does not
downgrade other types of causality. Final causality presupposes material causality of
the mind as well as a material world to act upon. It presupposes a formal relational
social context (rules, norms, discourses) that ‘constrains and enables’ the forming of
intentions. An (efficient) agent and actions are also required to ‘actualise’ intentions/
purposes/goals.
Towards causal holism and explanatory pragmatism
The Aristotelian categories, arguably, provide us with interesting new ways to
describe and analyse causes. Importantly, the rethought conception of cause
advanced here allows us to get away from Humean and ‘pushing and pulling’ modern
conceptions of causation by outlining different ways of causing (constitutive as well
as active). They also allow us to position and assess causes as complex and
interacting. Indeed, Aristotle importantly stresses that in inquiring into any change
or thing, we must always ask many different kinds of why-questions: inquiring merely
into singular causes tells us little in most cases, since causes never exist in isolation
from each other. It follows that the broadening of our understanding of causation
allows us to advance an ontologically holistic framework for causation. By allowing
us to look into a variety of different kinds of causal factors this rethought framework
of causal analysis allows us to ask much more open and plural questions about the
social world and about the interaction of different kinds of actors, objects, discourses
and structures.
The Aristotelian system also allows us to advocate ‘explanatory pragmatism’.
Social life, as well as natural life, can, first, be conceived as working through multiple
‘cycles’ of causes. Second, the Aristotelian system recognises that the multiple
cycles of causes can be treated from different angles depending on one’s explanatory
interests: what we assign as ‘causes’, and which types of causes, can be seen as a
question tied to our pragmatic explanatory interests. Thus, one might be interested in
explaining the formation of a ‘norm’, which would entail inquiry into the speech acts
of actors in a particular social (material and formal) context, but the same norm can
in a different context be treated as the formal cause (of an action, for example).68
It can also be accepted that even though causes are real and ubiquitous, our causal
accounts do not need to be treated as objective or fixed. This fits in with the
requirements of philosophical realism according to which we must accept that all
68 However, importantly, simply because we assign certain things as causes for our explanatory interest
does not make factors outside our accounts non-causal. We merely designate them as unimportant
background causes for our explanatory interests. This is similar to what the ‘manipulability
theorists’ argue. See R. G. Collingwood, Essay in Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940). For
an interesting manipulability account of causation in IR, see Suganami, On the Causes of War
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
The concept of cause in IR theory 209
knowledge claims are socially embedded and dependent on the conceptual and
linguistic categories we inherit. It can, then, be accepted that claims to epistemologi-
cal ‘objectivity’ are misleading. However, if we accept philosophical realism, we need
not accept relativist conclusions: we do not have to accept that all accounts are
equally valid since we have to, and do, make evaluations between different
conceptual/theoretical systems on the basis of their ability to account for evidence
and to put forward plausible ontological projections.
Also, the account advanced here is commensurate with methodological pluralism
as emphasised by philosophical realists. The methodological tools used in social
science should remain non-specified: we need many different ways of studying the
ontologically complex social world. It is accepted that quantitative methods can
point to some interesting patterns of observable data. However, in order to ‘explain’
these patterns of data, qualitative analysis is necessary as this data allows us to access
the actual causal processes that take place in more nuanced ways.
The emphasis of the rethought deeper and broader account of cause is on asking
many types of causal questions and refusing to delimit methods and epistemological
approaches a priori. This points causal theorising in IR towards a new direc-
tion which, in turn, has important implications for the disciplinary ‘self-images’
reproduced in IR.
Implications for IR: beyond Humeanism, beyond the causal-constitutive divide
The simultaneous deepening and broadening of the notion of cause has important
implications for the discipline of IR. First, it allows us to rethink the way in which
we think about, and conduct, causal analysis in IR. It also deeply challenges the logic
of the causal-constitutive theory divide in IR. Furthermore, in so doing, rethinking
causation can help direct IR theorisations away from theoretical reductionism
towards more constructive holistic understandings of concrete world political
processes.
Beyond Humean causal analysis in IR
First of all, the rethinking of causation advanced here reminds us that the empiricist
mode of causal analysis is not the only way to frame causal analysis and, in fact, is
methodologically, epistemologically and ontologically problematic in important
ways.
The approach defended here maintains that the essence of causal explanation is
not the gathering of regularities, but conceptual explanation of the variety of forces
that bring about regularities of observables. It follows that analysis of data is
methodologically pluralist, not geared around specific observation-based methods, or
identification of regularities. Emphasis is on combining empirical data sets of
various kinds and, through them, the development of reflective complexity-sensitive
conceptual (ontological) frameworks. It also follows that more holistic integrative
causal explanations can be provided. Whereas variables were isolated and compared
210 Milja Kurki
against each