Darwin, Lamarck, Waltz & the theory of international politics (2020)

The history of the world is but the biography of great men, Thomas Carlyle wrote. Carlyle allowed for the possibility that the great men were guided by divine inspiration. Carlyle was heavily influenced by German idealism and Hegel, of course, famously thought he had seen the world spirit on a horseback when he saw Napoleon. ‘Great men history’ allow for a very narrow analytical focus. It is also a bit of a misnomer, as by no means all great or consequential people were men. Think of Cleopatra or Elizabeth I. More sensibly, Karl Marx pointed out: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please, they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past”. It is perhaps best left to Marxist scholars to figure out this statement can be squared with the view (or assumption) that the history is the history of class struggle. But the quote makes an important point. As far as international politics is concerned, it is rarely very interesting to understand a state’s behaviour from the point of view of great men (or women) without incorporating the ‘circumstances’ under which states operate.

Waltzian neo-realism emphasises the crucial importance of the international state system for the explanation of state behaviour. Neo- or structural realism shares many similarities with the microeconomic concept of (perfect) market competition (Waltz 1979). A perfectly competitive market means that all firms are price-takers and if they fail to withstand competition, they go out of business. Markets need not be perfectly competitive. Some markets are oligopolistic (great powers) and others monopolistic (empire). In the same way the market structure shapes the behaviour of companies, the international state system shapes the behaviour of states. The anarchical structure of the international state system means that states have to take care of their own security (self-help system). If states fail to do so, they may fail to survive – or at least they stop being a great power. In extremis, states suffer extinction. Empires tend to subdue other states and incorporate them into their system of rule or governance structure. But empires are not required for states to vanish from the map. While Poland succumbed to its imperial neighbours in the late 18th century, East Germany succumbed to non-imperial West Germany two centuries later. Historically, many empires and civilisations have disappeared, but not necessarily and not predominantly due to inter-state competition (Diamond 1997, Harper 2018).

Universal empire (or world government) has historically been impossible to establish. A somewhat competitive state system was operative throughout most of history. Quasi-universal empires emerged in certain parts of the world (e.g. China, Rome), but even they faced competition over the long run and, on one way or another, succumbed to rival states or (non-state) military competition. The failure to establish such an empire that would have subverted the anarchical state system was perhaps due to the logistic limits of political control (e.g. horse speed), centrifugal forces and/ or other states’ counter-balancing behaviour. The competitive (non-imperial) structure of the European international system has also been credited with European states’ emergence as world-conquering powers (Kennedy 1987). Political and military competition also made a major contribution to the rise of the modern, sovereign nation-state (Giddens 1985, Tilly 1992). Moreover, peace, war and stability has been linked to the structure of the international system with bipolarity typically seen as creating greater stability and certain types of multi-polarity increasing the risk of war (Waltz 1964, Deutsch & Singer 1964, Mearsheimer 2001). One does not need to be completely convinced of the veracity of these accounts in order to accept the import role the international system plays in states’ behaviour.

It is nevertheless equally difficult to deny that non-systemic factors are important. Nationalism undoubtedly often plays a role in the emergence of new states as well as the disappearance of existing states. At least, it seems to have done so in the past two centuries. The international system may be a major enabling or constraining factor on whether nationalism has an effect or not. After all, it was no coincidence that Poland re-emerged as a state after WWI, but Kurds, who seem themselves as a nation, have thus far failed to have a state of their own. At the same time, nationalism may affect the international systems by making it too costly to annex other states. Admittedly, there is also the post-1945 norm of sovereignty and territorial integrity that may have undermined great powers predilection for territorial expansion. Technology and economics may also matter in this respect. The point is that variables other than international state system have explanatory value. The international does matter, however. Does it matter in a way similar to role natural selection plays in biology?

What, if anything, has Charles Darwin’s model of evolution have to say about international politics?Darwinism offers an explanation of the origins of species and human descent. (Upon learning of Darwin’s claimthat man descended from apes, the Bishop of Worcester’s wife is to have said: “Let us hope it is not true. If it is, let us hope it will not be become generally known”. The story is likely apocryphal.) But equally importantly, it offered a framework for understanding a whole range of biological phenomena that hitherto had been difficult to account for – or at least difficult to account for in unified way. “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in light of evolution”, Theodosius Dobzhansky famously observed. If that is the case, the theory of evolution might should be expected to offer interesting insights in other areas of human inquiry. Indeed, evolutionary concepts have been applied with good success in – amongst other areas – linguistics, sociology, anthropology (obviously), ideas, fashion, even epistemology. 

Karl Popper initially rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution as un-scientific. (He later changed his mind.) This is not the place to discuss what makes science ‘science’ – and Popper’s falsificationism has its share of problems, as do all other philosophical (rational-reconstructionist) accounts of science. Darwinism does propose interesting hypotheses about what underpins change, stability and survival. Whether the theory and related hypotheses are falsifiable in a strict sense is secondary as long as Darwinism is taken to be a heuristic tool. It is a theory that is logically consistent, fruitful in terms of implications and the empirical evidence is consistent with its validity in the biological realm (Walt 2001). It is true that the theory evolution provides ‘just-so-stories’, that is, an “untestable narrative explanation” (Gould & Lewontin 1979). But then, most history writing and no small part of the social sciences rely on what are ultimately narrative explanations (Jaeger 2020).

Darwinism is based on three fundamental assumptions (or mechanisms): (1) variation, which is random; (2) inheritance; and (3) natural selection, which is non-random. Natural selection leads to adaptation, that is, the ability to survive and reproduce (fitness). Differential reproductive success is a reflection of how well-adapted something is. It does however not automatically follow that all features of an organism are adaptations. And not all changes are due to natural selection. Genetic drift happens all the time (and tends to have a greater impact in smaller populations). It is difficult to prove that a specific trait is an adaptation or simply an “exaptation”. Exaptation can take the form of pre-adaptations or so-called spandrels. Pre-adaptation refers to an adaptation that later comes to fulfil a different function/ adaptation. A spandrel is simply a by-product of an adaptation that is itself not directly due to adaptive selection (Gould & Lewontin 1979). 

Neo-Darwinism, by and large, incorporates genetics into the Darwinist framework. This represents a significant advance, but it has also led to Darwinism being selectively challenged by, for example, epigenetics and symbio-genesis. Darwinism is not so much a settled scientific theory, but a field of lively intellectual debt and scientific research. What is the unit natural selection selects on? Molecular structures, genes, epi-genes, cells, organisms (phenotypes), behaviour, groups, species? Darwinism does not allow for genetic ‘change’ during an individual’s lifespan, but epigenetics seems to be challenging this notion (up to a point) by allowing for changing gene activity and expression (but not alterations in the DNA sequence). Epigenetics also focuses on changes of phenotypical heritable traits. Epigenetics suggest that inheritance and specifically the role played by genes in terms of heritable phenotypical traits is more complicated, including at the ‘cellular’ level. is where it becomes complicated, including conceptually. One’s own behaviour and even our ancestors’ experiences may at least affect the way genes are expressed. Is Lamarckism staging a comeback? In addition to Lamarckism, orthogenesis (innate drive for change) and saltationism (massive sudden mutations) offer distinctly non-Darwinian accounts of evolutionary change. They are widely rejected in biology these days, but may offer frameworks that provide interesting insights in other areas of social inquiry. Last but not least, there is the issue of gradual vs rapid change within a broadly Darwinian framework (Gould 2007). Whether or not these approaches offer good explanations of biological phenomena is secondary for our purposes. Primarily, they offer theoretically interesting and somewhat neglected ways to think about international politics.

So how epistemically useful is Darwinism (and other accounts of biological change) as a framework for thinking about international politics? At one level, the attempt to appropriate Darwinism appears deeply problematic. Variation and reproduction as mechanisms do not seem apply in the case of international politics. Variation is not random and reproduction in the sense of generating new organisms is, at best, extremely rate in international politics. Variation happens, although in a much less random fashion, and the persistence of a state that experiences significant changes in its domestic characteristics may perhaps be interpreted as reproduction in a very broad sense. Of course, Darwinian variation is blind and it does not (or is not supposed to) take place within the lifespan of a single organism. But perhaps variation and reproduction can be appropriated in a loose way. States experience non-random, because generally purposeful changes of their domestic characteristics, while reproduction might be interpreted as (continuous) survival over time. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but let’s whether this is epistemically interesting. 

Natural selection appears to be a very relevant concept. The international state system can help account for characteristics or behavioural traits as adaptation or selection pressure. Certain traits of a state can be interpreted as adaptations. And unlike in the case of biology, the historical record may make the question of whether a specific trait is an adaptation (rather than exaptation) easier to settle. Most states have armies. Epigenetics might also be re-purposed. If one regards a certain historical-collective experience as an adaptation, then maybe, just maybe a recent experience may lead the experience being activated or “expressed”. Russia experienced foreign aggression in two world wars and during the post-WWII Western intervention in the Russian civil war. After having acquired a long-range nuclear arsenal, the USSR may have felt more secure than Imperial Russia or the Stalinist USSR. But may, just maybe a deteriorating geopolitical position after the demise of the USSR led to the expression of existing genes, that is, the Russian state (incl. security apparatus or siloviki). Maybe Lamarckism or simply Waltz’s structural realism offer less contrived ways of accounting for the same phenomenon. The goal is not so much to offer the ‘best’ explanation but to explore how epistemically interesting Darwinian concepts are when applied to international politics.

The concept of punctuated equilibrium is also very interesting (Gould 2007). In fact, the concept, in addition to path dependence, was appropriated by historical institutionalists a long time ago. After all, states typically do not and cannot re-invent themselves completely. Path dependence constrains certain developmental paths and makes certain outcome virtually impossible. An economically backward country will not, cannot transform itself into an economically and technologically advanced country overnight. The domestic DNA limits the range of short-term and perhaps even long-term outcomes. Adaptationist pressure may do the same. In order to remain a great power, certain reforms may be necessary. Domestic instability may weaken the international position of a state and knock them out of great power competition. But an adaptationist logic, perhaps, leads many of them to re-emerge much strengthened (e.g. Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, post-Mao China more gradually). Historical institutionalism is, after all, a kind of functionalism and incudes other concepts like critical junctures and system concepts like feedback and returns to scale (Pierson 2000, 2004). Again, changes may be very purposeful (non-random) from the start (e.g. Meiji Restoration, Prussian post-Napoleonic reforms). Not only were they a direct response to international selection pressures. But successful reform was conditioned on the existence of favourable domestic institutional and ideational characteristics (e.g. efficient bureaucracy, [arguably] militaristic ideology) whose absence may have precluded successful domestic reform and international rise.

Last but certainly not least, if the nature of environmental pressure changes, different adaptations are bound emerge. The Hobbesian conditions of the 1930s favoured states with strong military forces, while the relatively peaceful ‘western’ post-WII order ultimately selected for economic success. In other words, trading states could thrive in a way that they could not have in the 1930s. Germany and Japan became trading states thanks to reduced external military pressure under the US security blanket. If the world is again becoming more Hobbesian, then both Japan and Germany are maladapted. Think Japanese constitution or Germany’s foreign trade dependence. Success defined less as survival but as survival as a ‘great power’ will force them to adapt to increased security competition. If they do not, they will not ‘survive as great powers’. Fitness, loosely defined, varies with changing environmental pressures.

A short comment like this cannot do justice to the manifold ways a theory as rich as Darwin’s theory of evolution (and its cousins) may usefully inform our understanding of international politics. Darwinian concepts do not apply one-to-one to international politics. But Darwinian (and related) ideas deserve greater attention and should become part of the analytical tool box of international relations scholars and international affairs analysts. Granted, the concepts may feel abstract, that is, too far removed from the familiar, interest- and power-oriented analysis of day-to-day international politics. (Then, of course, all concepts are abstract.) But abstraction is interesting precisely because it forces analysts look at the world from a different, unfamiliar angle and on the of differentness familiar premises. This often proves very fruitful, even if the higher degree of abstraction does not generate precise or even accurate predictions and even if it leaves 'under-explained' phenomena it is supposed to be able to explain. Darwinian (and related) concepts and theory may at first appear to be too abstract and too impractical to have be of practical relevance in international politics. Nevertheless, the suggest and point to a higher-level logic that cannot but enrich more pedestrian, down-to-earth, day-to-day analysis as well as our broader understanding of international politics..

Advanced trade politics & policy analysis (2020)

The analysis of trade, trade policy and trade politics is relatively straightforward. Standard economic theory suggests that free trade is welfare maximizing (under a standard set of assumptions) and that changes to a country’s trade policies have distributional and, by implication, political effects. Countries are better off if they liberalise foreign trade. But there are exceptions. Relaxing some of the standard assumptions and allowing for increasing returns to scale, oligopolistic market structures, network effects and so on, new trade theory demonstrates how trade protectionism can be welfare-enhancing. This the exception that proves the proverbial rule. The general point stands, though, that free trade improves countries’ welfare in aggregate. This then raises a number of interesting questions.

Why should country A care if country B subsidises its exports or sells them at discounted prices? At first sight, this seems to imply a loss to country B and a gain for country A. At second sight, if the subsidies drive the import-competing companies/ sectors in country A out of business and country B then becomes a monopolistic producer, country A may yet suffer economic losses over the longer term. After all, markets are not always competitive and they are not always not frictionless (that is, when a company/ sector goes out of business, the reallocation of the factors of productions leads to a friction-related adjustment costs). It so happens that US concerns over technological leadership are to a significant degree concerned with competition in ‘winner-take-all’ (in addition to dual use technology) technologies. 

Another potential effect of underpricing exports is that it allows the exporting country to build up productive capacity and accelerate economic development. This can and does have important international political consequences. This effect is roughly equivalent to the subsidy provided by an ‘undervalued’ currency (so-called Bretton Woods II). To the extent that trade policy becomes strategic in the sense of the government pursuing broader economic and non-economic goals and doing so by using non-market practices to price out/ out-compete actual and potential rivals, free trade is not necessarily the best policy response. Incidentally, this why the EU legalistic and rules-based approach to international trade (and investment) is ill-equipped to deal with more strategic national-security and economic-development-strategy-driven policy of its peers, the United States and China. This is one of the reasons why the EU has equipped itself with trade defense instruments (European Commission 2020). This supplements that EU’s toolkit, in addition to WTO-compliant instruments like countervailing and anti-dumping tariffs, safeguards and national security exceptions. 

Standard political economy models predict that producers will face greater incentives to mobilise for or against free trade than consumers. The domestic politics of trade policy helps understand why tariff bindings have a two-fold purpose. Not only do they commit countries to (1) predictable (maximum) levels of import duties. But they also help (2) insulate a country’s trade policy from domestic political pressure, especially demand for protection. Safeguards need to be understood as escape clauses helping to balance international commitments with domestic political support for and sustainability of trade. Understandably, these escape clauses often prove contentious and none more so than the national security exception. All international trade creates sensitivity and vulnerability (Keohane & Nye 1977). In principle, almost any good goods be considered essential to national security. The scope to invoke a national security is significant, perhaps too significant. It is also worth noting that restricting trade is not a panacea. In addition to economic efficiency losses, protecting certain sectors and relying exclusively on domestic production may ironically increase risk due to diminishing diversification of supply, at least relative to a situation where a country sources a particularly good from a number of foreign suppliers and countries.

Reciprocity in international trade negotiations is crucial, for it allows the negotiating governments to mobilise domestic free-trade-oriented export interests to offset the domestic political pressure from import-competing, protectionist interests. Incidentally, this is why the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (RTAA) did (amongst other things). Rather than let Congress, beholden to import-competing, protectionist societal interests, set external tariffs, the RTAA enabled the executive to negotiate reciprocal tariff reductions, thereby brining pro-liberalisation domestic interests into the domestic political game. In a similar vein, the creation of the Office of the US Trade Representative (as an executive agency) wrested trade negotiations from the State Department in an attempt to force US trade negotiators more narrowly on trade rather than broader foreign policy goals and thereby pay greater attention to economic as opposed to broader political goals of trade agreements. Today, the relative greater importance of behind-the-border trade barriers and related regulatory issues mean that Congress almost invariably needs to get involved, even if it delegates trade negotiations to the executive through Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).

The modern history of international trade began with the famous Cobden-Chevalier Treaty in 1860. It was the first treaty to introduce the most favoured nation principle. This principle combined with a host of subsequent bilateral trade agreements effectively created a multilateral free trade system through bilateral agreements. The post-WWII General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) regime, which was supposed to be replaced by the International Trade Organization (ITO) but was not, was based on three fundamental principles: reciprocity, MFN (non-discrimination) and national treatment. This differed from the pre-WWI international trade regime. Crucially, as mentioned above, GATT allowed for exceptions. A subset to GATT members could form free trade area and therey disregard MFN. Scholars and historians continue to disagree what led the US, having initially insisted on exceptionless multilateralism, to accept this exception (e.g. US-Canada, future European integration and hence trade discrimination, British system of imperial preferences), in spite of the Britain’s commitment to the Atlantic Charta.

It is not surprising that multilateral trade liberalisation has effectively come to a halt. Given the large number of WTO members, their increased heterogeneity and the societally and politically more controversial issues related to trade liberalisation (not so much tariffs, but rather behind-the-border issues, including environmental, labour, investment protection issues etc.). No wonder regional trade agreements or issue-specific plurilateral agreements have gained greater importance. Low overall levels of tariffs, especially in advanced economies, also helps explain why the notion of level playing field is important these days. 

Level playing field is a bit of an opaque concept. It broadly refers to fairness. Fairness itself is fairly complex even under the best or simplest of circumstances. Generally, level playing field refers to issues and policies such labour, state aid, taxation & competition, subsidies and environmental standards. With tariffs at very low levels, differences in regulation are seen as giving one country or the other an unfair advantage. Precisely this issue is currently rearing its head in the context of the Brexit negotiations, especially given the objective of zero-tariff/ zero-quota access. Speaking of which …. Britain’s greaer dependence on the EU market than vice versa means that Britain has more to lose in the event of more restriced market access. The EU will also suffer welfare losses, but relatively less so. Relatedly, if the UK leaves the EU without an FTA in place, it will not be able to only reduce its tariffs on EU imports only. MFN means it is not allowed to discriminate in favour of EU imports. It can of course lower all its WTO tariffs to zero. But this means it will have nothing to offer in terms of tariff reduction in future trade negotiations with the EU or any other WTO member. It would continue to be able to offer concessions related to non-tariff barriers, of course.

Upon leaving the EU, the UK faced a choice between a customs union, a free trade agreement and WTO rules. A customs union provides Britain with zero tariffs access to the EU and imposes common external tariffs on industrial goods. A free trade area provides it with zero tariffs on trade with the EU but allows it to retain the ability to set own external tariffs vis-à-vis third countries. A default to WTO rules/ MFN terms would provide Britain with more limited access to the EU, but greater flexibility in terms of international trade policy. (International trade lawyers have raised the possibility that the UK could invoke a derogation to the MFN principle and temporarily maintain preferences (vis-à-vis the EU) until a new trade agreement is in place, similar to the continued existence of ‘imperial preferences’ post-WWII.) It is worth nothing though that a customs union typically applies to (industrial) goods only. Staying in the customs union would therefore have allowed Britain to strike services trade agreement with non-EU countries. A drawback of staying in the customs union, however, is that Britain would have adjust its tariffs in response to the EU signing trade deals with third parties, while the third party, signing an agreement with the EU (and not the customs union) is not obligated to extend preferences to the UK. In other words, a customs union severely constrains UK trade policy, at least as far goods trade is concerned. Moreover, moving from a single market (with by and large mutual recognition) to a less integrated customs union is a vexed issue because of regulation and, by extension, customs procedures and checks. Even if bilateral trade is based on zero-tariff, zero-quota access, goods crossing the border encounter friction and this leads to increased costs (time and money). Given just-in-time delivery and intricate supply chains, this may even put at risk entire supply chains and sectors, not to mention the issues related to inversion, intermediate vs finished inputs, rules of origin and cumulation (whether bilateral, diagonal or full) in case of a free trade area.

The creation of free trade areas raises the issues of trade creation, trade diversion and trade deflection. Trade diversion occurs when, due to regional trade liberalisation like FTAs, a switch occurs from a more efficient to a less efficient producer. This translates into welfare losses. Trade creation, on the other hand, occurs when trade liberalisation (free trade area or customs union) leads to a switch to a more efficient producers (welfare gain). A similarly sounding but originally unrelated concept is trade deflection, which describes a situation where the imposition of tariffs on a country’s export (e.g. China) leads the country to divert its export to third countries (e.g. China exporting steel to Europe and Japan after the imposition of US tariffs). Closely related is the question of fungibility. If, for example, China retaliates against US tariffs by imposing tariffs on (or stops buying) soy beans from the US and switches to Brazil as a supplier, and assuming soy beans are a fungible commodity, two things should happen: Brazil can presumably charge higher prices to China (sort of monopsonistic effect) and US exporters may have to accept lower prices if they manage to divert their exports to the markets that Brazil serviced previously. The picture becomes more complicated if the seasonality of production, transport costs, elasticities and the duration of existing supply contracts are taken into account. Clearly, non-fungible exports are vulnerable and sensitive to import restrictions (e.g. gas transported through pipelines) giving the importer potentially more leverage. 

The existence of international supply chains has made the volume of gross exports an inadequate measure of trade sensitivity. Strictly speaking, the economic effect of trade measures can be derived from calculating the value-added embedded in exports. If a country imports all of the components of a good that it then exports, the domestic value-added will be much smaller than if all the components had been produced locally. Neither gross nor net exports are the right way to measure the impact on economic growth, even though net exports comes a little closer.

Last but not least, the distinction between protectionism and domestic regulation can be difficult to make and it is bound to be politically contentious in practice. Regulations may translate into market access restrictions and/ or they can raise price of a good. Exporters negatively affected by domestic regulations will regard them as protectionist measures (even though principle of national treatment applies). Moreover, if Europe exports no digital services to the US, then a European digital tax will look like protectionism from the US point of view. Reciprocity may or may not help solve that sort of issue. Similarly, EU regulation may also of protectionism, but may simply be a reflection of societal or political preferences (e.g. data protection). In other words, it can be difficult, even impossible to distinguish between protectionism and regulation. And some sort of reciprocity or compensation will likely be required for the injured party not to take retaliatory action (e.g. French digital tax and tariffs on French wine).

Uses & abuses of international public goods (2020)

Public goods are characterised by non-rivalry in consumption and non-excludability. A lighthouse is often cited as a paradigmatic example of what a public good is. Fishing vessels out at sea can make use of the lighthouse’s signals to guide them safely to port. The vessels cannot be excluded from consuming the lighthouse signals (non-excludable) and their consumption does not diminish the availability of the signals to others (non-rivalry). So far, so good. But now let’s assume that somebody takes over the lighthouse and takes control of the switches. Though difficult and costly, the public good could then be transformed into a club good or even a private good by switching off the light signals and replacing them with a secure radio frequency that only fee-paying members or individual buyers can access. That would allow the lighthouse operator to transform a public good into a club good (excludable, but non-rivalrous). This example is a little contrived, but it does shine a light on the fact that conceptually and practically the concept of a public good is more problematic than textbook examples suggest.

Few, if any goods are unalterably non-excludable (Snidal 1985). The publicness of a good is often the outcome of a deliberate policy choice. National security, for example, may be a public good from the point of view of a nation’s citizens. National security, by definition, is not a public good from the point of view of another nation’s citizens. To them, it would be a club good. Moreover, by excluding certain parts of a country’s territory from the defence perimetre, national defence stops being a public good from the point of view of the citizens excluded. Similarly, free trade is considered a public good. But just ask China how it feels about its publicness. Similarly, the dollar is widely regarded as a public good. Neither Iran nor North Korea would agree. Both free trade and an international currency may be non-rivalrous in consumption, but, although potentially costly, the provider(s) of the public good can turn effectively into a club good. Few, if any goods are pure public goods. Policy choices can affect the public-ness of a good.

It is also important to distinguish between international and global public goods, for the publicness of a good does not mean that its availability needs to be global. Public goods are typically geographically circumscribed. To the extent that the GATT regime provided a public good (free trade), it was geographically restricted to its members. Again, the publicness of a good frequently depends on the policy choices of those supplying the good. Public goods can usefully be divided into public goods by design (policy decision) and public goods by default (non-decisions). Only public goods that render any attempts at exclusion prohibitively expensive or impossible deserve to be called ‘pure’ public goods. In this sense, most international public goods are not pure public goods.

The logic of collective action suggests that public goods tend to be under-provided (Olson 1965). It also suggests that smaller groups face fewer obstacles in providing public goods than larger groups. Moreover, the “exploitation of the large by the small” implies that the larger members of a group will make relatively greater contributions to the production of a public (or collective) good than the smaller members. Last but not least, it suggests that the good only gets provided, if the larger members (or the largest member) derive a net benefit from its provision. In extremis, if the largest member of a group derives a net benefit from producing a public good, the good will get produced, even if all the group members free ride. In this case, and assuming that the next largest member/ group of members cannot or will not provide replacement or rival public goods, the public goods provider (like any monopolist) can make the good selectively excludable. As indicated above, by restricting the availability of a public good, the provider will incur costs, including the enforcement costs related to the restrictions. In practice, the costs of imposing and enforcing selective restrictions may be prohibitive and/ or translate into a net loss for public goods provider. Nonetheless, being the principal producer of an international public goods allows provider, in principle, to turn a public good into a club good from the perspective of those excluded from its consumption. Under a monopoly, being the principal producer of an international public good therefore also is a source of economic and political power. The more difficult it is for others to produce the public goods themselves, the greater the monopoly producer’s power. 

The United States provides, or makes very substantial contributions to the provision of, international public goods. The liberal international economic regime rests on such public goods as peace, economic stability, free(ish) trade, relative monetary and financial stability and freedom of navigation, as well as international public health. As far as the international economic system is concerned, the US provides, or makes a substantial contribution to the provision of, crucial public goods, in particular (1) free trade, (2) broadly cooperative monetary and financial relations, (3) an international currency, (4) secure access to the global commons and (5) technology (diffusion). 

How exactly does the US provide international public goods? (1) By ensuring the adherence to free trade principles and norms, (2) by managing international monetary and financial relations, (3) providing an international currency and allowing its non-discriminatory use, (4) by guaranteeing the safety of, and non-discriminatory access to, the high seas (global commons) and (5) by allowing, by and large, technological diffusion (and by setting relevant standards and norms). Post-WWII, the US was uniquely positioned to play the of the public goods provider-in-chief due to the its economic, financial, technological and military superiority vis-à-vis others. This is not to suggest that the US acts altruistically. On the contrary, theory suggests that public goods only get produced if the provider(s) derives a net benefit from it.

As the chief public goods provider, the US incurs both costs and benefits. The net benefits are difficult to calculate, as both costs and benefits include economic, financial, political and security costs and benefits. To what extent an economic cost offsets a security gain is difficult to determine in an objective manner. Leaving costs and benefits aside, providing international public goods has given the US significant power in terms of its ability to include or exclude others from access to US- or largely US-provided international public goods. The economic and financial costs of excluding vary depending on the reduced benefits the provider derives and the costs related to the exclusion measures. This is similar to leveraging ‘asymmetric interdependence’, except that the targeted party’s dependence on a public good is typically far greater than its bilateral reliance on the United States. Critically, providing international public goods also gives the US greater influence, as it allows it to leverage public goods vis-à-vis third-parties depending on them. This is what makes extra-territorial policies and sanctions so effective. It excludes, or threatens to exclude, the targeted party not just from the US market but from all the markets depending on access to US international public goods. 

International "economic" public goods – selected costs & benefit

	Costs	Benefits	Leverage
Free Trade	Allow others to catch up (more quickly) through more rapid economic growth	Increased aggregate welfare	Market closure; enforce multilateral rules
Monetary & FX	Ensure int’l policy coordination	Benign neglect; policy autonomy (under floating FX regime)	Exchange-rate weapon
Currency & Finance	Overvalued FX rate	Lower borrowing costs; greater demand for national debt	Dollar weapon; financial market exclusion (incl. asset freezes)
Technology	Others free ride on technological innovation	Set international standards and rules	Export controls; licensing of critical technologies
Freedom of Navigation (Global Commons)	Costs of maintaining a large navy	Cannot be excluded from global commons	Selectively restrict access to/ use of use of high seas (global commons)

While the consumers of US-provided public goods benefit from network effects and efficiency gains, the absence of an alternative also creates sensitivities and vulnerabilities (Keohane & Nye 1977). The (quasi) monopoly character of public goods makes for greater sensitivity and vulnerability than mere asymmetric interdependence. If trust is high and the provider-in-chief does not abuse its position, there is no problem. If trust declines and the provider abuses its position repeatedly, the incentives to reduce reliance and/ or find or create an alternative to the US-provided public good increases. Mitigating let alone eliminating sensitivity and vulnerability typically involves significant economic and efficiency losses, but it reduces the economic and political risks related to reliance and dependence. 

Sino-US relations can be understood in terms of both asymmetric interdependence and the use and abuse of US-provided public goods. China has relied on largely US-provided international public goods since the beginning of its international economic re-integration in the late seventies. China’s increasing integration into the world economy has increased its dependence on them. Not surprisingly, China has felt increasingly uncomfortable about its reliance on US international public goods, and particularly so once the US started to use (or abuse) them vis-à-vis China. In other words, China lives in constant fear that the US might at any point decide to transform a public good into a club good (from China’s point of view). The present US administration has done nothing to alleviate these concerns. This is why “decoupling” has become, if not a desirable, at least a more desirable option for China (Jaeger 2020). The increasing use and abuse of public goods (or the actual or potential threat thereof), China’s increasing ability to create potential alternatives as well as long-standing concerns about international economic stability in view of domestic political legitimacy have created more than enough incentives for China to seek to wean itself off its reliance on US-provided goods. 

If the provider of the public good abuses it often, others will increasingly seek to reduce their dependence on the ‘public’ good. It should therefore not be surprising that China has begun not just to reduce its reliance on US-provided public goods, but also to lay the foundation for the provision of Chinese international public goods. Pursuing China-led regional trade agreements (e.g. RCEP), creating bilateral and multilateral international financing modalities (e.g. BRI, AIIB), internationalizing the renminbi (and opening up domestic financial markets) as well as building a blue water navy aim to do exactly that. China’s economic size and financial importance is creating a politically favourable asymmetric interdependence vis-à-vis many other countries. But creating regimes that rely on Chinese-provided and-controlled public goods is even more desirable, as it limits China’s reliance on US-provided goods as well increase China’s own influence vis-à-vis countries making use of them. China even seeks to contest US control of space, another part of the global commons. This suggests the extent to which a Sino-US public goods contest is bound to prove destabilizing. (Incidentally, the US abusing public goods vis-à-vis allies is a terrible mistake policy because it would make China increasingly attractive as an alternative supplier of international public goods.)

An important consequence of Sino-US decoupling and the provision of alternative Chinese international public goods would be a declining asymmetric interdependence - with both asymmetry and interdependence declining and the opportunity of US to leverage public goods reducing. Asymmetry will diminish, interdependence will decline, sensitivity and mutual vulnerability will converge. If Sino-US relations really turn into a “proper” Cold War, then a long-term drift towards quasi-autarkic relations à la US-USSR relations may become unavoidable. Another likely consequence may be that by way of extra-territorial, third-party leveraging of public goods, policies, countries (other than the US and China) will be forced to choose sides. This would be particularly difficult to avoid in case of bipolar Sino-US security competition. At the same time, it would contribute to the emergence of bipolarity. 

Sino-US economic relations are characterised by asymmetric interdependence and the United States provides important international public goods from which it can - more or less - exclude China, even if it means incurring substantial costs itself. This fact provides the US with significant leverage. To the extent that the US is using this leverage (or threatens to do so), China will face increasing incentives not only to reduce interdependence and asymmetry, but also to become an international goods producer itself. The latter would reduce the risk of US use and abuse of international public goods in relation to China and it would allow China to benefit from the provision of public goods (provided it finds consumers). Simultaneously, China’s increasing economic, financial and technological prowess creates incentives for the US to use and abuse public goods, in spite of the significant net economic costs of such a policy. With two alternative international public goods emerging, both the US and China will need to attract followers and users of the public goods provided by them. In many (but not all) cases, third countries will need to make a choice and/ or they may be coerced into making a choice by Washington and Beijing about which public good to rely on. If the US continues to leverage the provision of international public goods vis-à-vis China, economic and financial bipolarity will be difficult to avoid.

Explanation & causation in international politics (2020)

In the fabric of human events, one thing leads to another. Every mistake is in a sense the product of all the mistakes that have gone before it, from which fact it derives a sort of a cosmic forgiveness; and at the same time every mistake is in a sense the determinant of all the mistakes of the future, from which it derives a sort of a cosmic unforgiveableness. Our action in the field of foreign policy is cumulative; it merges with a swelling stream of other human happenings and we cannot trace its effects with any exactness once it has entered the fluid substance of history, George Kennan wrote in his classic American Diplomacy (1951). Maybe. Maybe not. “In a sense” sharply qualifies Kennan’s claims. The main problem with such a broad claim as Kennan’s is that it disregards the many different ways in which explanation and causation can be conceptualised.

What caused the First Iraq War? The most common answer to this question will surely be Iraq. Iraq invaded, occupied and annexed Kuwait in the summer of 1990. Technically, the subsequent military action by the US-led coalition turned what may have come to be known as the Kuwait War into the Iraq (or First Gulf) War. This technicality aside, however, is it correct to say that Iraq caused the Iraq War? In one sense, it is highly likely that that US and allies would not have attacked Iraq, had Iraq not annexed Kuwait. In another sense, the US and allies did initiate Operation Desert Storm, thereby transforming the Kuwait War into the Iraq War. The standard argument implies perhaps not so much that the US had no choice but to respond militarily. Rather, if the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had not happened, the US would not have attacked Iraq and it could not have liberated Kuwait.

Psychologically, the so-called fundamental attribution error may be at work here. Others, and especially our adversaries, do unpleasant things out of an inner disposition (Kennan 1947). By contrast, we rationalise much of our own behaviour by way of a situational logic, especially if we end up doing morally reproachable things, for circumstances give us little or no choice. Psychologically, the fundamental attribution may also underpin the view that Iraq caused (or was responsible) for the Iraq War. After all, the United States was semi-forced into military action by prior Iraqi actions.

Epistemically, who or what caused the Iraq is far less straightforward. One way of identifying the case of the war is to analyse the chain of events that led to the military confrontation. Again, if Iraq had not invaded Kuwait, the US would not have gone to war with Iraq. This counterfactual is difficult to contest. But if one accept this, would it not be equally correct to say that – assuming this was in fact the case – Iraq invaded Kuwait because of any (combination of) the following: low global oil prices; Iraq’s need for revenue to rebuild the economy following the Iran-Iraq War; Kuwaiti refusal to curtail oil output to help increase oil prices. Few people would say that Kuwait’s refusal to cut oil production caused the Iraq War, or at least not in the same sense that Iraq caused it by invading Kuwait and forcing the US to enter the fray. Yet logically, the only difference is that Iraq’s decision to invade Kuwait is temporally closer to the Iraq war in this hypothesised chain of events than Kuwaiti policies or low global oil prices. But following this logic, the US decision to evict Iraq from Kuwait was even closer. After all, had Kuwait been more accommodating towards Iraq, Baghdad might have faced less of an incentive to invade Kuwait in the first place, not least given the significant risks such an action would (and did) entail. It might be argued that Iraq was less constrained and had more options to respond to Kuwaiti policies than the US vis-à-vis Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait. Maybe. Or maybe it is the sense that Iraq violated a norm by invading another country that leads one to focus on Iraqi actions rather than the rule-restoring actions of the US-led coalition. People (and analysts) often focus on agency and tie agency to motives. But why should one not attribute the cause of an event to the incentive that combined with a given motive led to the action that is regarded as the cause of an event? Let’s complicate things further.

Question: What caused WWII? Answer: France’s and Poland’s failure to develop nuclear weapons, for the existence of a credible deterrent, assuming Germany would not have possessed nuclear weapons itself, would surely have dissuaded Germany from attacking Poland and France. Why does this not feel like a good, intuitive explanation? After all, the counterfactual is difficult to dispute. It is highly likely that had France and Poland possessed nuclear weapons, Germany would not have attacked them. Again, part of the answer lies in our inclination to relate effects to agency and identify agency as the cause. It was Germany that invaded Poland (ask Basil Fawlty). Actions are often the focal point of the analysis and causal or explanatory power is attributed to them. We often reason from motives to action and attribute less causal power to circumstances and we are generally less inclined to attribute causal power to omissions and absences. An important change of a background condition may catch our attention, but less so a relatively constant constellation of background conditions, and even less so the absence of a specific background condition. Sherlock Holmes was aware of this (“dog that didn’t bark”). In this instance the counterfactual is not particularly plausible. After all, all other things equal, Germany, given its technical-industrial expertise, would have been far more likely to possess nuclear weapons in the late 1930s than Poland. 

We may be slightly more inclined to agree that Germany would not have invaded Poland, had Moscow given Warsaw an iron-clad security guarantee, instead of signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. While most would agree that the pact “contributed” to Germany’s decision, they would be reluctant to accept that it was the USSR’s failure to provide such a guarantee that caused the German invasion of Poland. But logically it did. In terms of the counterfactual approach to causation, the argument is sound. At the very least, a Soviet security guarantees would have made a German attack on Poland much less likely. And, intuitively, do we not at least occasionally attribute causal power to the absence of a condition? Do we not say that it was the “absence” of petrol (cause) that led the car to come a screeching halt (effect)? Again, a more formal evaluation of what “caused” WWII goes against our propensity that attributes causal powers to agency and agents and motives, less to background conditions and even less so on absent background conditions. Similarly, we tend to regard a change as an effect and look for a cause. The petrol was there. It was only when it disappeared that it had an effect on a car in motion. We typically do not look for a cause when there has not been any change, even if on further reflection we might have had good reasons to expect a change given changes in background conditions that went unnoticed. Paul Schroeder (2004) raises this issue by pointing out that it may be less relevant to ask why WWI broke out in the summer of 1914 than to inquire why previous international crises had not led to great power war in Europe.

The logic underpinning the causal reasoning in these instances goes like this: If agent A with motivation/ reason B faces incentive C, then action D will bring about E. Change C (e.g. nuclear weapons) and neither D nor E will occur. (It may of course occur for different reasons and under different conditions.) Equally, modify A, B or D sufficiently, then E may not happen (again, at least in this instance). Once the causal chain/ constellation has materialised, we are more inclined to assign causal power to D and, by extension, to A or B (or both). This is more intuitive because C is a background condition and will be less noticed, the more constant it is. But it is fairly incontrovertible that a change to any one of the factors A-D may would have prevented E. Once more, we tend to attribute others’ behaviour to dispositional rather than situational factors. Logically, however, there seems to be little difference between attributing the cause to the agent or the background condition. It is the constellation A-C or A-D that leads to E, not any single factor on its own. The likely reason we find this counter-intuitive is that we tend to think of action D as un-pre-determined and of background conditions as brute facts. Here is another way of looking at this.

An INUS cause is an “insufficient but necessary part of a condition which is itself unnecessary but sufficient” (Mackie). This is a way to conceptualise more complex causal conditions and constellations. (Once the ontological issue is settled, the epistemological issue rears its head. More on this issue below.) Let’s take WWI as an example. A number of important background conditions were in place. For example, without any claims to historical accuracy, Russia’s rise, German concerns about encirclement and desire for a preventive war, Austro-Hungary’s decline, a rigid alliance system, the Schlieffen plan created a constellation where, it turns out, the assassination of the archduke was an INUS cause. It is not too much of a stretch to think that several of the conditions just mentioned can also be construed as INUS causes. Moving on.

What caused WWI and what causes wars are very different questions. The first question asks what caused a specific event (token), the second question asks what causes a class of events (type). In the first case, one seeks to an explanation of how and generally why a specific war broke out (please note semantics!), while in the second case one wants to know what leads to armed conflict in general. Roughly, this is what tends to distinguish IR scholars (at least of a certain ilk) and historians.

International Relations scholars typically strive for generality and middle-range (sometimes grand) theories to explain international politics. Historians tend to focus more on the particular and seek to understand how and why a certain outcome did come about in a specific instance (aka single case). IR scholars strive for generalisation, while historians are quite content to come to a thorough understanding of a single case. IR scholars seek to explain patterns of events, historians to understand singular events in their detailed complexity. IR scholars incline towards a variable-oriented and historians towards a case-oriented approach. IR scholars incline towards abstraction and theory, historians typically construct coherent, detailed narratives. IR scholars seek to discover the causes of phenomena, historians lean more towards understanding the reasons motivating actions leading to specific outcomes. Easier-to-account-for-and-quantify material conditions often feature more prominently in explanations by IR scholars, while less tangible and less quantifiable, more actor-centred reasons, beliefs and desires feature more prominently in historical scholarship. At risk of over-simplification, IR scholarship has epistemic aspirations akin to the natural sciences, while historiography is more attuned to interpretation, meaning and hermeneutics, and hence the “humanities”. Both IR scholars and historians offer accounts of what and typically why something happens and/ or happened. 

IR scholars often talk about causes, while historians more modestly refer to the origins of an event (Joll & Martell 2006, Mulligan 2010, Taylor 1961).  A pre-occupation with the causes of war, and particular World War I, gave birth to International Relations as a distinct academic discipline (Blainey 1988, Levy & Thompson 2009, Suganami 1996). Kenneth Waltz says it is the anarchical nature of the international state system that causes wars (1959, 1979). Thucydides, a historian, says war comes about because human beings are driven by fear, profit and honour. Historians, possibly purposefully, often talk about the origins rather than the causes of war. This makes good sense. “Origin” suggests that only a combination of factor can lead one to understand why an event occurred. “Cause” generally implies something stronger and an outcome that is less inevitable than something that is attributed to origins. Unfortunately, rarely do IR scholar or historians specify what causality is (ontology) and how one can recognise causes when one sees them (epistemology). Nor are they always very transparent about what makes for a good explanation.

To the extent that historiography seeks to explain rather than simply describe or understand (make sense, interpret), historical explanations need to rely on inferences about the causes of specifics, singular events (Mahoney et al 2009). Historiography typically does not aim for generalisation or generalisability. Historical research seeks to understand the ‘causes-of-effects’, that is, it explains and/ or seeks to understand how and why something has happened, the outcome is already known (Goertz & Mahoney 2012). Often historical reasoning proceeds in terms of necessary and sufficient causes, explicitly or implicitly, compared to ‘effects-of-causes’ approach that is probabilistic and is often geared as much to prediction as it is to an understanding of the past. Aside from quantitative history, both micro and macro history typically rely on the causes-of-effects approach.

Positing necessary and sufficient causes is not difficult. Making the case that a cause was, in a particular case, necessary or sufficient (or both) is. First, absent the necessary cause Cn, an outcome E cannot occur. Many necessary causes are trivial (e.g. gravity). However, the more frequently the factor Cn is present only when E is, the less trivial Cn becomes and the closer it is to the threshold of being sufficient cause. Second, a sufficient cause Cs is trivial if it never occurs, but it becomes less trivial and approaches the threshold of also being a necessary cause to the extent that it is the exclusive that produces E. The third logical possibility is a cause that is both necessary and sufficient. Nice if one can find them. Fourth, the so-called INUS cause is epistemically more interesting. An INUS cause refers to a factor that is an insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition. An INUS cause becomes more relevant as it becomes a sufficient cause (this can only be established quantitatively). Last but not least, there is a SUIN cause, that is, a sufficient but unnecessary part of condition that is insufficient but necessary. That’s all very well.

The problem however is how one can know or be reasonably certain that a factor is a necessary or sufficient condition, or even just a cause in a particular instance. Mill’s method has significant, well-known shortcomings as a tool to establish necessary and sufficient conditions. Equifinality, multi-causality and causal heterogeneity sharply limit the usefulness of Mill’s method. An effect E can have more than one cause. Multi-causality (number of causes for each instance of an effect) and causal heterogeneity (dissimilar causes across different instances of an effect) tend to make the method impractical-to-inadequate. It is easy to why for historians and social scientists dealing with a single case or unique event, the method is irrelevant.

Social-science-oriented historians have proposed a method of sequence elaboration (Mahoney et al. 2009) and process tracing (Bennett & Checkel 2015). Historical research “explains by tracing the sequence of events that brought them about” (Clayton Robert 1996). This is related to the notion of a narrative that itself is based on the notion of coherence, progression and empirical evidence. Establishing causal chains of sequences relies on a combination of plausibility and evidence and can, of course, easily subjected to criticism (counterfactuals, interpretation). Moreover, if each step in a causal chain is though to be probabilistic rather than deterministic, the link between a distant cause and an effect may be weak. But this is of course a problem inherent in all probabilistic explanation. Cleopatra’s nose may have had a significant impact on world history (by way of how attractive it made her in the eyes of various Roman powerbrokers). But it is difficult to demonstrate this convincingly, not least because the probabilistic nature of the various parts of the historical-causal chain. This is why Pascal actually used this example to demonstrate the role of change in history rather than deterministic causation. Last but not least, even a good causal explanation at every important juncture of a causal chain will often require prior hypotheses (theory) and the extent to which it in provides a good explanation may be debatable due to different interpretations of the evidence (evidence). But the method of sequence elaboration should be credited for forcing analysts and historians to be more forthcoming about what are often implicit assumptions.

What caused WWII? Germany’s drive towards world domination? A plausible cause, but was that what actually drove German expansionism before and during WWII (Simms 2020)? And even if the drive to world domination did in fact form part of the beliefs of important members of the German political leadership, can it be shown to have been a necessary or sufficient cause or an INUS condition of the re-militarisation of the Rhineland, the takeover of Austria and the Sudetenland, the destruction of Czechoslovakia and Poland, the invasion of the USSR. Even if it can be shown with the help of documentary evidence that such an aspiration was held by several influential policymakers, can it really be said to have been the cause of German expansionism? The imputed cause/ motivation needs to have existed and it needs to have been causally operative at critical decision points and junctures. Again, process tracing creates greater transparency, but practical challenges remain. At least, it spells the logic of the proposed argument and is explicit about the evidence required to support it.

What actually is an explanation? The Cambridge Dictionary defines explanation as “the details or reasons that someone gives to make something clear or easy to understand”. In other words, an explanation gives rise to understanding. Makes intuitive sense, but things are substantially more complicated than that. A mistaken explanation can leave one with a feeling of understanding, even though technically one does understand. Understanding something after an explanation is given leaves one in a psychological state of understanding. But this does not mean that one finds oneself on firm epistemological ground, too. Reducing the unfamiliar to something familiar evokes the experience of understanding. In order for an explanation to be epistemologically sound and therefore to understand in an epistemic sense, the explanatory account must also be true. This distinguishes a common-sense notion of explanation from its epistemological cousin.

Philosophers of science generally distinguish between five models of scientific explanations: (1) deductive-nomological model, (2) statistical-relevance model, (3) causal model, (4) unification, (5) pragmatics. The D-M and S-L models explain B by demonstrating that it is the logical consequences of a covering law (or laws) and some initial condition. Explaining an event is to say it had to happen or was likely to happen, not why it happened. One comes to “understand” an event when one can predict it based on empirical or statistical laws and initial conditions. Explaining (and understanding) are about nomic expectability. The rejection of causal accounts of explanation of course goes back to Hume’s arguments that causes are metaphysical entities for they can never be observed directly. At best we observe regularity. Due to their arguably lesser relevance for social sciences, we’ll ignore (4) and (5). So let’s move on to causal explanations.

And what actually is a cause? A cause is something that brings about something else. A cause offers an answer to a why question rather than merely to a what question. This leaves much unanswered. What does legitimately count as a cause and an effect (e.g. entities, structures, processes)? Are causes material entities (often quantifiable or codable) or can they also be immaterial ones (meaning, perception, reason, desire)? Do causal claims need to be generalisable? Causal realism posits that causal relations are out there in the world and one thing objectively causes another rather than causal relations being nothing beyond laws or regularities (causal reductivism or skepticism). This allows for the possibility that unique causes or causal conditions can be the causes of effects. A historian may claim that the cause of the Punic and Silesian Wars was, respectively, Hannibal’s and Frederick the Great’s decision to go to war. Here the cause does not imply any regularity whatsoever. Yet, causal realism claims, the decisions brought about the wars. 

Causal models of explanation posit causes, causes being defined as something that brings about something else (and thereby explains the thing in question). Causal realism is not the only approach to causation. Different types of causal models exist, including (1) physical connection (or process tracing in the social sciences), (2) regularity view of causation, (3) counterfactual conception of causation (4) statistical causation and (5) manipulation. It is easy to see why IR scholarship, as defined above, inclines towards (2) and (4), while historians incline towards (1) and maybe (3). Put succinctly, the mechanistic approach relies on underlying (observable or unobservable) causal relations. The regularity model relies on observable, empirical regularities. The counterfactual model relies on unobservable, counterfactual conditions. The probabilistic model relies on changes in (empirically derived) conditional probabilities. Last but not least, the manipulability approach relies on (observable) invariance under (effected) intervention. All of them suffer from significant problems.

First, the physical connection, mechanical or process-tracing model can be used in a variety of ways. It is relatively uninteresting to claim that WWII or the Punic Wars started because Hitler or Hannibal gave the orders and the orders were then disseminated throughout the military bureaucracy. This seems to give an answer to a how question and maybe a why question as far as why the armies started moving is concerned. But process tracing also has the potential to provide an answer to a why question. For instance, the assassination of the archduke may have triggered a chain of events that led to the German attack on Belgium. Process tracing relies more on a logic informing a chain of events and decisions rather than a physical or social mechanism (e.g. bureaucracy) as such. This approach is very much related to the method of sequence elaboration. Given the difficulties alluded to above, little wonder that both historians and social scientists continue to disagree as what caused – or at least was primarily responsible for – WWI (Fischer 1961, Copeland 2000, Clark 2012, McMeekin 2012).

Second, the regularity view of causation simply states if A then B without implying necessity or any mechanism or process. Regularity theorists in the Humean tradition simply view this as an empirical fact. They tend to be causal sceptics (epistemologically) as well as causal reductionists (ontologically), meaning they believe that we simply cannot establish a necessary relation between A and B and are therefore forced to accept the reduction of causality to “co-variation”. This conception of causality typically posits precedence and contiguity as a necessary condition for A to be the cause of B – causes being defined in terms of regularity, not necessity. In the social sciences, this allows analysts to disregard causal mechanisms. All there is and all there can ever be established is a regularity relation. It only ever answers (or can answer) a ‘what’, not a ‘why’ question – a ‘why’ answer being an answer that relies too heavily on metaphysics. 

Thirdly, the counterfactual conception of causation posits that if A had not happened, then B would not have happened, then A is the cause of B. “We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes must be a difference from what would have happened without it” (Lewis). Randomised control studies, indirectly, allows one to establish a real-world counterfactual (manipulability concept of causation). In the case of historically relatively unique events, this is not an option (Ned Lebow). As we have seen, a lot depends on the plausibility of the counterfactual. For example, the archduke’s driver is said to have taken a wrong allowing the assassin to kill the archduke. This sounds plausible. As we have shown, most people would be reluctant to say the wrong turn was the cause of WWI. But on a counterfactual conception of causality, it was, for had the driver not taken this turn and had the archduke therefore not been killed during his visit to the Balkans, WWI would presumably not have broken out when it did.

Fourth, statistical causation posits that A makes B more (or less) likely. With the social world less deterministic than parts of the natural word, propensities and likelihoods. A rise in interest rates will lead to less on investment (than would otherwise have occurred). A state’s quest for hegemony will encounter a counter-balancing state or alliance of state. But sometimes states prefer to bandwagon rather than balance. Place in a broader context/ reference category (“reference class problem”). A (statistical) model may propose and find evidence for a correlation between This was Friedman’s argument saying that theory A is superior to theory B if, on average, it generates more accurate predictions. So mini-skirts and recessions – causal mechanism (physical or logic/ process tracing in social sciences). Country A will respond to country B imposing tariffs by retaliation – under a specific set of conditions (control). Difficulties arise when this approach is used to predict a specific event (“reference class problem”).

Fifth, the manipulation approach to causation is related to the counterfactual conception of causality. The central idea here is to change a condition and what effect such a change has. Large-N randomised control studies are based on this logic by creating the closest thing possible to real-world counterfactual. This is closely related to counterfactual causality because if changing one condition does an effect, it can be said to be the cause of the effect (all other things equal, of course). The problem is that randomised control is not an option when it comes to the past and/ or unique historical events. Too many things are simply different in order for the intellectual manipulability approach to work in explaining world wars, even if one were to include all those cases where world wars did not break out. As a tool to inform policy, it is also more than questionable, as it runs into the problem of reflexivity (Jaeger 2020).

A theory needs to be logically consistent, interesting and (partially) supported by empirical evidence (Walt 2001). Theories often describe, explain and/ or predict (Singer 1961). A theory lays out the reasons, causes, mechanics or processes and/ or relations among entities, events, phenomena, and a theory has something to say about what and (depending on how it is defined) why something has happened, happens or will happen. Theories allow for the generation of observable predictions that must be falsifiable, even if (pace Popper) the aim of (social) science is not falsification as such. A plausible hypothesis derived from a logically consistent theory may allow for correct predictions, yet mis-identify the actual reasons, causes, mechanism that bring about the predicted outcome. This is precisely why, where possible, analysing a question by using different approaches to explanation and causality is desirable. A nice example is to do with the understanding and explaining of French peasant marriage patterns (Nusser 1986). Quantitative approaches can establish the relationship between harvests and marriage patterns. A good harvest is a good predictor of an increased number of marriages. This would provide an explanation along the covering law model (S-L) and the model of statistical causation. Analysing individual cases on the basis of a causal approach to explanation as well as counterfactual conception of causation and/ or a process conception, perhaps relying on an understanding of how French peasants rationalise their own behaviour under various circumstances, would strengthen our confidence that the explanation allows to come to an epistemically well-founded understanding of the French rural marriage patterns. It would also leverage the Weberian Erklären vs Verstehen dichotomy to do so. 

All of this is to suggest that analysts should be more transparent about how their research conceptualises epistemologically crucial terms like explanation and causality. Different disciplines and different schools within a discipline often rely on different conceptions of explanation and causality. Admittedly, often conceptions and related methodologies are determined by the nature of the issue under consideration. But in many cases, a more self-conscious reflection about the epistemic foundation of research would be desirable. Even where this is impractical or unnecessary, research should be maximally transparent, explicit and upfront about what conception of explanation and, if applicable, causation is used – and why.