AI Summary & Key Takeaways
AI InsightIn thespirit of constructive criticism, I suggest a number of guidelines for researchdesign in order to address the problems of causality and temporality discussed inthis article, including awareness of multi-temporal equifinality.
📌 3 Key Takeaways
Abstract
In this article, I critically evaluate the causal and temporal dimension of socialscientific studies focusing on Turkish politics. A very important and yet oftenneglected aspect of social scientific analysis involves the temporal dimensionof causal processes. The temporal dimension of causal processes has directconsequences for operationalization and measurement, and hence it is an essentialcomponent of research design. Does the dependent variable (outcome) of interestunfold over the short term or the long term? Do the hypothesized independentvariables (causes) unfold over the short term or the long term? Paul Pierson(2004) provided a classification of four types of causality based on the temporaldimension of causes and outcomes using metaphors of natural disasters: tornado,earthquake, meteorite, and global warming. Operationalization and measurementof long term causes and outcomes pose a major challenge, compounded by thechallenges of periodization of causes and effects. Unfortunately, a large proportionof the studies of Turkish politics do not have a clearly discernible independentvariable (cause) to begin with, and they are thus better characterized as works of“non-causal description.” Moreover, many of the studies of Turkish politics tendto imply, but rarely state explicitly, a global warming type of causality (long termcause and long term outcome), which necessitates focusing even more intensivelyon such challenges of measurement and periodization. Yet the operationalizationof the key (dependent and independent) variables is often missing even in articlespublished in reputable academic journals of Turkish politics and society. In thespirit of constructive criticism, I suggest a number of guidelines for researchdesign in order to address the problems of causality and temporality discussed inthis article, including awareness of multi-temporal equifinality.