A broader concept of causality

Kurki’s point of departure for her ‘reclaiming of causal analysis’ is the finding that although the division of IR as a discipline between the so-called rationalist and the reflectivist camp (or between causal and constitutive theorizing respectively) is of great importance for the self-image of the field, one of the basic distinguishing features, the concept of causality, is hardly ever discussed in detail (cf. Kurki 2008: 5f.). Both, the proponents of the rationalist approaches, who see causality as one of the crucial features of science, as well as the reflectivists, who reject such a mechanical ‘if A then B’

causality, refer implicitly to a Humean understanding of causality (cf. ibid.: 88-144).

Therefore, her basic argument concerning a broader understanding of causality is that the ‘constitutive’ theorizing of reflectivist scholars is actually a form of ‘real’ causal theorizing – a fact that is just obscured by the unquestioned dominance of the Humean concept of causality (cf. Kurki 2006: 190).

This Humean understanding of causality rests on four key assumptions. First, causes are tied to regular successions of perceptions and events: “Beyond regular successions of perceived events or occurrences there is no meaning to the notion of cause” (ibid.: 36).

These regularities, secondly, are tied to observable objects. Given Hume’s empiricist philosophy, knowledge – and thus causal claims – is only possible about ‘observables’

(cf. ibid.: 36f.). Third, Humean causality is characterized by what Kurki calls

“regularity-determinism” (ibid.: 38). This involves, firstly, that all reference to an ontological nature of causes is avoided, as the ontological nature of phenomena is not empirically accessible. According to Hume, all we can observe are regular conjunctions

of objects or events, but we can never comprehend any deeper (or even ontological) connection between them (cf. Hume 1975: 70). Instead, the causal connection between A and B can only be a (psycho)logical connection, i.e. that there is no ontological-necessary connection, but only a connection of the imaginations or perceptions of these two phenomena (cf. Kurki 2008: 37f.). “When we say, therefore, that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connexion in our thought, and give rise to this inference, by which they become proofs of each other’s existence” (Hume 1975: 76). Based on the regular experience of such conjunctures, one may infer a notion of cause and connection (cf. ibid.: 78). “Basing analysis of causal relations on relations of regularities, we can make causal claims of the form ‘given that regularities connect type A and type B events, we have the basis for assuming when A, then B” (Kurki 2008: 38). This assumption forms the basis for the predictive capacities of causality: “Given regularities we can logically deduce, or predict, a given event, even if only probabilistically” (ibid.: 38). And fourth and finally, Humean causation relies on the notion of ‘efficient’ causes, i.e. an understanding of causes as extrinsic, object-independent forces that impact on an object by ‘pushing’ or ‘pulling’ it (cf. ibid.: 38).

Efficient causes in a positivist understanding are conceptualized as being independent from their effects, as preceding the effects in time and as absolutely necessary for the effects to occur (cf. Wendt 1998: 105).

In short, this understanding of causality thus rests on the assumption that causal claims can only be made on the basis of observable empirical regularities, which are the basis for predictions (at least probabilistic ones). And causes are conceptualized as efficient causes. As such, according to Kurki, it is the dominant and undisputed basis of rationalist, positivist theorizing in contemporary IR (ibid.: 122).

However, even the reflectivist theorists are part of this “Humean problem-field” in that it is their rejection of causal analysis as such (which is, however, only the Humean understanding of causality) that reinforces the influence of the Humean discourse of causation in IR (ibid.: 190). “This is because when they reject causal analysis, they reject it on the basis of having accepted, often inadvertedly, core Humean assumptions regarding the nature of causation” (ibid.: 124f.). The consequences are that reflectivists do not elaborate on alternative understandings of causality but resort to a ‘constitutive’

terminology which supposedly is non-causal and thus does not challenge the Humean understanding, but reifies it (ibid.: 142 ff).

To remedy this situation and to provide the field of IR with an alternative understanding of causality, Kurki sets out to deepen and broaden the concept of causality.

‘Deepening’ the concept of causes refers, first, to an ontological grounding of causes, i.e. to ground them in the nature of objects “through making existential claims about their constituting structures and causal powers [...]” (Kurki 2008: 198). Secondly, it refers to accounting for the role of unobservables, such as ideas, reasons and discourses as in contrast to the positivist-empiricist restriction on observable patterns of behaviour.¹⁹ And thirdly, it refers to the ontological significance of social structures as

‘real’ and ‘causal’ phenomena (cf. ibid.: 210). From a poststructuralist perspective, grounded in Jackson’s analyticist approach which is – as I have outlined above – based on phenomenalism (i.e. the restriction of knowledge to in principle observable objects), ontological grounding of phenomena (causes or structures) beyond language or reference to unobservable phenomena is not possible.

However, the ‘broadening’ of the concept of causes seems very fruitful to a poststructuralist approach. Kurki argues that Aristotle’s four-fold typology of causes is a useful conceptual approach to specify the way in which different aspects of the world can be seen as causal (cf. ibid.: 219). Aristotle distinguishes between material, formal, efficient and final causes and these causes ‘cause’ in different ways. While efficient and final causes are considered as extrinsic or active causes, material and formal causes are considered as intrinsic or constitutive causes.

Efficient causes refer to the extrinsic sources of change, “to the setting in motion of the potential of a patient” (ibid.: 222). In contrast to material and formal causes, they are not part of the outcomes they produce, but are external to them.

Final causes refer to “the ends and purposes ‘for the sake of which a thing is’” and can be understood as the “purposive goals that direct ‘mechanistic’ processes” (ibid.: 222).

Material causes point to “the material basis from which things arise” (ibid.: 221). Kurki here refers to both, so-called prime matter, which is the basis for the very existence of any object as well as to so-called secondary matter, which is substance that has already taken a specific form, “such as wood or a gun” (ibid.). Nevertheless, depending on the

19 The reason why Milija Kurki refers to discourses as unobservables whereas for a poststructuralist, discourses are the only thing he or she can really ‘observe’ lies in the location of these two on different sides of the question of mind-world dualism or monism. From a mind-world dualist perspective (and as a

‘critical realist’ as what Kurki would most probably consider herself) we can directly access the empirical world of facts and behaviour. Ideas, meaning and discourses seem rather unobservable. From a poststructuralist mind-world monist perspective, however, the world of fact and behaviour is not accessible as such but only mediated through its discursive construction. Therefore, discourses are the only things poststructuralists have access to and the discursive reconstructions they work with are pretty observable – or at least reconstructable.

circumstances and the research focus, wood can be considered to be the material cause of a wooden table and a gun can be considered as the material cause of a specific murder. In the context of a poststructural analysis, such a concept of material causes seems problematic, as poststructuralist researchers do not have direct access to the materiality of the ‘real’ world. However, bearing in mind the ontological significance of discourses for poststructuralists, I argue that language and discourses can be considered as material causes in a poststructuralist setting. I will come back to this argument later on in chapter 3.2.4.

Finally, formal causes “refer to what Aristotle conceptualized as that which shapes or defines matter” (ibid.: 221). To stick with the example above, wood can take on manifold forms and in order to form a table, the material basis has to be put in a specific form and table legs and tabletop have to be there in a specific number and relation to each other.

These last two causes constitute – or cause – things by defining meanings and relations, by constraining and enabling specific outcomes. For Aristotle, these four types of causes – although analytically separable – always work together and in relation to each other (cf. ibid.: 222). This may be illustrated with the example of building a house: The efficient cause of the house is the labour of the workmen, the final cause of the house is the purposes of the individuals having it built, the material cause is the bricks, glass, steel and mortar of which it is made and the formal cause is the blueprint which specifies how the material is to be arranged.²⁰

Kurki argues that in order to be able to account for different phenomena, one needs to take into account all four types of causes. Therefore, giving up the narrow Humean understanding of causality with its focus on efficient causes as the only form of causality and instead accepting material, formal, efficient and final causes as equally causal, helps us to overcome the causal-constitutive divide in IR (cf. Kurki: 234) as well as provides us with a broader understanding of causality. We can speak of a Humean (or efficient) causality, a final causality and a constitutive causality (i.e. material and formal causality), all of which are equally causal.

In this way, the concept of constitutive causality developed by Kurki differs from Wendt’s constitutive explanation in that Kurki introduces different kinds of causes, whereas Wendt only distinguishes causal and constitutive explanations by the kind of

20 See Wendt (2003: 495), who gives this example in his article on “Why a world state is inevitable” in which he introduces the fourfold typology of Aristotelian causes, in which, however, he only further

questions they ask but remains caught in a Humean understanding of causality (cf.

Wendt 1998: 103).²¹

In one of his ideal-typical approaches to science, Analyticism, Jackson conceptualizes causes in a similar way. He uses the terminology of “adequate” and “coincidental”

causes (Jackson 2011: 149). Jackson conceptualizes adequate causes as causes without which we cannot imagine the outcome having occurred. And coincidental causes are conceptualized as the unique, idiosyncratic causes which are important for the outcome of a particular situation (see chapter 3.2.1.1.). Applied to a discourse-analytical setting, Jackson proposes to conceptualize the “basic discourses that are implicated in a given situation” as the adequate causes and the particular deployments and mobilizations that link identity and policy, i.e. the important, but single-case-specific factors, as the coincidental causes (Jackson 2011: 232). Unfortunately, he does not further elaborate on this argument.

Comparing Kurki’s material and formal causes with Jackson’s adequate and coincidental causes, one finds that they are conceptualized in a very similar way as the material basis of an outcome (adequate and material causes respectively) and as the specific characteristics which impact on the specific particularities of the outcome (coincidental and formal causes respectively). Therefore, parallel to Jackson’s adequate and coincidental causes in an Analyticist framework, I will conceptualize the presence of a discursive construction of a phenomenon as the material causes and the specific discursive constructions of a phenomenon as its formal causes. I will further elaborate on this in chapter 3.2.4. when I present the poststructuralist concept of causal explanation.

Summing up: Kurki’s broadening of causality provides us with a concept of constitutive causality (i.e. material and formal causes) which is of no less causal quality than Humean causality and which is compatible with poststructuralist theorizing.

21 And Wendt’s concept of causal ‘why’ questions and constitutive ‘how possible’ questions easily ends up in mere semantics as the examples that he gives show (cf. Wendt 1998: 104). To give just one example:

assumed that the answer to the causal ‘why’ question “why does the sun rise in the East?” (ibid.: 104) is because of the constellations of the earth and the sun and the respective rotations of the two, the why question does not fulfill the criteria for causal questions which are “1) that X and Y exist independent from each other, 2) that X precedes Y in time, and 2) that but for X, Y would not have occurred” (ibid.:

105). Obviously the constellation of the earth and the sun and their rotations are not independent from the fact that the sun rises in the East and the constellation certainly does not precede the sunrise.