Causal Analysis in Political Theory

: Efficacy, Principles, Institutions, and Complicity

Abstract

This dissertation argues for the relevance of causal analysis to political theorising. In particular, it shows
that studying causal relations and their features is instrumental to making progress on questions about
higher-level action, the nature of political principles, institution-centred political theory, and complicit
acts.
Chapter I examines how politically relevant entities act, viz. how states, governments, parties, interest
groups, legislatures, syndicates, institutions, companies, etc. exert causal influence in the world. It aims
to achieve three objectives – shift attention from the make-up and agential capacities of social entities
to their action and impact (from constitutive relations to causal relations), offer support to an efficacycentred version of meso-individualism, and introduce a new strategy to deal with a range of issues in
political theory. Setting forth from a classic debate about the foundations of the social world and the
proper focus of explanation in the social sciences, its function is to highlight the importance of causal
considerations, orient reflection towards structure and efficacy, and suggest a new methodological
angle to recasting or advancing more specific theoretical concerns.
Chapter II argues for a new genetic approach to understanding political principles, on which they are
social constructions with complex composite constituents rather than fact-in/sensitive maxims. The
approach employs a grounding (‘vertical causation’) framework to trace the construction schema of
principles concerning normatively optimal actions, institutional design, or distributive arrangements,
e.g. and defends the insight that attention to the structure and evolution of principles rather than
insistence on what justifies their endorsement has noteworthy implications for understanding their
connection to empirical social reality.
Chapter III recasts and advances the realist argument for an institution-oriented political theory and
puts forward a causal efficacy-centred view of how this methodological direction could be developed.
In particular, it makes space for the idea that attention to how institutions act shows a) that they can
hardly be distanced from persons or ends; b) that emphasising their causal efficacy reorients principles
of institutional design; and c) that an action-centred account of institutions is the kind of view to have
if one shares realist concerns. The upshot of the analysis is twofold: (i) breathing new life into a
neglected methodological alternative by flagging up the importance of studying the nature of social
reality; (ii) persuading methods-oriented theorists (1st order) and design-engaged theorists (2nd order)
to be more perceptive to causal analysis.
Chapter IV raises two connected worries for the causation-based accounts of complicit involvement
typically relied upon by political theorists interested in structural harm, state complicity, war ethics,
climate justice, or institutional accountability in collective action cases: a) the key-notion such accounts
rely on is distinctly elusive and b) does not admit of degrees. The full force of these concerns is often
overlooked. If valid, however, they motivate a rethinking of the grounds of accountability for
cooperatively committed harms whilst compelling political theorists to study the nature of causation
more closely than they currently do.

Date of Award	4 Feb 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Torsten Michel (Supervisor) & Jonathan Floyd (Supervisor)