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Causation in Meso-History

Daniel Little

University of Michigan-Dearborn

Social Science History Association

November 15, 2001

 

1      Goal of paper

      This paper takes a specific objective: to identify and analyze the methodological and conceptual conditions that are involved in postulating causal relations among meso-historical entities, structures, and processes.  What is the nature of the causal relations among structures and entities that make up the social world?  What sorts of mechanisms are available to substantiate causal claims such as “population pressure causes technological innovation,” “sharecropping causes technological stagnation in agriculture,” or “limited transport and communication technology causes infeudation of political power”?  What are the causal mechanisms through which social practices, ideologies and systems of social belief are transmitted?  How are structures and practices instantiated or embodied, and how are they transmitted and maintained?  Do causal claims need to be generalizable?  How do historians identify and justify causal hypotheses?

      The general answers I offer flow from a very simple perspective.  Social structures and institutions have causal properties and effects that play an important role within historical change (the social causation thesis).  They exercise their causal powers through their influence on individual actions, beliefs, values, and choices (the microfoundations thesis).  Structures are themselves influenced by individuals, so social causation and agency represent an ongoing iterative process (the agency-structure thesis).  And hypotheses concerning social and historical causation can be rigorously formulated, criticized, and defended using a variety of tools: case-study methodology, comparative study, statistical study, and application of social theory.

2      Conjunctural contingent meso-history

      There is a body of work in history and historical sociology in which it is possible to identify the strands of a new paradigm of historical inquiry—what might be called “meso-history.”  This work provides examples of strong, innovative macro-explanations that give more compelling and nuanced expression to this approach to historiography than past macro-history.   I characterize this paradigm as “conjunctural contingent meso-history” (CCM), and I argue that this approach allows for a middle way between grand theory and excessively particularistic narrative.  The paradigm recognizes historical contingency—at any given juncture there are multiple outcomes which might have occurred.  It recognizes the role of agency—leaders, inventors, engineers, activists, and philosophers are able to influence the course of development in particular historical contexts. It recognizes the multiplicity of causes that are at work in almost all historical settings—thereby avoiding the mono-causal assumptions of much previous macro-history. And it recognizes, finally, that there are discernible structures, processes, and constraints that recur in various historical settings and that play a causal role in the direction and pace of change.  It is therefore an important part of the historian’s task to identify these structures and trace out the ways in which they constrain and motivate individuals in particular settings, leading to outcomes that can be explained as contingent results of conjunctural historical settings. This approach recognizes an important role for social theory within the historian’s practice, while at the same time emphasizing that the notion of historical inquiry as no more than applied social theory is one that trivializes the problems of explanation and interpretation that confront the working historian.[1]

3      Examples of meso-historical causal claims

Examples of meso-historical causal claims include[2]—

 

·      Population increase causes technological innovation (Boserup 1981).

·      A free press within an electoral democracy causes a low incidence of famine (Drèze and Sen 1991).

·      The fiscal system of the ancien regime caused the collapse of the French monarchy (Soboul 1989).

·      Transport systems cause patterns of commerce and habitation (Skinner 1964-65).

·      New market conditions cause changes in systems of norms (Popkin 1979).

·      A new irrigation system causes changes in family organization (Pasternak 1978).

·      Concentrated urban demand causes development of an infrastructure to support a flow of timber and grain into the metropolis (Cronon 1991).

·      The principal-agent problem represented by cattle herding in Kenya causes the emergence of the practice of bridewealth (Ensminger 1992).

·      Citizens’ shared sense of justice causes stability of existing legal system (Rawls 1993).

·      Availability of large financial resources and a favorable regulatory/governmental environment in the city of Chicago were necessary conditions for the development of a regional electricity system in Chicago in the 1910s and 1020s (Hughes 1983).

 

These examples illustrate a number of different patterns of causal relations among social entities, structures, and outcomes.  We have—

 

·      change in structure causes change in behavior

·      change in structure causes change in norms

·      change in structure causes change in structure

·      persistence of norms causes persistence of structure

·      persistence of structure causes persistence of norms

·      change of material resources leads to change of norms and practices

·      change in population or density causes change in structure

·      change in population or density causes change in process (e.g. technological innovation)

 

      Let us expand upon several of the causal stories offered above to get a better idea of the nature of these causal hypotheses. 

Concentrated urban demand causes development of infrastructure and flow of timber and grain.  William Cronon offers an analysis of the development of the metropolis of Chicago.  The central causal mechanism in this instance is the market demand created by rising population in the Northeastern United States (Boston and New York), and Chicago’s favorable location for rail and water transport to points east.  Residents in the urban eastern United States need food, so rising population creates rising demand for grain.  Rising demand gives economic incentive to distant producers to increase production.  And it gives economic incentives to commercial agents to organize infrastructure (warehouses, railyards, grain elevators, exchanges) that permit efficient and largescale trade in grain.  Goods need to be transported from the point of production to the point of consumption—thereby creating an economic incentive for transport providers to establish transportation infrastructure (railroads, terminals, rolling stock).  Greater availability of goods transported by effective transportation, in turn, provides incentive to new residents and traders to choose Chicago over Peoria—leading in turn to rising population and consequent demand. 

      It is worth noting that the processes described here have, in turn, additional unintended and unexpected consequences.  Dense population causes more frequent public health problems.  Effective transportation systems create constituencies of working class people who can be mobilized to politics and union activity (e.g. the Pullman strike).  Effective communication systems cause the more rapid diffusion of ideas, innovations, and social movements—which in turn cause changes in technology, politics, and patterns of consumption. 

A new irrigation system causes changes in family organization. Rural society in pre-1930 Taiwan featured a “joint-family” system, in which a parent and married sons would continue to live together and farm their holdings together rather than dividing into two or more nuclear families. After the 1930, however, a trend toward divided families began and has continued until the present. Why did this change in family structure occur?  It is often believed that family structure is a deeply idiosyncratic feature of culture.  But Burton Pasternak attempts to show that the joint-family system in the Taiwan rice economy is a prudent arrangement for the organization of farm labor, given the uncertainties of rainfall.  Pasternak offers this model of the domestic economy.  Rice must be transplanted within 20 days and can only be transplanted if there is enough water. The model family contains two married brothers (A and B) and A’s son. The family owns 2 hectares (5 acres) and two water buffalo. As a joint family the unit can manage field preparation and transplanting in 19 to 22 days, As two divided units A and his son can manage 1 hectare in 17 to 20 days, but B needs 22 to 25 days. This means that his rice crop will often fail. If there are fewer than 10 days of rain, both families will lose the crop. If there are fewer than 15 days of rain, A will survive and B will not. In times of water crisis, the joint family has enough labor to plant a crisis crop (sweet potatoes), but the divided families do not. Therefore, if cropping depends on rainfall, the joint family is substantially more secure. After the Japanese removed this uncertainty by creating a large irrigation system in the 1930s, the joint-family practice began to disappear. With irrigation the water supplies are much more secure, and crisis is therefore less likely.  Under these circumstances there are incentives for dividing the family and fewer economic reasons not to do so. Once the imperative to protect against catastrophic crop failure due to inadequate labor supply was diminished, the normal frictions of social life (between sisters-in-law, for example) led to a division of families. Thus Pasternak explains the change in family structure as the effect of changing circumstances of the rural economy—the availability of reliable irrigation water.

A free press within an electoral democracy causes a low incidence of famine.  Drèze and Sen offer a careful study of India’s experience of hunger and famine since Independence (Drèze and Sen 1989).  Sen had previously offered a careful study of the great Bengal famine of 1942 (Sen 1981).  In their study of post-independence India they find the interesting fact that India, little less poor than it was in the 1940s, had nonetheless not experienced another widespread famine since independence.  Why was this?  They offer a simple theory along these lines: India was an electoral democracy in which the Congress party needed to compete for electoral support on a regular basis.  India also possessed a vigorous free press with numerous newspapers and a tradition of prompt and unencumbered news investigation.  Occurrence of famine anywhere in India would be a very significant failure for the governing party.  This combination of circumstances gave the government, and the party in power, a large political incentive to implement institutions that would prevent the occurrence of famine: early warning systems, stockpiles of grain, and a responsive government emergency system.  These mechanisms are effective in preventing famine.  Governments therefore pursued their political interests by adopting these mechanisms; and the absence of famine during the period is the effect of this adoption.  Sen and Drèze note the important contrast to the experience of China during the Great Leap Forward: information indicating the existence of widespread hunger and impending famine was available to the central government in the fall of 1959, but the government took no effective emergency measures for a full year.  There was little public notice of famine outside of affected areas, and the government had little to fear from the public because its hold on power did not depend on electoral processes.  (That is: in a broadly similar material and population setting, a polity without electoral politics and a free press does suffer from a major famine.)

Citizens’ shared sense of justice causes stability of existing legal system.  Rawls (and others; (Levi 1988), (Moore 1978)) point out that a system of law cannot easily depend exclusively on fear of punishment.  The supervisory power of the state is limited.  Citizens, on the whole, comply with the law in a voluntary fashion.  What are the factors that serve to render a legal system stable?  Rawls, Levi, and Moore point to a social fact: when there is a widespread belief that the legal system is fair and just, individuals will have a motivation to comply.  Likewise, when citizens believe that the system of law is unjust and unfair, or is used for the benefit of some over others, they will have a motivation to resist.  In other words, the social fact that “most citizens regard the existing legal system as fair” causes the stability of the existing legal system.  (Symmetrically, the social fact that “many citizens regard the legal system as unfair” has the potential to cause destabilization of the legal system—the central point of Moore’s argument.)

4      Causal realism

      These examples show that causal explanations are ubiquitous in meso-history.  What is involved in asserting a causal relation among historical factors—for example, that “a free press” causes “lower incidence of famine”? What do we mean by asserting a causal relation among a set of factors (causes and effects)?  There are several core intuitions.  First, there is the counterfactual point: “If A had not occurred, B would not have occurred.”  This view is related to the “necessity” point: “In the causal setting, the occurrence of A made B inevitable [more likely].”  The first line of thought identifies A as a necessary condition for B, while the second identifies A as a sufficient condition for B (or sufficient in a given causal setting).  Can we give more precise expression to these ideas?  It will emerge that the ideas of necessary and sufficient conditions are relevant to causal judgment but do not fully adequately capture the idea.  Instead, the root idea is that of a causal mechanism.  So let us begin with that idea.

      In Varieties of Social Explanation (Little, 1991) I argue that the central idea of causal ascription is the idea of a causal mechanism: to assert that A causes B is to assert that there is a set of causal mechanisms such that A in the context of typical causal fields brings about B (or increases the probability of the occurrence of B).  A causal mechanism is a series of events, linked by lawlike regularities, that lead from the explanans to the explanandum (Little, 1991:15).[3]

      This approach may be called “causal realism,” since it rests on the assumption that there are real causal powers underlying causal relations.[4]  This approach places central focus on the idea of a causal mechanism: to identify a causal relation between two kinds of events or conditions, we need to identify the typical causal mechanisms through which the first kind brings about the second kind.  Finally, I argue for a microfoundational approach to social causation: the causal properties of social entities derive from the structured circumstances of agency of the individuals who make up social entities—institutions, organizations, states, economies, and the like.  This idea will be more fully articulated below.

      The concept of “causal relevance” is also helpful in explicating the scientific meaning of causal claims.  Wesley Salmon’s concept of causal relevance asserts that A and B are causally related just in case the conditional probability of B given A is different from the absolute probability of B (Salmon 1984; Salmon 1989).  That is: A makes a difference for the likelihood of the occurrence of B.  And it does so, we postulate, through some specific set of causal mechanisms that convey the state of the world from that containing A to that containing B.  The causal relevance criterion is useful because, on the one hand, it bears an appropriate conceptual relationship to the notion of a causal relation among factors, and on the other, it permits an empirical basis for evaluating causal hypotheses.

      Most causal hypotheses in historical research are complex: they involve a series of causal steps, each of which may be both contingent and conjunctural.  Consider the following “causal diagram” for the occurrence of revolution.  (The example is loosely based on Theda Skocpol’s analysis of states and revolutions; (Skocpol 1979).)

      The diagram represents the hypothesis that social unrest and state crisis cause revolution (with probability 75%).  It further represents that social unrest is caused by either the conjunction of food crisis and local organization or the conjunction of exploitation and local organization; and similarly for state crisis.  There are then four different configurations of the proximal factors which can give rise to revolution: ABCD, ABFD, EBCD, and EBFD. 

      The causal diagram is a useful tool for representing virtually any causal claim, simple or complex.  If we believe that A causes B in isolation, then we have the simple diagram, A-> B.  If we find that the causal relations among A and B are mediated by other factors in a structured way, we can represent those conjunctural causal connections accordingly within the causal diagram.  (This way of representing causal hypotheses reflects the logic of J. L. Mackie’s concept of INUS conditions; (Mackie 1974).)  And if the causal mechanisms in question are probabilistic rather than deterministic (that is, the conjunction of causes increases the probability of the outcome rather than determines the outcome), we can represent this fact as a conditional probability linking conjunct to result.

5      Singular and generic causal assertions

      The account offered here serves to analyze singular causal ascriptions—“a floating iceberg caused the sinking of the Titanic.”  Can the account be extended to serve as a basis for interpreting general causal claims as well—“hyperinflation causes political instability” or “weak states cause revolutions”?  It can, along the following lines.  To assert that A’s are causes of B’s is to assert that there is a typical causal mechanism through which events of type A lead to events of type B.  Here, however, we must note that there are rarely single sufficient conditions for social outcomes; instead, causes work in the context of causal fields.  So to say that revolutions are causally influenced by food crisis, weak states, and local organization, is to say that there are real causal linkages from these conditions to the occurrence of revolution in specific instances.

      It is also worthwhile to notice that we can ask causal questions at two extremes of specificity and generality.  We can ask why the Nicaraguan Revolution occurred—that is, what was the chain of circumstances that led to the successful seizure of power by the Sandinistas?  This is to invite a specific historical narrative, supported by claims about causal powers of various circumstances.  And we can ask why twentieth century revolutionary movements succeeded in some circumstances and failed in others—that is, we can ask for an account of the common factors that influence the course of revolution in the twentieth century.  In the first instance we are looking to put forward a causal hypothesis; in the latter we are seeking an explanation.

      I will put it forward as a methodological maxim that a causal assertion is explanatory only if it identifies a causal process that recurs across a family of cases.  A historical narrative is an answer to the first sort of question (“why did this particular event come about?”); such a narrative may or may not have implications for more general causal questions.  A true causal story is not always explanatory.

      Much inquiry in the social sciences has to do with singular causal processes (historical outcomes): individual revolutions, specific experiences of modernization and development, specific histories of collective action.  Charles Tilly’s career-long treatment of the collective political behavior of the French is a case in point; Tilly attempts to identify a characteristic tradition of French political action, and attempts to identify the historical occurrences which gave this tradition its specificity (Tilly 1986).  To what extent is such an analysis explanatory, rather than merely true?  The account is explanatory if it identifies influences that commonly exert causal power in a variety of contexts, not merely the case of the French in 1848.  And a case study that invokes or suggests no implications for other cases, falls short of being explanatory.

6      Causal properties of structures and processes

      Now we have a sketch of causal explanation, let us see whether this sketch can be interpreted in the case of meso-historical causal explanation.  Meso-history postulates that there are real, causally influential structures and processes which have genuine historical effects and which are amenable to rigorous scrutiny and explanation.  And the workings of such processes cannot be explained through narrowly drawn localistic accounts; rather, it is desirable to provide higher-level causal explanations of such structures, drawing on the findings of well-confirmed social theories.  So our task is a focused one; we need to examine whether it is credible that there are appropriate mechanisms to support claims like “a free press causes low incidence of famine”, and through what research tools it is possible to identify and justify hypotheses about social causal relations.

7      Explanatory goals of meso-history

      Once the ground is cleared along the lines delineated by the notion of meso-history—emphasizing both the importance for the historian of the particular contingencies of a specific historical context and the causal efficacy of the broad structures and processes that are in play—the challenge for the historian of large processes is more apparent.  It is to seek out the specific institutions, structures, and processes that are embodied in a given historical setting; to identify the possibilities and constraints that these structures create for agents within those settings; and to construct explanations of outcomes that link the causal properties of those structures to the processes of development that are found in the historical record.  Finally, it is useful for the historian of large processes to explore the space of “what might have been”—the space of contingent alternative developments that were equally consistent with the configuration of large structures and particular circumstances at a given time. 

8      Microfoundations 

      Causal realism gives central place to the mechanisms that mediate between cause and effect.  What can we say about the mechanisms that mediate social causation?  Elsewhere I argue for a microfoundational approach to social causation: the causal properties of social entities—institutions, organizations, states, economies, and the like—derive from the structured circumstances of agency of the individuals who make up those entities (Little 1989).  The microfoundations thesis holds that an assertion of an explanatory relationship at the social level (causal, functional, structural) must be supplemented by two things: knowledge about what it is about the local circumstances of the typical individual that leads him to act in such a way as to bring about this relationship; and knowledge of the aggregative processes that lead from individual actions of that sort to an explanatory social relationship of this sort.[5]  If this view is correct, then there is no such thing as autonomous social causation; there are no social causal mechanisms that do not supervene upon the structured choices and behavior of individuals.  The mechanisms through which social causation is mediated turn on the structured circumstances of choice of intentional agents, and nothing else.[6]  This means that social science research that sheds light on the individual-level mechanisms through which social phenomena emerge have a foundational place within the social sciences: rational choice theory, theory of institutions and organizations, public choice theory, analytical Marxism, or, perhaps, social psychology.  What these fields have in common is a commitment to providing microfoundations for social explanations.

      On the microfoundational approach, the causal capacities of social entities are to be explained in terms of the structuring of incentives and opportunities for agents.  The causal powers or capacities of a social entity inhere in its power to affect individuals’ behavior through incentives, preference-formation, belief-acquisition, or powers and opportunities.  The micro-mechanism that conveys cause to effect is supplied by an account of the actions of agents with specific goals, beliefs, and powers.  Social entities can exert their influence, then, in several possible ways.

 

·      They can alter the incentives presented to individuals.

·      They can alter the preferences of individuals.

·      They can alter the beliefs of individuals.  (constraints on knowledge; ideology)

·      They can alter the powers or opportunities available to individuals.

 

      Lowering the prime interest rate has the causal capacity to reduce the rate of inflation.  Why is this?  Because rational investors lower their rate of investment in the face of lower interest rates; demand for producer goods falls; incomes for workers remain steady; and demand for goods remains flat.  So prices tend to stay constant.  This story accounts for the causal powers of the intervention in terms of the incentives created and strategies available to the relevant agents.

      The result of this line of thought is that institutions have effects on individual behavior (incentives, constraints, indoctrination, preference formation), which in turn produce aggregate social outcomes. 

9      Causal properties of social entities

      So far we have focused on the role that social entities and events play in causal histories.  We can also ask, however, whether social entities have causal properties: enduring causal dispositions to bring about certain types of outcomes.  Gold has specific causal powers and properties—a melting point, an alloy potential, an electrical conductivity, and so forth.  Do social entities likewise have distinctive causal properties?  Is it the case that the liberal state, the grain riot, the labor union, or the conservative populist political party have distinctive and real causal properties?

      What is it to attribute a causal power to an entity?  It is to assert that the entity has a dispositional capacity to bring about specific types of outcomes in a range of causal fields.  To have a causal power is to have a capacity to produce a certain kind of outcome in the presence of appropriate antecedent conditions.  (A similar conception of the meaning of causal claims is applied to the physical sciences in Cartwright, (Cartwright 1989).  See also Morrison (Morrison 1995) and Humphreys (Humphreys 1986) for discussions of Cartwright’s theory.)  Sulphuric acid has the causal power of dissolving metals on contact; the Gulf Stream has the causal power of stimulating hurricanes; and—perhaps—a national labor market has the causal power of stimulating migration from low-wage areas to high-wage areas.

      What sorts of generic causal properties do social institutions have?  And how do they exercise the influence that is associated with their properties?  The general approach is to identify a common existential situation for a group of agents within the material circumstances of human life; identify a salient and accessible solution; and infer that this institutional arrangement will recur again and again.

      We can say that certain institutions have specific causal powers with respect to given social outcomes as a consequence of the common constitution and circumstances of individuals.  The Fed has the causal power to dampen inflation, in that it can tighten the money supply; this creates an individual disincentive to purchase; this leads to reduced demand for goods; and this lessens the upward pressure on prices.  This causal power is entirely derivative, however, upon facts about typical consumers.  The Fed has the power to alter the environment of choice for consumers; the result of this new environment is a pattern of consumption in which demand is shifted downward.

      Plausible examples of institutions, structures, or practices that have causal properties might include—

 

·      Forms of labor organization: family farming, wage labor, co-operative labor

·      Surplus extraction systems and property systems: taxation, interest, rent, corvée labor

·      Institutions of village governance: elites, village councils

·      Commercialization: exchange, markets, prices, subsistence cash crops, systems of transportation and communication

·      Organized social violence: banditry, piracy, local militias

·      Extra-local political organizations: court, military, taxation, law

 

      These represent institutions, practices, organizations, and social forms that may be found in various historical settings.  They constitute part of the social and material environment in the context of which rural people live their lives and to which these people adjust their behavior.  And some features of historical change can be understood as the consequence of specific causal features of institutions like these—through their influence on individual agents.

      Social causal ascriptions thus depend on common characteristics of agents (e.g. the central axioms of rational choice theory).  I would assert, then, that the rock-bottom causal stories—the governing regularities for the social sciences—are stories about the characteristics of typical human agents.  The causal powers of a particular social institution—a conscription system, a revenue system, a system of democratic legislation—derive from the incentives, powers, and knowledge that these institutions provide for participants.

      What, then, can we say about the causal properties of social entities?  Do social entities have causal properties?  Does a given state, labor organization, bank, or political party have causal properties?  And do types of social entities have common causal properties?  That is, do states, labor organizations, banks, or political parties have common causal properties?  Consider the causal powers of the U.S. government with respect to U.S. economic activity.  Various agencies have instruments of action that produce changes in economic activity.  The economic variables of interest include the inflation rate, the rate of employment, and the growth rate.  Changes in money supply, changes in federal spending, and changes in interest rates are all actions that government agencies can undertake that have effects on economic activity.  Do these constitute causal powers in the sense described above?  They do, but this judgment is attenuated by the fact that the relation between cause and effect is often highly contextual in the case of social causation.  In some contexts lowering the interest rate may stimulate growth while dampening inflation; in other contexts it leaves both growth and inflation unchanged.  This implies that an adequate causal analysis will not take the causal properties of the Fed as basic, but will rather involve a large number of causal factors (including the Fed’s actions) which jointly produce given outcomes.

      Second, we can say a great deal about the metaphysics of social causation.  The discussion of microfoundations above gives the clue; the causal properties of a social entity consist in the structures that it embodies that affect the actions of individuals (through incentives, opportunities, powers, information).  I assert that certain social entities have causal relevance—e.g. centralized bureaucratic states have greater capacity to collect revenues from the periphery than decentralized feudal states (Mann, 1986).  What this capacity consists in, however, is not merely the observed regularity that corresponds to it.  And it is not some mysterious social force inhering in the social entity itself.  It is rather the specific features of these states in virtue of which the agents of the state have both the interest and the means to effectively extract revenues from actors distant from them.

      Social entities possess causal powers in a derivative sense: they possess characteristics that affect individuals’ behavior in simple, widespread ways.  Given features of the common constitution and circumstances of individuals, such alterations at the social level produce regularities of behavior at the individual level that eventuate in new social circumstances.  S1 {structured environment of individual choice} S2.  Theda Skocpol’s causal analysis of the state and revolution, then, does legitimately attribute causal powers to the state.  But these causal powers derive entirely from the ways in which the institutions of the state assign incentives, powers, and opportunities to various individuals. 

      Consider an example.  Transport systems have the causal capacity to influence patterns of settlement; settlements arise and grow at hubs of the transport system.  Why so?  It is not a brute fact, representing a bare correlation of the two factors.  Instead, it is the understandable result of a fuller description of the way that commerce and settlement interact.  Agents have an interest in settling in places where they can market and gain income.  The transport system is the structure through which economic activity flows.  Proximity to the transport system is economically desirable for agents: they can expect rising density of demand for their services and supply of the things they need.  So when a new transport possibility emerges—extension of a rail line, steamer traffic farther up a river, or a new shipping technique that permits cheap transportation to offshore islands—we can expect a new pattern of settlement to emerge as well.  This is an instance of an institutional-logic explanation.[7]

      Here, then, we can come to an intermediate conclusion.  Social entities exercise causal powers through their capacity to affect the choices and behavior of the individuals who make up these entities, and through no other mechanism.  Consider, for example, Robert Klitgaard’s treatment of efforts to reduce corruption within the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue (Klitgaard 1988).  The key to these reforms was implementation of better means of collecting information about corruption.  This innovation had a substantial effect on the probability of detection of corrupt officials, which in turn had the effect of deterring corrupt practices.  This institutional arrangement has the causal power to reduce corruption because it creates a set of incentives and powers in individuals which lead to anti-corruption behavior.

10   Agent and structure

      Once a stock of institutions exist they constrain the future choices open to agents, so they become part of the causal field within which historical change proceeds.  But it would be misleading to attribute absolute primacy to the institutions or structures; rather, institutions are themselves the artifact of the agents (collectively over extended sweep of time).  Institutional configuration is plastic in its development, and relatively sticky in operation.  So we can generalize Thomas Hughes’s concept of technological momentum (Hughes 1983) to speak of “institutional momentum.”  Institutions both constrain individual choice and are altered by individual choices.  At any given time, agents are presented with a repertoire of available institutions and variants (along the lines of Tilly’s point about a repertoire of strategies of collective action; (Tilly 1986)).  The contents of the repertoire is historically specific, reflecting the examples that are currently available and that are available through historical memory.  And the repertoire of institutional choices for Chinese decision makers was significantly different from that available in early modern Europe.  Finally, the repertoire changes over time as a result of individual innovation and opportunism.

      Thus there are two directions of influence between individuals and institutions within the context of the microfoundations framework.  Given that a set of institutions exists (embodied, to be sure, in facts about existing individuals) individuals’ behavior will be influenced in one way rather than another.  (That is, individuals with the same cognitive and affective characteristics will behave differently in the two institutional contexts.)  Thus institutions have effects on individual behavior.  At the same time, the institutions themselves are determined by facts about existing individuals: the beliefs that individuals have about what the rules of the institution are, the probable consequences of non-compliance, the possibility of evading or manipulating procedures of the institution for one’s own advantage; intentions and purposes; habits and presuppositions; and normative and affective attitudes relating to the institution: loyalty, fear, etc.  (The institution may also be embodied concretely in buildings, written histories, codes of procedures, and the like; but these forms of embodiment too become causally operative only through their influence on individuals’ actions and states of mind.)  Social causation, then, is an iterative process: the current states of individuals constitute the characteristics of current institutions and social relations; and these structural and institutional facts in turn influence the future states of individuals’ beliefs, preferences, and worldviews.

 

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