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Causality In Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment And Critique, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Michael Strand, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Thomas Buschman, Meghan Davis, Amanda Varela

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that (1) “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, (2) research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and (3) the use of explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we …