The realist approach to explanatory mechanisms in social sciences : more than a heuristic?

The mechanism-realist paradigm in the philosophy of science, championed by Mario Bunge and Roy Bhaskar, sets certain expectations for the substantive social-scientific application of the paradigm. To evaluate the application of the paradigm in accomplished substantive research, as well as the potential for future research, I examine the work of Charles Tilly, the exemplary substantive work in the mechanism-realist tradition. Based on this examination, I argue for the usefulness of explanatory mechanisms, provided that they are couched in terms of a heuristic. Such a position is the most reasonable one to adopt given the expectations set by the paradigm in relation to complexity stemming from mechanism interaction and to a notion of causality that is deeper than that acknowledged by empiricism and positivism

Divide and rule Cyprus? Decolonisation as process

Instances of decolonisation can be considered processes featuring complicated interactions that are both path-depended and open-ended. This perspective contrasts with reductionist epistemologies, particularly economistic ones. Viewing the decolonisation of Cyprus in processual terms, this article argues that the process at hand was crucially shaped by the colonial strategy of divide-and-rule and that the process’s complicated flow of interactions obscured the British government’s ability to assess the unfolding predicament clearly, failing most particularly to rank its options optimally by misreading the option of granting independence to Cyprus

Big structures, social boundaries, and identity in Cyprus, 1400-1700

This article examines the transformation of public identity among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Cyprus during the late medieval period, when the island was ruled first under Western-style feudalism and then under Ottoman feudalism. This change of style of rule contributed to the transformation of the Greek speakers' public identity, from fragmented to collective. The explanation of this transformation in identity is based on an analysis of shifting social boundaries, themselves linked to changing sociopolitical structures. By comparing the Western and Ottoman periods, and by conceptualizing public identity in relation to boundaries, this study puts known accounts of Cypriot history under new light. The result is revealing when considering debates on Greek nationalism in Cyprus. Although many factors contributed to the genesis of that phenomenon of nationalism, the presence of a collective form of identity by the Greek speakers was a prerequisite. This prerequisite was absent during the Latin period

The History of Historical-Comparative Methods

El 2 de enero de 2013 murió en Madison, Wisconsin, la historiadora norteamericana de origen austríaco Gerda Lerner. Nacida en Viena como Gerda Hedwig Kronstein en el seno de una familia judía de clase media-alta, llegó a los Estados Unidos de América escapando del nazismo en 1939, después de que su militancia comunista la llevara a pasar varios meses en la cárcel. En Nueva York, al tiempo que mantenía su pasión por la escritura, trabajó en una gran variedad de trabajos y se implicó activamente en los movimientos de mujeres, como el Congress of American Women

Social movements and political violence

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the ways in which political violence and social movements connect, as well as of the ways in which these connections are studied in academia. It delineates and expands on three specific topics: the emergence of political violence, the disengagement from it, and the consequences of it. The reviews of violence emergence and disengagement are broken down by the level of analysis into macro, meso, and micro; the review of the consequences of violence is broken down into the political, economic, social, and biographical areas. At the conclusion of this article, we offer brief remarks on the field’s future directions