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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences

Hedström, Peter, Ylikoski, Petri·2010·Annual Review of Sociology
DOI 10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102632
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Abstract

During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of science. This article critically reviews the most important philosophical and social science contributions to the mechanism approach. The first part discusses the idea of mechanism-based explanation from the point of view of philosophy of science and relates it to causation and to the covering-law account of explanation. The second part focuses on how the idea of mechanisms has been used in the social sciences. The final part discusses recent developments in analytical sociology, covering the nature of sociological explananda, the role of theory of action in mechanism-based explanations, Merton's idea of middle-range theory, and the role of agent-based simulations in the development of mechanism-based explanations.

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Metadata

Authors
Hedström, P., & Ylikoski, P.
Venue
Annual Review of Sociology
Publisher
Annual Reviews
Published
2010-06-01
Volume
36
Issue
1
Pages
49-67
ISSN
  • 0360-0572 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-2115
DOI
10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102632
OpenAlex
W2152796930
Cited by
1,630
References
3
FWCI
75.39
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102632
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Hedström, P., & Ylikoski, P. (2010). Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102632

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