Realism and Social Science

“I think the problem for Bhaskar was that his approach challenged too many existing positions in the field, so it was easy to focus on its long sentences and the ‘Niagara of neologisms’ as Andrew Sayer put it (Sayer 2000, 170).”

“Causal powers are capacities to behave in certain ways, while liabilities refer to specific susceptibilities to certain kinds of change (Sayer, 2000).”

“One consequence of the increasingly intensive use of the term ‘diversity’ in academic and policy discourses, however, is that it has turned it into something of a chaotic concept (cf. Sayer, 1997).”

“This starts from the premise that reality is irreducibly plural (multiple), in both the domains of existence and interpretations of them, while it can still be apprehended—imperfectly, to be sure (Sayer, 2000)—as universal.”

“Indeed, we cannot comprehensively scrutinize causal relationships between our studied variables because we are analysing aggregate data, and this presents the risk of ecological fallacy (Sayer, 2000).”

“Epistemological considerations occupy an underdeveloped place in critical realism (Archer, Bhaskar, Collier, Lawson, & Norrie, 1998; Bhaskar, 1975, 1979; Gorski, 2013; Lawson, 1997; Porpora, 2015; Sayer, 2000).”

“The realist view draws on both qualitative and quantitative techniques to engage with the interactive processes that connect both material and social realities [20, 21].”

“CR , on the other hand, proposes a ‘depth’ ontology which commits to emergence and stratification (Bhaskar, 1979), as well as a ‘moderate essentialism’ (Sayer, 2000: 97) in recognising that entities possess inherent properties and (potential) powers (Fleetwood, 2005).”

“The ontology of critical realism admits the existence of an objective reality, but its epistemological relativism (Heeks & Wall, 2017) implies that our knowledge of it can only be partial and subjective (Sayer, 2000; Easton, 2010).”

“Further still, given the primacy of reality to CR inquiry, the meta-theory implies that reality takes precedence over disciplinary positions—which may serve to distort, impoverish, or otherwise narrow accounts of reality (Sayer, 2000).”

“This not only means abstracting case materials to more general causal theories, but also ‘‘cleaning’’ the case to understand what is causally necessary and what is contingent to the case (Sayer, 2000).”

“Disciplines thus promote “self-censorship” (Sayer 1999), which might explain why, despite efforts to expose IR to new modes of thinking, IR continues to return to its old frame, that is, monodisciplinary dogmatism.”

“These causal mechanisms exist regardless of our knowledge of them, interact with one another, and may in due course give rise to emergent phenomena which necessarily manifest themselves differently depending on the specific context (Sayer, 2000).”

“Thus, causal forces belong to the 'deep' reality, and may be triggered or blocked by other forces or by aspects of the environment in which they attempt to materialise (see for example Bhaskar 1978, Sayer 2000:10-19).”

“…emergent properties Emergence is generally defined as the “situations in which the conjunction of two or more features or aspects gives rise to new phenomena, which have properties irreducible to those of their constituents, even though the latter are necessary for their existence” (Sayer, 2000).”

“The approach rests on a philosophical grounding in critical realism (Fairclough, Jessop, & Sayer, 2004; Sayer, 2000) and a strategic-relational approach to the sociological question of structure and agency (Jessop, 2006, 2008).”

“It is another example of the ‘ontological vandalism’ of strong social constructivism (Sayer 1997; Pilgrim 2017).”

“Critical realism holds ontological realism and accepts a form of epistemological relativism or constructivism (Sayer, 2000).”

“Whilst discourses form the ground for our sexual experiences, they do not determine these, in that every sexual encounter is marked by an extra-discursive, ontological dimension of experience (Gunnarsson, 2018, pp. 5, 13; Sayer, 2000).”

“…and quantitative material varies at these different levels of investigation with the quantitative material being relied on for what Sayer 31 32 characterises as an ‘extensive’ approach, describing broad patterns of a phenomenon, while the qualitative material is drawn upon for ‘intensive’…”

“According to [1] Social Science is a discipline that studies the intellectual humans as social beings scientifically, focusing on humans as members of society and on a group or society which he forms.”

“Article 19 of the United Nations General Assembly (1948) universal declaration of human rights enshrines the human right to hold opinions and have freedom of expression.”

“…philosophers, sociologists and economists who have developed Bhaskar’s work including Archer (2003), Archer et al. (2016), Collier (1994), Danermark et al. (2002), Gorski (2004, 2013b), Lawson (1997), Norrie (2010), Olsen and Morgan (2005), Olsen (2010), Porpora (2010, 2016) and Sayer (2000, 2011).”

“The criticism of social constructivism in this article concerns what some critical realists (such as Sayer 2000, 90) regard as the strong version, rejected by Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price (2018, 81) as ‘morally irresponsible and outrageous’ (for a defense of ‘weak social constructivism’ see also…”

“In doing so we took a critical realist position (Sayer 2000).”

“New global patterns of behaviour emerge from local interactions in a way that is sensitive to but not predictable from the recent past, so it is dynamic (the rules of interaction can change) and non-linear (a small input can cause a large change) (Byrne, 1998; Sayer, 1992).”

“…here that, similar to the rationale of evolutionary theorizing (Castellacci 2006), material structures enable human agency and social constructions of reality, and that such interplays should be of interest to researchers interested in furthering explanations of observable phenomena (Sayer 2000).”

“Various critical realist scholars have engaged in critique of such discourses in the past few decades (e.g. Joseph and Roberts 2004; Sayer 2000), yet Malm’s book adds to such critiques by bringing into focus the shortcomings of for example hybridism and new materialism.”

“Due to the exploratory nature of the study, we conducted qualitative research, following Sayer (2000) who postulates that the choice of research methods should be based on the object of the study and what one wishes to know about the subject.”

“Emergence in CR is generally defined as “situations in which the conjunction of two or more features or aspects gives rise to new phenomena, which have properties irreducible to those of their constituents, even though the latter are necessary for their existence” (Sayer, 2000, p. 12).”

“Atomism itself has been roundly critiqued in the philosophy of social science (Sayer, 2000).”

“Structure suggests a set of internally related elements whose causal powers, when combined, are emergent from those of their constituents’ Sayer (2000, 14).”

“This research programme is developing a series of case studies using a (critical) realist approach (Sayer 2000).”

“…asserts that the world is composed of three strata or layers, that is discourses, structures, powers and tendencies at the level of the Real; events at the level of the Actual; and experiences and impressions at the level of the Empirical (Bhaskar, 1979; Patomaki & Wight, 2000; Sayer, 2007).”

“If we are to understand the structure of any object of study, we need to distinguish those features that merely happen to coexist – and perhaps interact – but could exist apart from those that could not exist without a certain other feature’ (Sayer, 2000, pp 84-5).”

“In conceptual terms, the nexus between the SRW and contingency is expressed in the literature of critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008; Sayer, 2000).”

“Realist evaluation is a theory-driven methodology that seeks to facilitate a deep understanding of how complex interventions, such as SP, work and in what circumstances [29].”

“As such, advocates of RTC necessarily stand in disagreement with critical realists, who are the strongest proponents of a disposition view of causality in the social sciences (Gorski 2013; Somers 1998; Steinmetz 1998; Sayer 2000; Elder-Vass 2012; Byrne and Ragin 2009; Gerrits and Verweij 2013).”

“Thus, we approach our analysis on the understanding that while such accounts are partial – professionally, ethically, and socially situated in discourse, they refer to real people and real events and, however incompletely, shed some light on separated children’s caring practices (Sayer 2000).”

“We take a realist methodological approach in which abstract concepts interacting with the qualitative empirical data are utilised to create theoretical meaning (Bernstein 2000; Lourie and Rata 2016; McPhail and Lourie 2017; Popper 1978; Sayer 2000).”

“Sayer (2000) identifies “the defining feature” of a critical realist perspective to be “the belief that there is a world existing independently of our knowledge of it” (p. 2).”

“This position is often articulated by the distinction between ‘intransitive’ and ‘transitive’ dimensions of knowledge (Sayer 2000, pp. 10–11).”

“These mechanisms, which are situated in particular conditions, provide strong explanatory power to understand a phenomenon [14].”

“…the critical-realist distinction between the real, the actual, and the empirical and understanding imaginaries as an observable empirical phenomenon with causative power in the actual domain in which this causative power is activated and eventually materializes in social processes (Sayer 2000).”

“The importance of particular social contexts implies that causal relations are fundamentally local (i.e., case speci fi c) in SPT (Sayer 2000: 114 – 8).”

“Although in everyday life linguistic meaning is typically held in place by its largely consistent relations to the material world, in what Sayer (2000) calls “signification triangles,” in principle we can never reach the end of these dynamic chains of difference.”

“Other proponents of social realism include Sayer (2000), Archer (2003), and Elder-Vass (2010).”

“This project is a critical piece of research which calls additionally on analysis from a critical realist (Collier, 1994; Bhaskar, 1998; Sayer, 2000; Lopez & Potter 2001) tradition locating changes within higher education firmly within the construction of the capitalist and neoliberal economic…”

“The principles of realism states that (i) causal explanations are achievable; (ii) social reality is mainly an interpretive reality of social agents/actors; and (iii) social agents/actors evaluate their social reality [30, 31, 33, 34].”

“Essentialism is the doctrine that “objects have certain essential properties, which make them one kind of a thing rather than any other” (Sayer, 2000, p. 82).”

“They are ‘influenced and conditioned by broader processes, relations and structures – and simultaneously orient social action towards reproduction or transformation of certain and real societal forms’ (Archer 1995; Carter 2000; Iosifides 2011, 30; Sayer 2000).”

“Interpretivism however, can be limited by its tendency to reduce social life to the level of the meaning given to it by subjects while ignoring material change (Sayer 2000).”

“Note from Jamie: Encapsulated in Critical Realism: Essential Readings (Archer et al. 1998), Explaining Society, now in its second edition (Danermark et al. 2019), as well as Sayer (2000, 2010) and advocated in the US by Gorski (2013) and Porpora (2016); Smith (2010, 2015).”

“…and world-shaping devices” (Salazar 2012, 864), imaginaries can affect behavior and become solidified in social practice (Sum 2011; Salazar 2012) and thus assume causative power, justifying their analysis in a critical-realist perspective (Fairclough, Jessop, and Sayer 2002; Sayer 1992, 2000).”

“…explanation includes the observation of patterns of events (the empirical), the identification of key components (the actual), the inference in generative mechanisms (the real) and, finally, the empirical validation of these mechanisms (Bechara and Van de Ven, 2011; cf. Bhaskar, 1998; Sayer, 2000).”

“…causality here is being in a causal relationship between objects (Bunge, 2004) or as “…a causal structure that can trigger events” in an open system that is subject to varied contexts (Bygstad & F IGURE 1 critical realist view of causation (Inspired by Sayer, 2000, p. 15) Munkvold, 2011, p. 4).”

“Critical realism is (arguably) a weak, not strong, form of constructivism(1) (Sayer, 1997).”

“Consequently, we must try to understand “discourses in general and assess to what extent (if at all) they cause change” (Sayer, 2000, p. 96).”