Richardson, L., Durose, C. and Perry, B.G. orcid.org/0000-0002-4335-1869 (2019) Moving towards hybridity in causal explanation: the example of citizen participation. Social Policy & Administration, 53 (2). pp. 265-278. ISSN 0144-5596
Abstract
The puzzle of causal explanation is a core issue for social science. Searches for causal patterns can be overly mechanistic, seen for example in the desire for the magic bullet in policy, or the lionising of the celebrity policy interventions of the moment. Emphasis in policy interventions on transferable practice is often dismissed as naive for failing to recognise the importance of context, contingency, and complexity. However, a focus on highly context‐specific narratives, drawn from single cases, can be equally problematic and exacerbate rather than help the problem of reification of knowledge. This paper makes a reflective theoretical contribution to the debate on the need to tackle the dilemma of contingency versus certainty in causal explanation in the social sciences. It attempts to address this issue through the lens of a specific concrete puzzle of explanation; that of citizen participation in policy. Citizen participation is a salient policy topic, which demands a thorough understanding of causation. Using extended empirical examples of citizen participation in policy serves to highlight the intractability of different traditions of causal explanation and grounds the need for greater compatibility in approaches. The paper then offers two propositions centring on the notions of transdisciplinarity and hybridity in research practices and methodologies. It concludes with a discussion of more and less desirable forms of hybridity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors Social Policy & Administration Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Causality; citizen participation; hybridity; mechanism; transdisciplinarity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/N005945/2 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 17 Dec 2018 10:36 |
Last Modified: | 11 Nov 2021 10:42 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/spol.12481 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:139555 |
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