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Appendix: Methodological Notes
- Penn State University Press
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A P P E N D I X : M E T H O D O L O G I C A L N O T E S The research presented in this book demonstrates how principles regarding public goods emerge in discourses and are concretized in institutions, promoted by a range of actors with varied interests, as well as how these manifestations promote or hinder the realization of alternative models for achieving development goals in water and electricity sectors. Comparativehistorical analysis (CHA) is used to help clarify the ways in which different articulations prioritize one set of principles or another (e.g., market or social), as well as the consequences of these different articulations. This approach addresses a common critique of Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness : that there is no existing self-regulating market with which to compare more ‘‘socially embedded’’ arrangements. Market- and state-led development projects both rely on embedding, but the institutional forms associated with each have distinct underlying guiding principles and rami- fications for public goods provision. This research shows how embedding organized according to market principles creates obstacles for organizational principles that are more responsive to democratic or environmental concerns, and this, in turn, ‘‘suppresses historical alternatives’’ (Moore 1978) to neoliberalism that might more effectively address deep-rooted problems of securing social and economic rights and sustainability. Like all CHA, this book is concerned with causal analysis, processes over time, and systematic, contextualized comparisons (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer 2003). This methodology is driven by certain assumptions ‘‘about the nature of the social and political world and especially about the nature of causal relationships within that world,’’ which are not understandable using inferential techniques that assume linear causation, unit homogeneity, independence of cases, and ability to include all relevant variables (Hall 2003). This underlying ontology recognizes that early causal developments can have delayed and cumulative effects and that actors make choices based on iterated rounds of interaction. ‘‘Multiple conjunctural causation’’ approaches of CHA thus more adequately decipher 212 APPENDIX the complexity of social phenomena than many of the common methods in economics and political science.1 For example, policy makers in international financial institutions and think tanks tend to assume that certain key policies (like privatization) are fundamentally sound and will lead to greater efficiency in the long run (e.g., Williamson 2004). Setting aside the problem regarding the meaning of ‘‘efficiency’’ discussed elsewhere in this book, from the perspective of CHA, it is too simplistic to assume that any one-size-fits-all policies are going to lead to desired outcomes across all settings. In path-dependent models, interaction effects have a cumulative nature, leading down such different roads that ‘‘it becomes unreasonable to suppose that an x occurring today has the same effect, y, across all settings’’ (Hall 2003).2 Although international financial institutions give lip service to the idea that timing and sequence of reforms, as well as institutional setting, influence outcomes, the assumptions underlying classical models and the (often quantitative) methodologies employed collide with the more complicated, conjunctural ontological assumptions discussed earlier. Tools of CHA Proposed remedies within the comparative-historical tradition to the disconnect between ontology and methodology have concentrated on moving away from grand theory and abstract modeling. Small-N studies allow scholars to ask big questions—such as why things happen when they do, or how they do—by exploring cases more deeply than would otherwise be possible (Amenta 2003). The emphasis is on both institutional and ‘‘social mechanisms,’’ that is, ‘‘basic forms of human behavior or recurrent forms of collective action that are constitutive components of the causal chains leading to broader political outcomes’’ (Hall 2003). CHA also provides innovative tools for linking structure and agency, showing how people are swayed by institutions, or how institutions structure choices, distribute 1. In recent years, rational choice models have paid more attention to issues mentioned herein. However, even iterated game modeling misses out on a host of institutional and social factors that influence outcomes, such as cumulative causation, critical junctures, and feedback effects. 2. The definition of path dependence adopted for this discussion is that of James Mahoney (2000): ‘‘historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or event chains that have deterministic properties.’’ The claim is not that history is wholly contingent, nor that the processes under study wholly determine outcomes: seemingly random ‘‘critical junctures’’ can be considerably determined by structure, while actors or exogenous shocks may disrupt seemingly inexorable causal sequences...