A Pragmarist Theory of Social Mechanisms

A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms
Author(s): Neil Gross

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Jun., 2009), pp. 358-379
Published by: American Sociological Association
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A Pragmatist Theory
Social Mechanisms
of
Neil Gross
University ofBritish Columbia
Some
have
sociologists
recently
about.
This
article
action.
Building
theorists?that
action
social
that existing
argues
they rest on either
because
and
should
of social
developed
American
pragmatism
is to
come
world
are problematic
mechanisms
common
inquiry
in the social
understandings
among
in terms of social
be conceptualized
of classical
of sociological
or questionable
increasingly
insight
aim
effect relationships
accounts
inadequately
on an
the tradition
ideas from
cause
by which
identify the mechanisms
that a major
argued
of
sociological
mobilize
practices?I
a more
to develop
adequate
theoryofmechanisms. I identifythreekinds of analytical problems the theoryis

especially
to address
well poised
then lay out an agenda
and
recentdecades, sociological positivism?the

view
thatsociology should aim to identifyuni
In
versal causal laws of social life?has been sub
ject to withering critique. Leaving aside the
claims of postmodernists, skeptical of every
effort at universalization,
and humanistic
soci
ologists who worry thatpositivism objectifies

human beings, positivism has been persuasive
ly attacked on various philosophical and theo
retical grounds (see Abbott
1988, 1990;
Alexander
1982-83, 1987; Seidman 1994;
Steinmetz 2005; Zammito 2004). Critics point
out itsphilosophical naivete with regard to dis
tinctions
and
between
theory,
facts and values,
and proof
observation
and persuasion?a
prob
lem sociological positivism shares with posi

tivism as amore general philosophy of science.
Scholars
also
been
their very helpful comments on earlier drafts I thank

the ASR editors and reviewers as well as Gianpaolo
Baiocchi,
Bortolini,
Amy Binder, Matteo
Craig
Scott Frickel, Julian Go,
Charles Camic,
Calhoun,
Hans
John
Lamont,
Joas, Erkki Kilpinen, Mich?le
Levi Martin,
Robert
Mitchell
Stevens,
Sampson,
Josh Whitford,
Turner,
Stephen
Sidney Tarrow,
Christopher Winship, Matt Wray, and Stephen Vaisey.
I also thank participants
in workshops
held at the
University of British Columbia, New York University,
the Radcliffe
University
Institute for Advanced
Study, and
the
of Trento.
American
Sociological
Review,
than a century
research, few universal laws
discovered.
with more
researchers
aims
strictly explanatory
have embraced the postpositivist position that

more or
sociology should center on identifying
less
social
general
causal
processes,
or abstract
mechanisms,
that may
operate
in particular
settings and thatmay help to account

observed
outcomes.
Where
positivism
has
for
tra
ditionally searched for laws of the form "ifX

thenuniversally 7" or "ifX thenuniversally Y
generally
toNeil Gross at Department

correspondence
BC
of Sociology, 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver
For
V6T
1Z1, Canada
(ngross@interchange.ubc.ca).
in more
that
As criticismsmount, sociologists grasp for

more adequate conceptions of the disciplinary
enterprise.Moralistic and political understand
ingshave attainednew popularity (e.g.,Burawoy
2005; Feagin and Vera 2008), but many
becomes
Direct
note
of sociological
have
research.
for future
more
are
likely," social mechanisms
as intermediary
understood
process
es bywhich, in certain irreducible contexts, the

probabilistic X-^Y relationship obtains. The
view thatsociology should identify
mechanisms
underlies, for instance, Kandel and Massey's
attempt to discover the means
(2002:983)
"through which [the]migratory attitudes [of

Mexican immigrants] spread through cultural
channels
to affect
behavior";
Castilla, and Moore's

mine
how
(2000)
contemporary
firms
Fernandez,
effort to deter
leverage
bene
fits inhiring by reliance on employee referrals;

and Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls's (1997)
argument that the capacity of urban neighbor
hood residents to collectively exert informal
2009, Vol.
74 (June:358-379)

359
A PRAGMATIST THEORY OF SOCIAL MECHANISMS

social control is a key mechanism mediating
structure
between
and
rates.
crime
Empirical
work in thisvein is oftendistinguished not only

frompositivism sensu stricto,but also from the
sociological traditionof "correlational analysis,"
which
examines
associations
among
variables
but pursues explanation at a high level of gen

erality (see Bunge 1997;Mahoney 2001; Steel
2004). Both approaches, it is argued, treatcausal
as black boxes (Elster 1989;
mechanisms
Hedstr?m and Swedberg 1998) and so fail to
comprehensive
provide
As more
sociologists
anism-centered
focus,
explanations.
have adopted
theoretical
a mech
formulations
of themechanisms concept have proliferated

(e.g., Hedstr?m and Swedberg 1998; Reskin
2003; Stinchcombe 2005; Tilly 2001). There
is,however, somethingparadoxical aboutmany
of these formulations: they owe their attrac
tiveness to a context inwhich sociological the
orists, applying and extending the ideas of
philosophers, have helped to undermine posi
tivism.Yet theyoften proceed from substantive
assumptions thatmany in the heterogeneous
theorycommunity do not consider viable. More
specifically, many prominent theoretical
accounts
of
social
are
mechanisms
either
beholden to some version of rational choice

theory or essentially agnostic about the nature
of social
action.1
However, amajority of theorists today doubt

thataction typically takes the form of a ration
al calculation ofmeans to ends, and also insist
that action-theoretical
into
factor
every
necessarily
assumptions
account
of social
order and
change and should thereforebe fully specified.

From
a variety
of viewpoints,
contemporary
theorists instead conceptualize social action as

a creative
enactment
over
time of social
prac
tices. Social practices are ways of doing and

thinking that are often tacit, acquire meaning
fromwidely shared presuppositions and under
lying semiotic codes, and are tied to particular
locations
in the social
structure
and
to the col
lective history of groups. Collective enactment

of such practices produces and reproduces those
structures and groups (e.g., Archer 2000;
Bourdieu 1990; de Certeau 1984; Giddens 1984;

Ortner 1984; Swidler 2001; see also Chaiklin
and Lave 1996; Pickering 1992; Schatzki 1996,
2002; Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, and von Savigny
2001).
In this article, I show how a sophisticated
theory of social action, broadly in the practice
theory family?developed
by theAmerican
pragmatist philosophers Charles S. Peirce,

William James,George HerbertMead, and John
Dewey and elaborated most recently by Joas
be extended into a robust theory
(1996)?can
of social mechanisms. I do not argue directlyfor
themerits of a pragmatist theory of action;
strong arguments to this effect have been
advanced by others (e.g., Joas 1993, 1996;
Whitford 2002). Nor do I demonstrate thatmy
approach necessarily increases the explanatory
an exception
to this generaliza
tion inTilly's work, which overlaps in certain respects
I develop here.
with the perspective
I discuss
below
of par
of the operation
ticularmechanisms, although I identify three

common analytical problems with which the
theory could be especially helpful. Rather, I
a
make
facie
prima
case
that a great many
social
mechanisms, regardless of the level of analysis

at which they operate, can be understood as
resting
on a more
solid
foun
action-theoretical
dation than existing approaches recognize. In

doing so, I offer a way to connect important
strandsof sociological theorywith the research

enterprise of "mainstream" sociology (see
Calhoun andVanAntwerpen 2007) and?taking
a differenttack from the symbolic interaction
ists?show how the traditionofAmerican prag
matism
can
provide
intellectual
coherence
to a
discipline looking to find itsway in a postpos

itivistage.
WHAT IS A SOCIAL MECHANISM?

Confusion
abounds
as
to what
exactly
a mech
anism is.A clear definition is an essential first

step toward a sociological theory of mecha
nisms. To distill such a definition, I consider five
varied conceptualizations
in recent
2
1
account
of every
power
years.2
For a more
mechanisms,
that have appeared
exhaustive
review of the literature on
see Hedstr?m
(2005);
Hedstr?m
and
Swedberg (1998); Johnson (2002); and Mahoney

(2001).

360
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

as Not Necessarily
or Processes
Structures
Mechanisms
Observable
According to the first conceptualization?

advanced by Hedstr?m and Swedberg (1998)?
a social
or process
is the structure
mechanism
S by which some event or variable / leads to or

causes
change
in the state of variable
or event
O. Where some sociologists would be content

to "blackbox" S, or significant components of
it,Hedstr?m and Swedberg insist that true
explanation demands fuller specification of
its internalcontent. Such specification, in their
view, should have threefeatures. First, it should
follow the principle of methodological
indi
vidualism,
meso-
explaining
and macro-level
social phenomena by reference to the actions

of the individuals involved. Second, it should
give primacy to analytical models to be judged
by their explanatory utility and parsimony, as
much as by their realism.3 Third, the specifi
cation of S must not require thatS be directly
observable; many social mechanisms,
they
argue, cannot be observed. Although Hedstr?m
and Swedberg point appreciatively to work
done
by Coleman,
Granovetter,
and
others,
theirparadigm case of an adequately specified

social mechanism isMerton's (1968) theoryof
the self-fulfilling prophesy, by which a false
definition of a situation leads individuals to act
so as to bring that situation about, as when
belief in the insolvency of a bank leads to a run
thatcauses insolvency. This theorymeets their
criteria because itpostulates the existence of
a "general
mechanism
belief-formation
which
states that the number of individuals who per

form a certain act signals to others the likely
value or necessity of the act, and this signalwill
influence other individuals' choice of action"
(p. 21, emphasis in original).
as Observable
Mechanisms
Processes
that Do Not Require the Positing
of
Motives
For Reskin (2003), the specification of a social
mechanism need not have all the properties
demanded byHedstr?m and Swedberg. Laying
3As noted
below, Hedstr?m (2005) objects to
"instrumentalist"
that ignore realism
versions
of rational
altogether.
choice
an
out
theory
for
agenda
on
research
ascriptive
inequality, she urges scholars to stop being

concerned with models thatposit motives for
and focus instead on
unequal allocations
mechanisms
uncovering
by which "ascribed
are
characteristics"
linked
"to
outcomes
of
varying desirability" (p. 7). For Reskin, as for

Hedstr?m
and
are what
mechanisms
Swedberg,
happen inside the black box of social causal

ity?they are "processes thatconvert inputs (or
independent variables) intooutputs (or depen
dent variables)" (p. 7). She glosses mecha
nisms-based approaches to inequality as those
concerned with the question of how inequali
ties arise in allocation.4 Unlike Hedstr?m and
Swedberg, however, Reskin argues that how
questions must be answerable in terms of
observable processes; inher view, this feature
commends them over why questions from the
standpoint of realism, for themotives of indi
viduals and groups typically cannot be seen.
The
only
concerns
exception
mechanisms
pos
tulated to operate at the intrapsychic level;

and
societal,
interpersonal,
must meet
mechanisms
organizational
the observability
requirement.
as Lower-Order
Mechanisms
Processes
Social
on
Stinchcombe
(1998:267),
building
an
offers
alternative by suggesting
Coleman,
are
that mechanisms
or
theory'
'models'
that
process,
have
"bits
of
that
a causal
represent
some
true
'sometimes
actual
or
possible
empirical support separate from the larger the

ory inwhich it is a mechanism, and that gen
erate
increased
power,
precision,
or elegance
in the large-scale theories." Although not a

individualist, he argues that
methodological
all social mechanisms
ing
lower-order
units
involve
processes
affect
of analysis?processes
that in aggregate bring about the relationship

X?>Y
for higher-order
units
under
considera
tion. Stinchcombe, however, insists thatwe

may be able to show thatX causes Y without
knowing much about the underlying, lower
ordermechanisms: onlywhen such knowledge
4
Much
recent empirical work on mechanisms

of
can
seen
as
be
out
Reskin's
pro
inequality
carrying
gram (e.g., Rivera 2008; Stevens 2007).

361

gives us a better understanding of the higher
order
example,
relationship?for
ant tomovement
the con
of
texts in which the relationship is likely to

obtain?will itbe helpful tohave a grasp of the
relevant
mechanisms.
as Triggerable
Mechanisms
Causal
Powers
sine
non of science.
qua
In their view,
across
three
ontological
the empirical,
where
scientists
movement
from
the iden
involves analytic
tification of mechanisms
domains:
access
expe
rience; to the actual, where they identify the

events
to the real,
that experience;
the causal
mechanisms?usually
that generate
wherein
lie
virtue
unseen?by
another.
to critical
Key
one
of which
realism's
understanding
a continuum
"closed"
an
from
system.
toward
"open"
A mechanism
is "that
aspect
of the structureof a thingby virtue ofwhich it

has a certain [causal] power" (Collier 1994:62).
Mechanisms, however, "operate [only] when
suitably triggered" (p. 62), and outside the lab
almost
oratory mechanisms
a host of other mechanisms,
coexist
always
processes,
with
and
fac
tors that inhibit that triggering or otherwise

interferewith the causal relationship. "Under
in other words,
conditions,"
non-experimental
in con
"we can see only what
[a] mechanism
junction with otherfactors makes itdo" (p. 33,

is, we can see it
emphasis in original)?that
operate
in an open
system.
Experi
a closed
creates
contrast,
system
by
one mechanism
from the
of nature
only
mentation,
"to
isolate
effects
to see what
of others,
that mechanism
does on its own" (p. 33). Science proceeds by

generating such isolation and thus involves nei
ther a
for covering
search
of
accumulation
searches
for an
findings.
increasingly
laws
nor
simple
science
Rather,
comprehensive
and
deep understanding of causal mechanisms, the

mechanisms
that underlie
mechanisms,
and how
the configuration of particular open systems

affects the functioning ofmechanisms.
Bhaskar and other critical realists devote par
ticular attention to the social sciences, which
they see as studying systems especially resist
relations.
resistance
This
models?the
of analytic
mecha
nisms that could have helped generate them,

and determining, through empirically ground
ed reflectionon the conditions of historical pos
sibility,whether and how those mechanisms,
with
and given
others
circumstances,
contingent
actually brought about the events (see Steinmetz

individualists,
2004). Unlike methodological
critical
are also
realists
who
emergentists
argue
thathigher-order strataof social reality emerge

those
of thisprocess is the claim thatmovement from

the empirical to the real involves movement
along
social
transforming
out of lower-order
causes
event
not
of closure,
has methodological implications (see Ekstr?m

1992). In the social sciences, explanation can
only take the form of breaking events down
into theircomponent parts, identifying?by the
elaboration
"Critical realism" provides a fourthapproach to

mechanisms. For critical realists like Bhaskar
and Collier, the search formechanisms is the
in the direction
least because of what they postulate to be the

intrinsic capacity of human beings towork at
emergent
that events within
and
ones,
are
strata
by mecha
caused
nisms unique to themand not reducible to lower

order mechanisms.5
as Transforming
Mechanisms
Events
A final framework is outlined by Tilly (2001),

like most
who,
centering
on
accounts
the search
accounts"
those
laws. He
for covering
that "consider
a
reconstructing
with
them with "propensity
also counterposes
of
con
of mechanisms,
students
trasts mechanisms-based
to consist
explanation
state
actor's
given
at
the
threshold of action, with that state variously

stipulated
organization,
as motivation,
consciousness,
need,
or momentum"
and to "systems
that "consist of specifying the
explanations"
place
in a
of some
larger
event,
...
structure,
or process
set of interdependent
with
elements"
(p. 569). Mechanisms-based

approaches, by
contrast, "select salient features of [historical]
... and explain them by identifying
episodes
robustmechanisms of relativelygeneral scope"
(p. 569). Tilly has a distinctunderstanding,how
ever, of what
events
mechanisms
consist
that alter relations
set of elements,"
and
of. They
"are
some
among
they come
specified
in three vari
eties: "cognitive mechanisms operate through

alterations of individual and collective percep
tion";
"relational
5
For a discussion
mechanisms
of social
(2005).

alter connections
emergence,
see Sawyer
362

and
among
people,
groups,
works";
and
"environmental
net
mechanism
exert
which X
interpersonal
mechanisms
external influences on the conditions affecting

[social] processes" (p. 572).
In Tilly's
view,
social
consequently,
expla
nation should involve "pursuing] particular

across different settings" and
mechanisms
examining the role of thosemechanisms, includ
ing how
they "concatenate"
episodes.
In describing
into "social
es," in bringing about puzzling
process
historical
as events,
mechanisms
Tilly refers first and foremost to the different

kinds
can
actors
of practices
enact
together,
such as pursuing "certification" of theirpoliti

cal
as numerous
identities,
states
would-be
did
vis-?-vis theUnited Nations after

World War II,
or
actors
involving
"brokerage"
or
severing,
"establishing,
connections
realigning
among
social sites" (p. 575), which Tilly describes as

a defining feature of social life in the Soviet
Union. Tilly recognizes thatmechanisms thus
while
understood,
in nature,
general
relatively
may be instantiateddifferentlyindifferenthis
toricalperiods. For example, he notes thatmech
anisms of competition, involving "striving
several
among
actors
a reward-allocat
within
ing arena" (p. 575), are key features of the con

tentious politics waged by social movement
activists, but thatpolitics of this sort,with its
unique phenomenology, emerged only in the
nineteenth century.Analysts of mechanisms
must thereforebe attentive to time and place?
to ways
in particular,
nisms
may
in which
social
institutions,
"incorporate
and
understandings,
that have
practices
mulated
mecha
accu
historically"
(p. 570). Tilly's
(1995a: 1602) program for social research thus
involves "the historically embedded search for
causes
deep
variable
in variable
operating
and
circumstances,
sequences
combinations,
with
consequently
outcomes."
or means
by
is an
anisms
incorporate
environmental
mechanism
(not inTilly's sense), not a social one, although

itmight help establish the conditions under
which social mechanisms could unfold.6 It
might also be connectedwith other socialmech
that
and mediate
environ
mental factors, such as those thathelp explain

thegeographic positioning of thevillage or the
nature of itshousing stock.
2. Social mechanisms unfold in time. Social
mechanisms bring about causal effects through
a
of
sequence
temporal
events
or processes
occurring in the social world at themicro-,

or macro-level
meso-,
fact or phenomenon
fact or phenomenon
or across
levels. A
social
that causes
another
social
make
processes
is unimaginable;
and
up mechanisms
no
with
instantaneously,
intervening processes,
such
are always
temporally embedded. The duration of the

sequences involved may vary greatly. The
sequence
actions
matter
short?a
of a few
inter
cognitive-affective
an individual
when
example,
judges
be
may
and
another
with
low
processes?for
in a small-group
status char
external
acteristics more positively after that person

the
group
1982). The duration of a mecha
(Ridgeway
nism may
to
commitment
demonstrates
over
extend
years,
as for individuals
come
to value
in occupations involving high levels of work
place
autonomy
who
indepen
dence and self-direction (Kohn et al. 1990). Or

the mechanism
may
unfold
over
centuries,
as
in
the sequence of events bywhich theProtestant

Reformation instilled social discipline in pop
ulations, laying themicrofoundations for the
rise of strongnation-states (Gorski 2003).
3. Social
mechanisms
degrees.
are
although
general,
If a person
up in a
grows
neighborhood with a high degree of social dis
To extract a working definition of social mech

anisms
the process
community
in varying
a Definition
Toward
is rather
causes Y This process must have a

significant social component if themechanism
is to be considered a social one. A volcanic
eruption leveling a village and destroying a
from these conceptualizations,
I consider
themajor points on which the authors agree

and disagree. First the points of explicit and
organization,
has no one
exerting
informal
social
control over her, and turns to a life of crime

(Wilson 1996), a social mechanism can be said
to be at play only if theprocess ismore or less
tacit agreement:
1. Social
mediate
sequence
are
mechanisms
between
X-^Y,
cause
neither Xnor
causal
and
in that they
In the
effect.
the causal
7nor
relationship itself is a social mechanism. The
For example, mechanisms

relating to the result
as
of
levels
in Erikson's
anomie,
(1978)
ing high
classic study of Buffalo Creek, West Virginia.

363

typical of actors in similar circumstances. Every
such person need not be subject to themecha
nism, or affected by it in the same way, but a
is a causal
social mechanism
with
process
some
minimum level of generality.As Tilly's analy

sis makes
mechanisms
however,
clear,
may
sometimes be invoked to explain particular

events
historical
(e.g.,
However
ones).
much
the events typically studied by historical soci

ologists involve dramatic breaks from estab
lished social routines (Sewell 1996), they are
explicable in termsofmechanisms to the extent
that they are
of a more
instances
phe
general
nomenon, such as revolution (Skocpol 1979), or

of more
result from combinations
general
mech
anisms (see Steinmetz 2005; Tilly 1995a).

a social
4. Because
process,
mediary
elements
analyzed
mechanism
than
inter
of
composed
com
order
of
it
the phenomenon
helps explain. The nature of this hierarchical

relationshipwill vary by case, but Stinchcombe
for most
speaks
on
writers
social
mechanisms
when he argues that identifying themmeans

peering into a layerof social reality that serves
as
for
substratum
under
the phenomenon
certain
focus
action.
ship
machinery
of
lesser
thus
to greater
vis-?-vis
the causal
effecttheybring about (see Johnson 2002:230).

Ifwe let theoretical consensus be our guide,
these points of agreement should be incorpo
rated into any adequate definition of social
mechanisms. But such a definition should also
be sufficiently broad to accommodate points
of significant epistemological and method
ological disagreement:
1.Methodological individualismversus social
ontologism.Those likeHedstr?m and Swedberg,
who believe that individual persons must be
the point of departure for social analysis, take
a different approach tomechanisms than do
critical
realists,
who
recognize
the nonreductive
reality of emergent social entities. In fact,

Hedstr?m and Swedberg (1998:12) make a case
only for a "weak version" of methodological
individualism. Inmany instances, theyargue, it
may be impossible for explanation to trace all
the steps by which the actions of individuals
aggregate
to compose
a supra-individual
ty?the demand ofmethodological

ism
in its "strong
version."
Insofar
enti
individual
as this is so,
on
centered
critical
individual-level
are committed
who
realists,
versus
mechanisms.
substantive
a minimum
some
level of generality,
schol
ars are concerned with causal relationships that

obtain because of the form of the sociological
case at hand, in roughly Simmel's (1971) sense
of the term "formal."What matters here is that
anX?> Y relationship comes about because of
theformal, structuralcharacteristicsof the social
relations involved, as inBurt's (2001) argument
that social
whose
other
such
and
For
2. Formal
ation
social
on processes
Beyond the requirement thatsocial mechanisms
in some
the gears
stand in a relation
are
that mechanisms
incor
and
to a social ontologist position, by contrast, it is

acceptable?the point about analytic hierarchy
notwithstanding?to study social mechanisms
without much concern for the individual-level
phenomena by which they come about (e.g.,
Steinmetz 2005; see also Burris 2007).
investigation.All work on social mechanisms

assumes
as given
states
macro-level
porating them into the explanation" (p. 13).

Generally, however, Hedstr?m and Swedberg
believe that the analysis ofmechanisms should
have
it is necessarily
at a lower
or aggregation
plexity
is an
parsimony not only allows but requires "taking
actor's
capital
network
actors
encounter.
subjective
content
holes"
of the situ
or fail
accrue
content
where
advantage,
to actors
the "structural
The
actors
in which
an
accrue
advantages
ties span
to accrue
the
is either
of it or the ana
understanding
lyst's categorization in terms of social domain

or manifest
rectly
or latent function, matters
to Burt's
argument.
By
contrast,
only indi
Reskin's
call for the study ofmechanisms generative of

ascriptive inequality aims to isolate mecha
nisms operative specifically in situations of
allocation. Those who takeReskin's view that
the key mechanisms to study are substantive
rather than formal typically focus on domains
rich with the relevant mechanisms, whereas
advocates ofmore formal approaches seek to
identify mechanisms
ate across
virtually
the formal
end
so abstract
all domains.
that they oper

The
a
of the continuum
closer
to
conceptual
izationofmechanisms is, the less attentive itwill

be to variation in theworking ofmechanisms
across
time
and
space.
Nearly
all
approaches,
however, proceed from the recognition that in

social life contingent circumstances cannot be
completely explained away.
3. Analytical
point
of contention
versus
realist
among
models.
those who
final
offer con
ceptualizations of social mechanisms is episte

mol?gica!: Is the goal to produce models that

364
allow forelegant and robustpredictions,whether

or not
the postulated
can be
mechanisms
shown
tobe present and operative in reality?Or should

one seek to identify
mechanisms thatare empir
con
Hernes (1998:78),
observable?
ically
tributing toHedstr?m and Swedberg's volume
on
social
the former
takes
mechanisms,
view:
"A mechanism is an intellectual construct that

is part of a phantom world which may mimic
real lifewith abstract actors that impersonate
humans and cast them in conceptual conditions
thatemulate actual circumstances" (emphasis in
original). Reskin takes the latterview?without
a concern
up
giving
for
she
robustness?as
would reject postulated mechanisms that are

either unobservable or diverge from processes
and
that can be observed.
of events
sequences
Taken together,these considerations suggest

the following definition:A social mechanism is
or set
or less
sequence
general
of social
a lower order
or processes
at
analyzed
cer
or aggregation
of complexity
by which?in
cause X
to
tain circumstances?some
tends
a more
events
bring about some effectY in therealm of human

social
relations.
This
or
sequence
or
set may
may not be analytically reducible to theactions

enact
who
of individuals
mal or substantive
be observed,
it,may
causal
underwrite
and
processes,
or
unobserved,
inprinciple
for
may
Recent scholarship, although helpful in shed

ding light on the term "social mechanism," is
ological
eral
theories
accounts,
it comes
to offering
of mechanisms?that
not
of
social
soci
is, gen
causality
as
philosophical concept, but of causal processes

in the realm of the social. How should such
processes be understood?What are theirbuild
ing blocks? How do theyvary?
With respect to such questions, conceptual
work
on social mechanisms
tends
to take one
of
two forms. Some work seeks to identify rela

tivelyabstract featuresofmechanisms but stops
short of laying out a fully developed theory of
them.
Stinchcombe's
and
Reskin's
of their nature.
of
nisms
offers
the mecha
of inequali
ty,but provides neither a reason to thinkher

typology exhaustive nor much detail as to the
workings of themechanisms said to fallwith
in each class. These omissions might stem from
skepticism about the explanatory gain from
general theories. They might also, however,
stem from a hesitation on the part of scholars
to both make strong assumptions about social
action of the kind that contemporary theorists
insiston and to grapple with their implications
for the understanding
of causal
processes.
A differentproblem besets another strainof

work. Perhaps because the idea of opening up
theblack box of causality to develop fullyspec
ifiedmodels appeals to sociologists who value
a certain kind of analytical rigor, there is often
an affinitybetween work on mechanisms and
theorizationproceeding from assumptions about
action thought to be highly rigorous?namely,
scholarship in the rational choice theory tradi
tion. Hedstr?m's
proper,
unob
THE PROBLEM WITH CURRENT

FORMULATIONS
when
no general
account
a
categorization
to the maintenance
relevant
and provides
Reskin
work
an
provides
example:
formerlya champion of rational choice theory
servable.
less satisfactory
cation ofmechanisms may be helpful, itdoes lit

tle todelimit the scope of possible mechanisms
contribu
tions fall into this camp. Although

Stinchcombe's work clarifies thatmechanisms
bridge levels of analysis, and offers suggestions
about the circumstances inwhich the specifi
he now
argues
that social
mechanisms
should be understood through the lens ofwhat

he calls "DBO theory." In this theory, social
action results when intentional agents have
something they desire (D), have a belief (B)
about theworld pertaining to that desire, and
confront opportunities (O) that give them
options foraction fromwhich theymust choose.
Where
rational
choice
theory
posits
"an
atom
ized actor equipped with unlimited cognitive

abilities thatallow 'him' to consistently choose
the optimal course of action" (Hedstr?m
2005:36), DBO theory assumes only that "the
cause
of an action
is a constellation
of desires,
beliefs and opportunities in light ofwhich the

action
appears
reasonable"
(p.
39). Moreover,
while at least some rational choice approaches

treat desires and beliefs as exogenous to the
explanatory
model,
DBO
theory
takes
serious
ly the notion that "individuals' attitudes and

beliefs aremolded in interactionswith others"
is at the core of
(p. 43). Such a molding
Hedstr?m's
conception
of social
mechanisms.
In his view, three types of interactionalmech

anisms?belief-,
desire-,

and opporrunity-medi
365

thebuilding blocks formore complex
ated?are
social
processes.
The problem with this strain ofwork is that

relatively few in the theory community agree
that rational
choice
theory
or variants
such
as
theory offer empirically or theoretically

adequate descriptions of social action. Several
objections are widely shared among theorists
(seeArcher and Tritter2000; Green and Shapiro
1994; Somers 1998). Rational choice theory
typically conceptualizes rationalityas an innate
and more or less equally distributed cognitive
capacity,whereas sociological theorists attend
toways inwhich differentforms of rationality
appear at differenthistoricalmoments and come
to be differentially distributed across social
DBO
Rational
space.
choice
approaches?especially
outside the "bounded rationality" framework?

assume
that,
in most
individu
circumstances,
als act rationally or at least reasonably in the

light of their clear and coherent beliefs and
desires. Leaving aside the question ofwhether
most people act rationallyor reasonablymost of
the time,many sociological theoristswould fol
low Smelser (1998:4) in holding the "psycho
logical postulate" of ambiguity to have "wide
applicability" in social life,and Swidler (2001)
inmaintaining that the logical coherence of
individuals' beliefs about theworld is the excep
tion rather
the tem
than the rule. Furthermore,
poral phenomenology of much social action

departs from that implied by rational choice
approaches. While these approaches suggest an
individual armed with beliefs and desires who
steps out of theflow of action to face and eval
uate
a choice
between
competing
means,
theo
rists note that such moments are empirically

rare, tend
to come
in a socially
about
structured
fashion, and often involve an inverse temporal

ordering inwhich goals emerge and are clari
fied only after individuals tentativelyembark on
one means
Finally,
es?like
nature
rational
those
to DBO
theory
as
conven
to more
tional rational choice models, no sociologist

who finds them convincing is likely to think
Hedstr?m's
of social
theory
mechanisms?or
cognate theories offeredby Elster and others?

promising.8
In response
to these
to
in reaction
concerns;
other developments in thehuman sciences such

as
structural
existentialism,
and
Marxism,
anthropological structuralism;and building on

other developments including phenomenology,
ethnomethodology, and work on "rule follow
ing" inspiredby the later
Wittgenstein, theorists
in recent
decades
tices?not
have
discrete
that social
argued
prac
the focus
be
actions?should
of social research at the level of the individual

or group.
are
Practices
generally
as
understood
forms of doing orways of acting and interact

ing that appear within particular communities
or groups; depend on shared presuppositions
and
often
assumptions;
have
cor
significant
poreal or material dimension; and unfold in

individuals'
lives
as a result
of active,
creative,
and less than fully conscious puttings intoplay

of those presuppositions and assumptions in
the context of various and intersecting sociobi
and interactional exigencies.
ographical
as
Conceptualized
such,
practices
are
at
the
heart of Bourdieu's (1990) theory of social

fields, Butler's (1990) analysis of the perfor
mativity of gender,Giddens's (1984) theoryof
structuration,Knorr-Cetina's (1999) investiga
tions of the "epistemic cultures" of science and
modern society, Ortner's (1984) efforts to
reground anthropological understandings of
many
sociological
choice
approach
the norm-directed
that most
action
theorists
7
Not
is
argue
that socially learned habit is amajor proximate

cause of behavior (Camic 1986).While recog
nizing that lines of habitual activity might
accord with individuals' strategicor expressive
interests,
as much
or another.
whereas
emphasizing
of action?assume
motivated,
theydid something as post hoc rationalizations

that,beyond being restricted to a prescientific
"vocabulary of motives" (Mills 1940), often
obscure thefact thatno realmotivation or choice
was involved.7 Because these criticisms apply
theorists
view most
separate
acts
com
posing those lines as not directlymotivated and

see individuals' retrospective accounts ofwhy
all theorists
in the rational
choice
tradition
are subject
to these criticisms. Macy's

(1993) "back
model
of social control" posits that
ward-looking
actors learn through experience
about the general
sense to participate
itmakes
the need for infor
action, eliminating
in every instance.
mation-intensive
calculation
8
a growing literature in the philosophy
However,
under which
conditions
in collective
of social
be
may still
argues that "false models"
in explanation
useful
(e.g., Hindriks
science
extremely
2008).

366
culture, and Sewell's
(2005)
many
among
historiography,
contributions to
other
contribu
tions (for review, see Schatzki 1996, 2002;

Schatzki et al. 2001). Nearly all specific theo
retical programs advanced under the rubric of
practice theoryhave come inforcriticism,as has
the notion of social practices itself (Turner
1994), but this has not deterred a significant
amount
into
of research
the practices
seen
as
constitutive of social life innumerous domains

and historical settings.
Students of social practices have by nomeans
ignored causality. Indeed, as Ortner notes in a
seminal 1984 article, the turn toward practice
among
contemporary
theorists,
humanistic
approaches
while
incorpo
rating notions of the active, knowledgeable,

culturally interpretiveagent that can be found
in earlier
such
as
sym
bolic interactionism, departs from the antide

that
terminism
often
characterizes
such
approaches by seeing inpatterned iterationsof

practice thebasis for the reproduction of social
in particular,
structures,
structures
of inequali
ty.Faced with causal questions such as "Why is

therenotmore intergenerationalupward mobil
ity in contemporary
who
researchers
take
capitalist
a practice
societies?"
do
approach
not hesitate topoint topractices and theircausal

effects,as inLareau's (2003) claim thatdiffer
ences in childrearing between working- and
middle-class parents instilldistinctive disposi
tions in their offspring that are differentially
rewarded in school and on the labor market.
Yet the direct production and reproduction of
social structuresof inequality bymeans of the
iterationof practices is only one kind of causal
effect thatmay interestsocial scientists.To the
extent
that it remains
unclear
how
a variety
of
other causal processes build on and intersect

with social practices?as itdoes, given thatfew
who
take
practice
approach
address
social
mechanisms?much
empirical research will
find itselfdeprived of sophisticated action-the
oretical
THE PRAGMATIST THEORY OF

ACTION
The
American
classical
were
pragmatists
philosophers, not sociological theoristsper se.

Yet as Joas shows, despite disagreement among
them and significant interpretive disputes
among
to the mean
as
scholars
contemporary
ing of pragmatism, the classical pragmatists

were for themost part united in theirunder
standing of the basic nature of human activity
vis-?-vis the social and naturalworlds. Rejecting
theCartesian view thatthoughtand action,mind
and body, are ontologically distinct, the prag
matists argued that in anthropological terms,
are
humans
problem
solvers
the function
and
of
thought is to guide action in the service of solv

ing practical problems that arise in the course
of life.From this claim, wide ranging and con
troversialepistemological implicationsfollowed.
More
in the present
important
is the
er,
response
claim
corollary
to problem
howev
context,
that
involves
situations,
as
action,
an
alternation between habit and creativity.The

main
way
humans
solve
problems,
the prag
matists held, is by enacting habits?those

learned through social experience or frompre
vious individual effortsat problem solving. By
habits, thepragmatistsmeant not rotebehavior,
to ways or
but "acquired predisposition[s]
modes of response" (Dewey 1922:42, empha

sis in original) ofwhich actors are typicallynot
in the moment.
conscious
Only
when
preexist
ing habits fail to solve a problem at hand does

an action-situation
sciousness
argued,
ativity
rise
to the forefront
of con
as
the pragmatists
Then,
problematic.
for cre
humankind's
innate
capacity
comes
into play
as actors
dream
up pos
sible solutions, later integrating some of these

into their stocks of habit foruse on subsequent
occasions.9
foundations.
I argue thata solution to thisproblem can be

found by developing a theoryof social mecha
nisms on the basis of an approach to social
action thathas affinitieswith other strains of
practice theorybut is less reductive at the level
of action than theories like Bourdieu's. This
approach is the one taken by the classical
American
andMead and elaborated toward a sociological

theoryof action by Joas (1996).
pragmatists
Peirce,
James,
Dewey,
prevent me from offering a

or considering
of pragmatism
the implications
for sociology
of a pragmatist epis
of science. The one point 1
temology or philosophy
more
constraints
Space
nuanced account
regard to the latter is to reject the idea that

to
for pragmatists
that "works"
any action model
yield a robust explanation will suffice. As Joas shows,
make with


Blumer (1969), formulating the program of
symbolic interactionism,downplayed thisalter
nation between habituality and creativity,but
correctly noted thatmeaning is also central to
a pragmatist view of action. Problem situations
present themselves to actors through the lens
es of thecultural environments inwhich theyare
immersed.
Such
environments
to
give meaning
and help provide the content of the goals, ori

entations,
identities,
vocabularies
of motive,
and otherunderstandings of the action situation

thatactors come tohave. They also provide the
basis for intersubjective judgments about the
adequacy of problem solutions. All habits are
thus enacted on the basis of culturallymediat
ed interpretationsof the situation one faces (see
Alexander 1988), not least interpretations of
the intentions
of interaction
partners.
Why should sociologists take a pragmatist

approach to action seriously? A full treatment
of this question goes beyond the scope of this
article,
but
I can outline
some
reasons
one
why
might preferpragmatism toboth rational choice

theory and practice theory approaches such as
Bourdieu's.
Pragmatism is oftenmisunderstood as a form

of utilitarianism,but thereare at least fiveways
inwhich itdiffers from?and is superior to?
rational choice theory (for discussion, see
Beckert 2002; Joas 1996;Whitford 2002). First,
pragmatism does not equate problem solving
with themaximization of utility.To be sure, the
situations
humans
experience
involve
need
utility maximization?for
to generate
of businesses
as
problems
may
example,
revenue.
But
the
the
kinds of problems of concern to pragmatists

range much more widely and include all the
difficulties humans or collective actors face in
life,from theneed to remain healthy to theneed
to findmeaning and purpose in existence. To
reduce these to the desire tomaximize on a
preference function is to ignore the phenome
nological diversity involved in the experiencing

of problem situations. Second, to reiterate the
point about meaning, pragmatists insist that
problem situations are always interpreted
through cultural lenses. Even in situations of
instrumental
([1910] 1978, [1920] 1982, 1922), James ([1907]
classic con
1975), and Peirce (1992,
1998). Beside
tributions to symbolic interactionism, previous efforts
at bringing pragmatist insights into sociology
include
Lewis
and
Smith
Maines,
(1980),
Sugrue,
and
Katovich (1983),Mills (1966), Seidman (1996), and

Shalin
(1986).
For discussion,
see Gross
(2007).
are
actors
rationality,
enmeshed
inwebs ofmeaning that indicate the significa

tion of the ends
they
are
trying
to pursue,
con
Third,
prag
strain the choices theymake by setting limitson

the thinkabilityofmeans, and sustain the social
must be
relationships inwhich instrumentality
embedded. Rational choice theorymakes little
room
for culture
matists
thus understood.
against
argue?directly
most
utilitari
ans?that much action ishabitual and typically

involves
ends.
no
conscious
Fourth,
weighing
of means
maintain
pragmatists
and
that instru
mental rationality itself,when itdoes appear, is

a kind of habit, a way that some humans can
learn
we
to respond
to certain
situations,
and
that
should be as interested in the historical

processes bywhich thehabit of rationality?in
its various
and
forms?develops
is situational
ly deployed as we should be in its effects.

Finally, pragmatists suggest thatmeans and
ends
are
not
always
given
to action,
prior
as
assumed inmost rational choice models, but are

often emergent from action, as lines of activity
are initiated that lead actors to see themselves
innew ways, to value differentkinds of goods,
and to become attached to problem solutions
they could not have imagined previously
(Whitford 2002).
Thus described, pragmatism, in its under
standingof social action, sounds similar towork
in the practice theory tradition.A number of
commentators
point
to commonalities
at
the
level of action theorybetween pragmatism and

the thought of Bourdieu (Aboulafia
1999;
Dalton 2004; Emirbayer and Goldberg 2005;
Shusterman 1999). Bourdieu himself noted that
"the affinities
the epistemology
of the classical
pragmatists was
on
their
premised
anthropology. My view of the tra
dition draws from many
texts, especially
Dewey
367
and
convergences
are
quite
strik
ing" and that his approach, like Dewey's,

"grant[s] a central role to the notion of habit,
understood
as an active
and
creative
relation
to
the world, and rejectfs] all the conceptual

dualisms upon which nearly all post-Cartesian
philosophies are based: subject and object, inter
nal and external, material and spiritual, indi
vidual and social, and so on" (Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1992:122). If pragmatism and prac
tice theory,at least of theBourdieusian variety,

368
are so similar,why should sociologists prefer the

former?
Some might argue that they should not.
Similar though the two approaches may be in
certain respects, the claim could be made that
there is one crucial difference.Practice theorists
like Bourdieu routinely tie their analyses of
to questions
practices
of social-structural
pro
duction and reproduction,which have not been

a
concern
major
of scholars
in a prag
working
matist framework. The objection here is not

simply that thework has not yet been done to
link pragmatist understandings of action with
of meso-
accounts
and macro-level
to
ignore
conse
and
systematic
quential patterns in the distribution of habitu

ality?by social class position, for example. To
my mind,
this argument
however,
of pragmatism.
Because
counts
in favor
to prac
approaches
tice theory like Bourdieu's aim primarily at

accounting for social reproduction, theyend up
placing far toomuch emphasis on the strategic
dimensions of action. Although Bourdieu does
not see every individual act as motivated, he
does view most lines of activity as connected to
actors' interests in leveraging themselves into
favorable positions inmultidimensional social
hierarchies, and thus as tied to themaintenance
or transformationof those hierarchies.
As critics of Bourdieu have pointed out (e.g.,
Alexander 1995), however, thisanalytical reduc
tion
as ration
in its own way
is as problematic
al choice
theory is in its. In Bourdieu's
framework,
practices
tend not to be
seen
as sub
scribed to on thebasis of relativelyautonomous

identity
or ultimate
commitments,
connected
from broader
values
social-structural
dis
posi
tionings, or by virtue of the sheer force of

tradition or institutionalization. Yet evidence
from domains as diverse as religion (Smith
2003), politics (Stryker, Owens, and White
2000), intellectual life (Gross 2008), and inti
macy (Gross 2005) suggest thatfactors of iden
tity,morality,
or tradition
can
underlie
certainly
the adoption of a social practice by a group, as

well as shape individuals' enactmentsof it.Such
factors must
not be
seen
as residual
or
epiphe
nomenal elements but as coexisting and in some

cases
intersecting
with
strategic
for
the habituality-creativity continuum,
social
is meant
for pragmatists,
also
reproduction?but
to encompass
rather
than substitute for other forms of action, while

giving pride of place tomatters of identityand
is better
meaning?pragmatism
to accom
able
modate
the diversity of action and practice.

Although nothing in a pragmatist approach
would deny that some practices are closely
bound up with the reproduction of social
inequality, thevery thinnessof themodel at the
meso- and macro-levels gives it a flexibility
and range lacking in other approaches.
phenome
na, sociology's typicalobjects of explanation.As

important, the lack of such linkage may lead
pragmatists
account
because
concerns
over
social positioning. In part because pragmatist

understandings of action were not designed to
A PRAGMATIST THEORY OF
MECHANISMS
The key claim to advance in constructing a the
ory of social mechanisms on these foundations
is this: Pragmatists
as
composed
actors confronting
view
would
nisms
problem
mecha
social
or aggregations
of chains
situations
of
and mobi
lizingmore or less habitual responses. I noted

above that alternation between habit and cre
ativity is at the heart of pragmatism, and that
pragmatists
see
this alternation
as underlying?
not substituting for?other action forms (Joas

1996). These characteristics of the approach,
combined with the focus on meaning, yield
unique
leverage
over
the notion
of mechanisms.
see why, let us follow Hedstr?m

and
Swedberg at least partway and describe a social
To
mechanism
as
the
structure
or process
by
which some input/leads to outcome O. A prag

matist theoryofmechanisms would hold that to
understand S, we must examine the individual
and collective actors Ax_n involved in the 1-0
relationship. For each, our goal should be to
understandwhy and how,when confrontedwith
problem situationPn and endowed with habits
of cognition and action Hn, along with other
resources,
response
the most
Rn becomes
like
ly.S will then consist of all the relations A x_n

?P\-n
?H\_n -R\-n
that, in aggregate
or sequen
tially,bring about the1-0 relationship.

For
example,
suppose
we
are
interested
in
the relationship between race and income

inequality and follow Pager (2003) in consid
eringAfrican American men and the effects of
a criminal record and "negative credentialing"
on the likelihood of gaining employment.Many
kinds of actors, problem situations, and habit
ual responses make up thismechanism, but a

369

pragmatist approach might concentrate on
understandinghow, foremployers tryingtomeet
staffingneeds with reliable workers, and in the
context of prevailing racial-juridical cultural
structures,certain habits of thoughtand action
are employed according to which potential
employees are coded in termsof trustworthiness
depending on theirrace and historywith thejus
tice system, giving rise to discriminatory allo
cation decisions. Aggregated across employers,
an A-P-H-R
such
is the mechanism
chain
of
negative credentialing in this case.

I hypothesize thatmost social mechanisms
can
be
in this way?as
understood
of actors,
aggregations
in some
ty, greater
and
situations,
problem
habitual responses?always
or
chains
with thepossibili
than others,
circumstances
that a novel way of responding to a problem

could emerge for any of the actors involved,
potentially altering theworkings of themech
anism.
social
pragmatist
science
concerned
with mechanisms would aim to uncover the

nature of such chains: the types intowhich they
may be classified, the actors involved in their
operation, the habits employed by such actors
and theirorigins, the circumstances inwhich the
mechanisms operate, their interconnectionwith
and
other mechanisms,
their causal
effects.
Note the centrality ofmeaning in the Pager

example; themechanism is interpretiveall the
way down. For pragmatists, humans inhabit
worlds ofmeaning. Pragmatism isnot a formof
individualism; it does not
methodological
require
that mechanisms
at the meso
operating
or macro-levels be explained exclusively in

termsof the actions of the individuals involved,
or otherwise.
meaning-interpretive
It does
insist,
however, thatthepotential contributionof indi

vidual action to theoperation ofmechanisms be
taken
into account.
This
requires
that we
grasp
how the relevant individuals understand the sit

uations
before
standings,
them
helping
and
act
on
those
under
thereby to enact
the
mechanism.
In this respect,
pragmatism
comes
close
to the
weak version ofmethodological individualism

championed by Hedstr?m and Swedberg.
Hedstr?m (2005), in particular, makes belief
central tohis account of social action,mobiliz
ingWeber's stress on subjective meaning to
argue thatactors' beliefs about the social world
are as importantas theirdesires and opportu
nities in explaining their actions, and hence
social
mechanisms.
then, with
How,
of meaning,
questions
to
respect
a pragmatist
does
approach tomechanisms differfromHedstr?m's

approach?
Drawing inspiration in part from Peirce's

work on semiotics (see Deledalle 2000), prag
matists would
insist that meaning
is not
reducible tobelief inHedstr?m's sense of propo

sitions about theworld thatactors hold tobe true
(e.g., thata bank is or isnot solvent). In theprag
matist view, consistentwith otherwork follow

ing from the cultural or linguistic turn, such
while
propositions,
mean
become
important,
ingfulonly insofar as they string together sym

bolic elements thatacquire their individual and
relational meanings in larger cultural systems

and structures.The belief thata bank is or isnot
solvent, for example, and that its solvency has

implications forwhether actors should with
draw their deposits, presupposes that actors
understand what a bank is,what itmeans to

say thatan institution like a bank can have sol
vency,
that actors
see
themselves
as
others
and
oriented toward themaximization of theirshort

termand individual or familialmonetary inter
ests, that they had enough trust in the

institutional order to place theirmoney in a
bank in the firstplace, that theyare acclimated
to a system
Merton's
of monetary
postulated
exchange,
and
so on.
of the self-ful
mechanism
filling prophesy functions in this case only

actors
because
are
in cultural
positioned
systems
fromwhich theyderive these assumptions and

orientations, and hence have the beliefs they
do. A pragmatist approach, takingmeaning seri
ously, would
argue
cannot
that mechanisms
be
adequately understood without an analysis of

such assumptions. This implies thatthe studyof
social
mechanisms
must
be undertaken
along
side a project of cultural interpretation.

Social mechanisms
that affect collective
actors
be
(e.g.,
analyzed
firms,
states,
or
organizations)
in the same way.
Collective
can
actors
also face problem situations and respond in

habit-bound, culturally mediated ways, and
social mechanisms involving collective actors
consist of chains or aggregations of such
responses,
whether
or not
there
value in furtherdecomposing
vidual-level
action.

is explanatory
them into indi
3 70
A FURTHER SPECIFICATION OF THE

THEORY
The pragmatist theory of social mechanisms
outlined here can be furtherdeveloped and elab
orated?and
preemptively defended?by
responding to fourobjections itmight encounter
on firsthearing.
The first concerns the theory's emphasis on
Will such an approach
cultureand interpretation:
inevitablyneglect the centralityof resources, and
struggles over them, in social life? The prag
matist response comes into relief by compari
son with Sewell's
(1992) account of the
structure.
of
Reformulating aspects of
"duality"
Giddens's and Bourdieu's
theories, Sewell
with
Giddens
agrees
(1984) that "rules" and
must
"resources"
sis on rules
as
into any understanding

Giddens's
empha
factor
recasts
structure. He
of social
how
procedures,"
"generalizable
ever, arguing that the rules thathelp constitute

structures"should be thoughtof as including all
the varieties of cultural sch?mas that anthro
have
pologists
:not only
uncovered...
the array
of binary oppositions thatmake up a society's

fundamental tools of thought,but also the var
ious conventions,
scenarios,
recipes,
principles
of action, and habits of speech and gestures

built up with these fundamental tools" (pp.
6-7). Schemas in this sense are habits. Yet
Sewell's
entail
on cultural
sch?mas
emphasis
a loss of concern
for resources.
tinguishes
two types:
He
resources
"human
are
"are
tions
from
...
resources
and
Yet
of power."
sch?mas:
media
unconnected
may
be
cultural sch?mas," while

amount
resources]
"human
as manifesta
thought of
of the enactment
to as
of
"what [nonhuman
resources
is largely
consequence of the sch?mas that inform their

use" (p. 11).
Schemas
and
are
resources
interre
indeed
lated, but a pragmatist understands this rela

tionship somewhat differently from Sewell.
According
to pragmatists,
when
actors
confront
a problem situation theymobilize theirhabits,

including some of the capacities described by
Sewell
as human
resources.
Yet
this mobiliza
tion typically also involves putting nonhuman

resources
to work?for
example,
money.
while
the
the habits
actors
use
to resolve
them,
the avail
ability of resources is, from a pragmatist view

point, a potentially important aspect of every
social
mechanism.
A second potential objection revolves around

thenotion of habit. Isn't this concept too vague
and poorly specified tomake sense of causal
mechanisms operating at multiple levels of
analysis? This objection highlights theneed to
distinguish among kinds of habits. Inmy view
there are threekinds:
1.Individual cognitive-affectivehabits. These
are habitual ways individual actors have of
understanding and responding emotionally to
situations in general, resulting from theirpsy
chosocial experience or theirbiological endow
ments
or
Someone
propensities.
is
who
clinically depressed and sees theworld through

a glass half-empty is displaying a cognitive
affectivehabit; so too is a person continually ori
or the
ented toward sexual
conquest
of goods
consumption
and
services.
Insofar
as
the tendencyto employ one cognitive schema for

interpretingtheworld rather than another also
this analytic
rubric, cognitive-affec
are major
sites of cultural-interpre
tive activity, and they refer outward towider

is
neither
cultural
consequences
power"
at her disposal,
availability of resources?an objective feature

of problem situations?may help instill in her
distinctive habits. Insofar as social mechanisms
are decomposable intoproblem situations and
tive habits
strength,
physical
resources
nonhuman
falls under
(p. 9). Both types, he
dexterity, knowledge"
argues,
are
or manufactured,
occurring
objects
naturally
or maintain
to enhance
that can be used
and
dis
resources
"nonhuman
...
not
does
pragmatist understanding, thehabits an actor is

endowed with will affect theways inwhich she
understands the significance of and uses the
In a
cultural
frameworks
internal
neural
while
also
revolving
around
processes.
2. Individual behavioral habits. These habits

involve thedisposition to enact specific behav
ioral responses or routines when individual
actors are faced with particular kinds of prob
lem situations.They derive primarily from indi
vidual and social experience. For example,
Bittner (1967:702) argues that inmany social
disorder
situations,
"policemen
not only
refrain
from invoking the law formallybut also employ

alternative
sanctions,"
ranging
from warnings
for offenders to "direct disciplining." This is an

individual behavioral habit learned on the job
and throughexposure to thepolice subculture.
3.A thirdcategory of habits consists of those
that are collectively enacted: that is,ways that
groups of individual actors, including those

371

who comprise collective actors of various kinds,
have of working together to solve problems. I
noted earlier that of the main conceptual
approaches tomechanisms, Tilly's is theone that
seems unobjectionable
in action-theoretical
terms.Complementarities between his approach
and my own are such thatan example fromhis
work can help illustratewhat I have inmind by
thiscategory of habits.10 InPopular Contention
inGreat Britain, Tilly (1995b) argues that the
best way to explain a major transformation in
theBritish political structurebetween themid
eighteenth and early-nineteenthcenturies?the
of "ordinary
"capacity"
... in national
affairs"
growing
intervene
account
for the emergence
of contention."
By
of new
repertoire
people
(p.
...
14)?is
to
to
"repertoires
he means
"a
limited set of routines thatare learned, shared,

and acted out through a relatively deliberate
process of choice" (p. 42). By repertoiresof con
tention,he means the routines by which "pairs
of actors make and receive claims bearing on
each other's interests" (p. 43). A repertoire of

contention can thus be understood as a set of
habits or practices enacted collectively bymem
bers of a group tomake political claims and
attempt to resolve problems theymay be facing,
from political disenfranchisement to econom
icmarginalization. The idea of repertoires of

contention is of considerable importance for
the social analysis of politics (Tarrow 1996), but
I see it as simply one type of habit that actors
can enact jointly to solve problems. "Group

style," as analyzed by Eliasoph and Lichterman
patterns of interaction
(2003:737)?"recurrent
that arise from a group's shared assumptions
about what constitutes good or adequate par
ticipation in the group setting," such as how
group members talk about personal commit
ments or politics?is another typeof collective
habit. So too are organizational routines and
1993; Feldman and

repertoires (Clemens
Pentland 2003).
4. Alongside this differentiatedunderstand
ing of habit, I would argue that habits often
come bundled in habit sets. These are relative
ly coherent repertoires for thinkingand acting
vis-?-vis a set of problems, as inTilly's idea that
theremay be specific repertoiresof contention,
such
as
arose
in early-nineteenth-century
Britain. To say thathabit setsmay be relatively

coherent does notmean the cultures of practice
or lifeworldstheystructureand informare seam
less culturalwebs, but only thatsome habits tend
to appear alongside otherswhen they are dis
played by individuals or groups, and that there
may be systematic relationships between them
at the level ofmeaning and action. The distinct
epistemic cultures that shape knowledge-mak
ing practices in physics and biology (Knorr
Cetina 1999) are good examples of habit sets,
as are sharplydefined occupational subcultures
(Hughes 1971).
Unpacking thenotion of habit helps explain
how mechanisms operating at various levels
can reston a foundationof habit;we can add that
pragmatists would see social mechanisms as
varying in abstraction and clustering into an
indefinitenumber of types.Mechanisms under
lying specific cause and effect relationships
(e.g., between racial heterogeneity in cities and
elite investment in social control resources) are
at the low end of abstraction (Jackson and

Carroll 1981). At thehigh end aremore gener
al processes that recur across many kinds of
such
situations,
as mechanisms
of brokerage.
These poles correspond to thedistinction drawn

above between substantive and formalmecha
nisms.While itmay be easier to see how sub
stantive
model,
mechanisms
formal
conform
mechanisms
can
to a pragmatist
also be under
stood in terms of actors, problem situations,

and habitual response. For example, to say that
an outcome
or event?such
as
the
1950s
Mau
revolt inKenya as analyzed byMcAdam,

Tarrow, and Tilly (2001)?involved
brokerage
is to say that a subset of the actors involved
faced problem situations that they sought to
Mau
10
these complementarities,
Tilly never
Despite
for his
laid out the action-theoretical
foundations
of practices or made clear how practices
conception
the full range of causal mechanisms
might underlie
More
his
to sociologists.
of interest
generally,
tomechanisms
may be too closely tied to
approach
his own
orientation,
interests, methodological
to serve
theoretical commitments
substantive
conceptual
framework
for the discipline
and
as a
as a whole.
resolve by mobilizing habits ofmaking social

connections between disparate parties. In this
understanding,
brokerage
mechanisms
revolve
around a particular kind of practice (a point

McAdam et al. also make); to understand the
nature of the situations those actors faced, the

372
actors' habits, and theireffects is to understand

the mechanism.
Pragmatists
would
also
agree
with scholars such asMcAdam and colleagues

that there is value in cataloging thewide vari
ety of social mechanisms found in social real
ity,which presumes thatmechanisms fall into
distinct types and clusters. Yet the pragmatist
theory is uniquely poised to understand how
this presumption could be valid. According to
the theory,what makes mechanisms different is
precisely the configuration of actors, problem
situations,habits, and patterns of aggregation of
which theyare composed, so that theproject of
cataloging them becomes one of cataloging
types of A-P-H-R chains. Similar kinds of
recur across
chains may
the extent of recurrence

ness
diverse
circumstances;
determines
the abstract
of the mechanism.
This discussion raises a thirdobjection:What

about formalmechanisms that seem to operate
behind actors' backs and to involve few
moments of situational interpretation?Many
such postulatedmechanisms concern theformal
structure of social networks. The pragmatist
view overlaps Emirbayer and Goodwin's
(1994:1445-46)
critique of network analysis,
which, theyargue, neglects cultureby failing "to
thematize more explicitly ... the inherently
constructed nature of individual and collective
identities ... [and] the complex ways inwhich
actors'
social
identities
as well
mativer^
as
and nor
culturally
determined."
societally,
are
Glossed anotherway, theirpoint can be gener

alized and squared with the theory presented
here by invoking a critique of formalism going
back to Durkheim's ([1900] 1960) attack on
Simmel: although the formal structureof social
relations
can
indeed
shape
and
constrain
action,
the situations inwhich actors act are always

characterized by particularity of content, and
such particularity should never be ignored in
social explanation. An actorwho finds himself
"the strength of weak ties"
possessing
(Granovetter 1973), for example, does so not
abstractly but in regard to specific situations
such as finding a job. These situations involve
configurations
of objective
elements
and mean
ing thatmake possible and set the parameters

for the causal effectof network structure.
To
give
another
example,
whom
one
knows
may strongly influence the likelihood of find

ing an apartment inNew York City,with special
advantages flowing to thosewith many acquain
tances rather than a few close friends, but this

depends on the degree to which information
about thehousing market is decentralized and
nontransparent,
on whether
erty managers
favor
landlords
and prop
arrangements
legalistic
over those requiring trust between parties,

whether city living is seen as so desirable that
people will do so despite thedifficultyand cost
involved,
and
so on.
Such
are usually
factors
incorporated intoformalmodels by virtue of an

implied ceteris paribus clause, but insofar as
they represent the conditions for themecha
nism
as
postulated,
the mechanism
we
operating
understand
cannot
unless
we
really
under
stand the conditions. Instead,pragmatismwould

suggest thatmechanisms resulting from the for
structure
mal
of social
relations
are best
seen
as
more or less obdurate features of the problem

situations individual or collective actors con
front?that
is, features
that enable
or constrain
lines of activity. How actors understand and

respond to the situations theyfacewill be no less
important in the context of such confronta
tions.11
A fourthpossible objection follows from the

third.Many mechanisms of interestto sociolo
gists, itwould seem, are not formal, as I have
been
using
the term, but center
on processes
of
aggregationwhose effectsequally appear not to

depend on actors' possessing and mobilizing
culturally mediated habits. For example,
Schelling's (1971) model of residential segre
gation postulates that ifwhites and blacks hold
even mild preferences for not being outnum
bered in theirneighborhoods by people from the
other racial group, therewill be no equilibrium
inhousing patterns and neighborhoods will seg
regate and resegregate over time, even if this is
not desired by any individual. How can a prag
matist
model
accommodate
such
a mecha
1'
Pragmatists would have a similar attitude toward

"environmental mechanisms."
These create problem
situations to which actors must attempt to respond.
The distinctiondrawnbyTilly (2001) andMcAdam

and colleagues
(2001)?between
cognitive/disposi
tional, relational, and environmental mechanisms?
run
is thus a false trichotomy: all social mechanisms
through the nexus of habituality, creativity, and

pretation. This is not to deny thatmechanisms
as relatively more dispositional,
be classified
tional, or environmental.

inter
may
rela
373

is aggregative and, at the indi
nism?which
vidual
seems
level,
to involve
no more
than
simple decision-rule?let alone shine new light

on it?
The answer to the firstpart of thequestion is
that themechanism can be respecified as an
aggregation of individual actors' effortsat prob
lem solving?the problem being to live in a
neighborhood inwhich one is comfortable, and
a key feature of themechanism being that the
kinds of situations actors confront depend on
problem-solving activities enacted previously by
their neighbors, which may have altered the
composition of a neighborhood beyond some
demographic tipping point. But what, in this
case,
would
be
tion? Beyond
the value
a respecifica
of such
the intrinsic value of greater
action-theoretical
a pragmatist
adequacy,
approach would allow preferences forvarying

levels of racial homophily inone's neighborhood
and the tendency tomove if those preferences
are violated?the
decision-rule
in question?to
be profitably reconceptualized as individual

behavioral habits. This would permit such pref
erences to remain latentwithout losing their
causal
relax
power;
information
and
calcula
bility assumptions and replace them with a

focus on interactionallyand culturallymediat
ed experiences of comfort within socially
defined neighborhood boundaries; put greater
emphasis on the social and historical condi
tionsunderwhich the relevanthabits formed for
and are enacted by the social groups inquestion,
including those bywhich they came to see one
another in racial or other categorical terms; and
allow the possibility thatunder different con
ditions?for
in societies
example,
placing
more
emphasis onmulticultural tolerance?different

habits might be in place, resulting in different
aggregate-level
Would
such
increase
the explanato
ry power of Schelling's model? Taking this

opportunity to speak to the issuemore generally,
I hold ittobe an empirical question whether the
theory of mechanisms laid out here will give
sociology
more
explanatory
purchase.
Researchers who are persuaded by the theory to

reconceptualize themechanisms they studywill
either find such reconceptualizations helpful
inproducing more robust explanations or they
will not. Because the theory is offeredas a flex
ible conceptual toolkitforcomprehending social
mechanisms,
to demonstrate
not a set of postulates
about
social
the theory's
value
explanatory
priori.What I can do is identify threekinds of

analytical problems forwhich a pragmatist the
ory ofmechanisms seems particularly helpful.
1. The problem of specifying scope condi
tions.Alongside challenges to sociological pos
itivism in recent years have been calls from
various quarters for sociologists to clarify the
circumstances inwhich theyexpect theirexpla
to hold.
nations of social phenomena
Postpositivist historical sociologists, for exam
ple, point to social and cultural differences sep
arating societies at differenthistorical junctures
and the constraints they impose on the project
of social-scientific generalization (see Adams,
Clemens, and Orloff 2005). Similarly, Abbott
(2001), influencedby a vision of social process
es as heavily dependent on place and time?in
particular, geographic location and sequential
that sociology not overstep certain
ly?insists
boundaries with respect to the scope of the
explanations itpursues. Inter alia, these lines of
thinkingdemand a better specification of scope
conditions, and I argue thata pragmatist theo
ry ofmechanisms could be helpful infleshing
out what thismeans. First, the theory views
social
mechanisms
as
into prac
decomposable
tices qua habits thatare always located in time

and space, emergingprimarilyfrom social expe
rience. Specifying scope conditions means, in
part, accounting
for such habits.
Second,
the the
ory insists thathabits, and themechanisms they

compose, function as theydo only in conjunc
tionwith broader, historically specific cultural
codes and repertoires.And third,reconceiving
mechanisms
effects.
a move
life fromwhich a broader sociological theory

could be deduced, it is impossible to predict
the specific forms that explanations informed
by the theorywill take and equally impossible
in terms of A-P-H-R
chains
draws
attention to their intrinsictemporalityand hence

to time-dependent sequential processes. To the
extent thatthe theorythuspoints theway toward
relatively rich specification of the conditions
under
which
particular
mechanisms
operate,
we should expect improvements in theprecision

of explanatory
accounts.
2. The problem of accounting for behavior
where
cultural
among
vary widely
meanings
action
In a pragmatist
all social
model,
involves
cultural
But phenome
interpretation.
actors.
na obviously vary in thedegree towhich actors

interpretproblem situations in similar ways.

3 74
For
in the
example,
economic
rates
interest
whereby
lowering
ic activity, one component
3. The problem
of accounting
mechanisms.
Change
are obvious
of every
features
phenomenon
spurs econom
of the operative
tices and
mech
anism is thatcompanies find itcheaper toborrow

cash
and
so
do
to make
investments.
capital
variation
occur
may
across
sectors
firms
and
in
how lowered interest rates are viewed, but not

much.
By
contrast,
in the case
of the mechanism
by which differential resource availability in a

household is linked tovariation in fertilityrates,
differentactorswhose behaviormight be covered
by
causal
single
model
(e.g.,
recent
immi
grants fromMexico, poor African Americans in

the inner city, and upper-middle-class
suburban
white professionals) may well understand child

bearing and itsmeaning in theirlives inquite dif
ferent terms. The difference between these
examples isnot thatthefirst is economic and the
second familial. Rather, social and historical
circumstances
(e.g.,
of
processes
institutional
isomorphism and the secure instirutionalization

of capitalist social relations) render the relevant
interpretive
processes
or
more
less
homoge
neous in the firstcase but not in the second. A

pragmatist approach tomechanisms may have
particular explanatorypayoff in situationswhere
interpretive
homogeneity across actors is low,for
here we should expect cultural differences to
have a significant effecton how problem situa
tions are understood and responded to, and on
how the social mechanisms thus constituted

function.12The growth of cultural sociology in
recentyears owes littleto a pragmatist theoryof
action ormechanisms, but the theory I propose
implies a substantially broadened disciplinary
role for cultural sociology, in part because it
that, where
suggests
actors,
cultural
explanatory
vary
meanings
interpretation
may
among
generate
more
of mechanisms.13
specifications
12
To return to the Schelling
example,
often faced by ethnographers
cumstance
this is a cir
who
study
studies
race and neighborhood

change. Exemplary
to exam
beyond a simple preferences model
ine the interplay of structural factors and complex,
on the part of residents of
variegated understandings
move
what makes
for a good
2008).
13
One might
from symbolic
ask how
neighborhood
(e.g., Hyra
the theory I propose

which
also
interactionism,
importantaspect of social change is the emer

of new
gence
Differences ineconomic positioning aside, some
differs
claims
new prac
for
and dynamism
and an
society,
How
practices.
do
these
come
about? Inmost of the versions of practice the
ory
discussed
processes
above,
of social
the answer
centers
new
reproduction:
on
practices
emerge as elites struggle tomaintain (or chal

lengers contest) patterns of social domination
in the face of exogenously generated reconfig
urations of the social field. Nothing in a prag
matist model would deny that social practices,
understood as habits, may indeed have their
origin in such strategic efforts,but themodel
would view practices emerging in thisway as
responses to only one kind of problem situation
actors may
face?that
is, the need
for strategic
repositioning. In thepragmatist view, thereare

many kinds of problem situations, and how
actors act to resolve the fullrange of thesewhen
existing habits prove inadequate is a major
source of new practices, with implications for
the socialmechanisms with which they intersect.
A pragmatist theoryofmechanisms therefore
encourages
researchers
to examine
the diversi
ty of problem-solving activities thatmay lie

behind new practices. When accounting for
social change is critical and the dynamics of
social reproduction do not tell thewhole story,
this theory should offer greater explanatory
leverage thanwould strains of practice theory.
For
example,
a major
change
has
taken
place
since the 1960s in how North American and

European police forces deal with social protests.
In the 1960s, police viewed protests as chal
lenges to social order and routinely contained
them by force; today, protests have been nor
malized and police often cooperate with activist
groups to ensure thatprotests do not get out of
hand (Delia Porta and Reiter 1998; McCarthy
roots. Space
limits prevent engaging this
stresses agency
question
fully, but interactionism
and contingency farmore than causality. Focusing on
pragmatist
the creativity end of the action con

to be
tinuum, as I do, allows a pragmatist perspective
better reconciled
with the aspirations
of a proba
the habit over
causal
and to provide
social
science,
bilistically
action-theoretical
foundations for such a science that
neglect neither the interpretive nor the agentic aspects
of social experience.


andMcPhail
1997). This change has important

for
contentious politics and the
implications
mechanisms surrounding it. Ithas loweredphys
icalrisks forprotestersbut also renderedprotests
less symbolically potent. How and why did the
new practices come into being? A pragmatist
approach would focus on the complex prob
to which
lem-situation
they
were
a response:
the
need of police forces to deal with events hap

pening with increasing frequency,which were
costly in terms ofmanpower and outside dom
inantorganizational repertoires of crime-fight
ing, and that posed a high risk of loss of
legitimacy.Organizational experimentation and
innovation followed, with police forces near
college campuses taking the lead, and thenewly
emergent practices diffused across the organi
zational field. Few could have predicted the
specific form the response took: itarose through
trialand error, indialogue and negotiation with
politicians,
and
administrators,
university
activists that altered police understandings of

theirgoals, inan institutionalcontext thatsome
times inhibitedinnovation,and against theback
drop of broader cultural changes in which
came
protests
to be
seen
as more
legitimate.
pragmatist approach would not deny that the

new practices strengthenedthehand of the state,
contributing to processes of social reproduc
tion,but itwould look skeptically on the claim
that elite demands for social containment ade
quately explain their emergence. A similar
explanatory logic could be pursued inmany
research
areas
where
accounting
for the emer
gence of new practices and habits could shed

important light on operative social mecha
nisms.14
the American
The growing interest in social mechanisms

salutary.
I argue,
conceptualizations
problematic
because
however,
of
social
that several
mechanisms
they are constructed
is
leading
are
around
inadequate understandings of social action.

Championing the theoryof action developed by
14
There
are important similarities?and

a pragmatist approach
ferences?between
some dif
as applied
to the study of organizational

change and approach
es to the topic informed by "new institutional theo
and Ventresca
ry." See Washington
(2004).
that
approach
has important affinities with more popular

strains
of practice
theory?I
I argue
that social
native.
an alter
propose
mechanisms?the
nuts and bolts processes by which cause and

effect relationships in the social world come
about?are
best
or aggre
of as chains
thought
gations of problem situations and the effects

thatensue as a result of thehabits actors use to
resolve them.This project of theoretical clari
fication aims not just at offering sociologists a
better understanding of what they are doing
when they identifysocial mechanisms, but also
at reforming sociological practice. The value of
the theory is ultimately an empirical question,
but I offer reason to think that conceiving of
in the manner
mechanisms
result
may
proposed
inbetter specified, and very likelymore robust,

accounts.
explanatory
These
considerations
suggest
a clear
research
agenda: sociology should aim to identify the

main social mechanisms by which cause and
effect relationships in the social world thatare
of moral, political, or intellectual importance
come about. This entails breaking complex
social phenomena into theircomponent parts to
see
how
or
aggregations
of
chains
actors
employing habits to resolve problem situations

bring about systematic effects.
Such a project will necessarily be multi
Qualitative
methodological.
research?ethno
and
interview-based,
graphic,
historical?is
necessary to identifymechanisms, the habits

theyare composed of, and thekinds of problem
situations in which those habits tend to be
deployed. Cultural and historical research is
needed to understand the origins of habits and
habit
CONCLUSION
pragmatists?an
375
sets,
and
hence
of mechanisms,
along
with theirmeanings for the actors involved and

the broader cultural configurations inwhich
thosemeanings become possible. Quantitative
research is required to establish the variable
associations that lead us to inquire into cause
effect relationships in the first place, to test
across
large
number
of
cases
whether
one
posited mechanism rather than another is pro

ducing the effect, to analyze patterns of aggre
gation, and to establish numerically how habit
sets are distributed across groups and individ
uals. Finally, sociological theory is needed to
establish new and fruitfulconceptual vocabu
laries for thinkingabout problems and to iden
tifypreviously unrecognized social processes

376
and dynamics that have ramifications across

empirical domains. Sociology can thenmark its
progress bywhether, for any social outcome of
interesttous, we are able to identifyreasonably
well theoftenhidden socialmechanisms respon
sible for it; gain some insight into how those
or
mechanisms,
under
different
related
ones,
might
and,
circumstances;
play out
as a result,
interveneeffectivelytobring society intogreater

conformitywith our values and ideals.
at
Professor
of Sociology
and the incoming
of British Columbia
editor o/Sociological
Theory. His first book, Richard
Neil
is Associate
Gross
the University
of an American
Rorty: The Making
Philosopher, was
last year by the University
published
of Chicago
Press.
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A Pragmarist Theory of Social Mechanisms

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A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms

Author(s): Neil Gross

This content downloaded from 200.31.75.101 on Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:38:42 PM

they rest on either

identify the mechanisms

theoryofmechanisms. I identifythreekinds of analytical problems the theoryis

then lay out an agenda

recentdecades, sociological positivism?the

ologists who worry thatpositivism objectifies

facts and values,

lem sociological positivism shares with posi

their very helpful comments on earlier drafts I thank

Institute for Advanced

research, few universal laws

have embraced the postpositivist position that

settings and thatmay help to account

ditionally searched for laws of the form "ifX

toNeil Gross at Department

As criticismsmount, sociologists grasp for

es bywhich, in certain irreducible contexts, the

"through which [the]migratory attitudes [of

Castilla, and Moore's

fits inhiring by reliance on employee referrals;

This content downloaded from 200.31.75.101 on Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:38:42 PM

A PRAGMATIST THEORY OF SOCIAL MECHANISMS

work in thisvein is oftendistinguished not only

but pursues explanation at a high level of gen

of themechanisms concept have proliferated

beholden to some version of rational choice

However, amajority of theorists today doubt

change and should thereforebe fully specified.

theorists instead conceptualize social action as

tices. Social practices are ways of doing and

lective history of groups. Collective enactment

Bourdieu 1990; de Certeau 1984; Giddens 1984;

pragmatist philosophers Charles S. Peirce,

approach necessarily increases the explanatory

ticularmechanisms, although I identify three

that a great many

mechanisms, regardless of the level of analysis

dation than existing approaches recognize. In

strandsof sociological theorywith the research

discipline looking to find itsway in a postpos

WHAT IS A SOCIAL MECHANISM?

anism is.A clear definition is an essential first

that have appeared

review of the literature on

Swedberg (1998); Johnson (2002); and Mahoney

This content downloaded from 200.31.75.101 on Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:38:42 PM

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

According to the first conceptualization?

S by which some event or variable / leads to or

in the state of variable

O. Where some sociologists would be content

social phenomena by reference to the actions

theirparadigm case of an adequately specified

states that the number of individuals who per

that ignore realism

inequality, she urges scholars to stop being

varying desirability" (p. 7). For Reskin, as for

happen inside the black box of social causal

tulated to operate at the intrapsychic level;

empirical support separate from the larger the

in the large-scale theories." Although not a