Background: Randomized controlled trials have been criticized for their inability to identify and differentiate the causal mechanisms that generate the outcomes they measure. One solution is the development of realist trials that combine the empirical precision of trials' outcome data with realism's theoretical capacity to identify the powers that generate outcomes. Main Body: We review arguments for and against this position and conclude that critical realist trials are viable. Using the example of an evaluation of the educational effectiveness of virtual (...) reality simulation, we explore whether Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling can move statistical analysis beyond correlational analysis to support realist identification of the mechanisms that generate correlations. Conclusion: We tentatively conclude that PLS-SEM, with its ability to identify ‘points of action’, has the potential to provide direction for researchers and practitioners in terms of how, for whom, when, where and in what circumstances an intervention has worked. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While multiple crisis phenomena have sparked experimentation with alternative forms of production and consumption on the micro level, it is not clear if and how these alternative practices may become hegemonic and thus displace capitalism as the hegemonic order on the macro level, rather than merely fostering pockets of a solidarity economy within capitalism. This question is hard to research, because it relates to post-capitalist futures rather than actual events or phenomena in the past or present. In this article, (...) I propose a methodological framework for studying the transformative potential of counter-hegemonic initiatives. Building on debates on causality and prediction within Critical Realism, I introduce the concept of ‘ex-ante’ retroduction. Using this mode of reasoning helps to identify possible generative mechanisms for the viability and achievability of alternative futures which can then be empirically investigated. (shrink)

Heikki Patomäki is Professor of World Politics (Global Political Economy) at the University of Helsinki.1 In Part 1 of this interview (Patomäki and Morgan 2023) he discussed his work and career up...

Based on metatheoretical considerations, this article discusses what kinds of traffic forecasts are possible and what kinds are impossible to make with any reasonable degree of accuracy. It will be argued on ontological and epistemological grounds that it is inherently impossible to make exact predictions about the magnitude of the ‘general’ traffic growth 20-30 years ahead, since many of the influencing factors depend on inherently unpredictable geopolitical trajectories as well as contested political decision-making. Due to the context-dependency of each particular (...) planning situation, it is also hardly possible to make exact, quantitative predictions about the impact of implementing a specific infrastructure project, compared to ‘doing nothing’. Instead of relying on traffic model simulations as the general forecasting and assessment tool in transport planning, we propose to separate the so-called strategic, tactical and operational levels of traffic forecasting into three distinct methodological approaches reflecting the different degrees of openness/closure of the systems at hand: scenario analyses at the strategic level; theory-informed, mainly qualitative analyses supplemented with simple calculations at the tactical level; while more traditional micro-simulations should be applied only at a detailed operational level. (shrink)

Volume 18, Issue 5, October 2019, Page 475-486.

This paper discusses the practice of cost-benefit analyses of transportation infrastructure investment projects from the meta-theoretical perspective of critical realism. Such analyses are based on a number of untenable ontological assumptions about social value, human nature and the natural environment. In addition, main input data are based on transport modelling analyses based on a misleading `local ontology' among the model makers. The ontological misconceptions translate into erroneous epistemological assumptions about the possibility of precise predictions and the validity of willingness-to-pay investigations. (...) Accepting the ontological and epistemological assumptions of cost-benefit analysis involves an implicit acceptance of the ethical and political values favoured by these assumptions. Cost-benefit analyses of transportation investment projects tend to neglect long-term environmental consequences and needs among population groups with a low ability to pay. Instead of cost-benefit analyses, impact analyses evaluating the likely effects of project alternatives against a wide range of societal goals is recommended, with quantification and economic valorisation only for impact categories where this can be done in an ontologically and epistemologically defensible way. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as longstanding (...) debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

This article illustrates the process of applied critical realist research using a case study of political decision-making in transport. Critical realism is often used to analyse socio-political cha...

It is a contradictory argument to say on the one hand that social systems are always open and that there is nothing between closed and open systems, and on the other that there are pseudo-closed systems. Further, Petter Næss has shown that multivariate regression analysis can be used to help uncover mechanisms, something that should be impossible if social systems were always open. He has in addition found that the meaningful activity of urban planning requires for its existence the possibility (...) to make crude, qualitative predictions, which should also be impossible for the same reason. Critical realists therefore need to rethink the whole question of closed and open social systems. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity has been a key term in the ecological debate ever since its advent in the early 1960s. The paper addresses these historical links and how the two terms ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘ecology’ have influenced each other. The later concept ‘sustainable development’ is also truly interdisciplinary, including physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural, as well as normative, mechanisms, contexts and effects operating at scales ranging from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Policies to promote sustainable development need to be based on the type (...) of interdisciplinary thinking that has been advocated for several decades within the ecological debate. This applies not least to research into the sustainability aspects of urban development, the case discussed in this paper. Despite longstanding requests for interdisciplinarity, the development within the academic world has proceeded in the opposite direction. Many of the most influential metatheoretical perspectives virtually prohibit, or at best strongly discourage, the inclusion of insights about certain parts of reality. Here, critical realism could play a very important role as an underlabourer of interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

This article describes and evaluates the application of an explicitly critical realist methodology to a quantitative doctoral research project on the causes of family homelessness in Australia. It...

This paper promotes critical realism as a suitable and fruitful philosophical foundation for the development and implementation of urban digital twins. The proliferation of a-theoretical digital twin research and practices, not declaring their philosophical positions, is threatening the scientific soundness of this new paradigm and offers little evidence for reflecting on the knowledge it produces. To address this issue, first, this paper uses focus group discussions to explore digital twin experts’ perceptions of digital twin best practices for urban management and (...) uncover the philosophical worldviews underlying these perceptions. A philosophical worldview is a general orientation about the world that is described in terms of ontological and epistemological assumptions and views on human nature. The inferred philosophical worldviews are then compared with critical realism principles, supporting the argument that critical realism provides a suitable philosophical foundation for digital twin practices in urban management envisaged by participating experts, as well as enhancing current forms of digital twin practice. (shrink)

Social network analysis (SNA) is an increasingly popular approach that provides researchers with highly developed tools to map and analyze complexes of social relations. Although a number of network scholars have explicated the assumptions that underpin SNA, the approach has yet to be discussed in relation to established philosophies of science. This article argues that there is a tension between applied and methods-oriented SNA studies, on the one hand, and those addressing the social-theoretical nature and implications of networks, on the (...) other. The former, in many cases, exhibits positivist tendencies, whereas the latter incorporate a number of assumptions that are directly compatible with core critical realist views on the nature of social reality and knowledge. This article suggests that SNA may be detached from positivist social science and come to constitute a valuable instrument in the critical realist toolbox. (shrink)