4.4 Causal chains & causal mechanism (2)

• Q: Weather → voter turnout (Gomez, Hansford, and Krause 2007): What is the individual-level process? Describe the process for a single person! Why is there a difference between Republicans and Democrats?
• Usually helps to describe idealized process for a single unit!
• As concrete as possible…
  • How being in treatment condition (1) rather than control (0) would change Y for unit i (think in counterfactual terms)
• Further readings: Hedström and Ylikoski (2010), Humphreys and Jacobs (2015), K. Imai et al. (2011)

References

Gomez, Brad T, Thomas G Hansford, and George A Krause. 2007. “The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections.” J. Polit. 69 (3): 649–63.

Hedström, Peter, and Petri Ylikoski. 2010. “Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences.” Annu. Rev. Sociol. 36 (1): 49–67.

Humphreys, Macartan, and Alan M Jacobs. 2015. “Mixing Methods: A Bayesian Approach.” Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 109 (04): 653–73.

Imai, Kosuke, Luke Keele, Dustin Tingley, and Teppei Yamamoto. 2011. “Unpacking the Black Box of Causality: Learning About Causal Mechanisms from Experimental and Observational Studies.” Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 105 (04): 765–89.