The causal effects of ideas on policies

Abstract

Behavioral, institutional, and discursive analyses of the causal effects of ideas on policies present various difficulties. Meaning-oriented behavioralism is hampered by its reliance on statistical associations and quasi-experimentation to make causal claims. Ideational institutionalism avoids these problems by focusing on institutional causal mechanisms. However, these mechanisms suffer from other problems and need to be complemented by an analysis of ideational causal mechanisms of capacities. Broadly construed “discursive” approaches, meanwhile, present important analyses of these ideational capacities but unfortunately routinely neglect their causal effects on policies. These dilemmas suggest that ideational analysis can be enhanced if discursivists attend more closely to the causal effects of ideational factors, while behavioralists and institutionalists pay greater attention to interpretive understanding, intersubjective meanings, and discursive practices. In so doing, opposing analytical approaches might engage in fruitful dialogue, or at the very least raise the level of their “third debate.”