Comparative Political Studies

Volume 41 Number 4/5

April/May 2008 412-436
© 2008 Sage Publications

Toward a Unified 10.1177/0010414007313115

http://cps.sagepub.com

Theory of Causality hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

James Mahoney
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

In comparative research, analysts conceptualize causation in contrasting

ways when they pursue explanation in particular cases (case-oriented research)
versus large populations (population-oriented research). With case-oriented
research, they understand causation in terms of necessary, sufficient, INUS,
and SUIN causes. With population-oriented research, by contrast, they
understand causation as mean causal effects. This article explores whether it
is possible to translate the kind of causal language that is used in case-
oriented research into the kind of causal language that is used in population-
oriented research (and vice versa). The article suggests that such translation
is possible, because certain types of INUS causes manifest themselves as
variables that exhibit partial effects when studied in population-oriented
research. The article concludes that the conception of causation adopted in
case-oriented research is appropriate for the population level, whereas the
conception of causation used in population-oriented research is valuable for
making predictions in the face of uncertainty.

Keywords: causality; logic; probabilities; cases; populations

C omparative analysts use distinct methods and conceptualize causation

in contrasting ways when they carry out explanation in particular cases
versus large populations. When analyzing individual cases, comparativists
seek to identify the specific values of variables that enabled and/or gener-
ated outcomes of interest. They pursue a genetic and sequential mode of
explanation that is implemented in part through narrative prose. By con-
trast, when comparativists study large populations, they seek to estimate the
average effects of independent variables of interest. They carry out statisti-
cal analysis and report results as coefficients that apply to populations as
wholes rather than particular observations.

Author’s Note: For helpful insights, I thank James Caporaso, Robert J. Franzese Jr., John Gerring,
Edward Gibson, Gary Goertz, Erin Kimball, Kendra Koivu, Damon B. Palmer, Jason Seawright,
Larkin Terrie, David Waldner, Erik Wibbels, and Steven I. Wilkinson. All errors are mine.

412
 Mahoney / Causality 413

These two approaches can be called, for convenience, case-oriented and

population-oriented research.1 Case-oriented researchers seek to identify
the causes of particular outcomes in specific cases. They may find causal
patterns that apply broadly, but their primary concern is with causation in
the specific cases under analysis. By contrast, population-oriented researchers
seek to identify typical causal effects in overall populations. They may some-
times investigate whether a particular case follows a general casual pattern,
but their main interest is to say something about the larger population pattern.
To illustrate these differences, consider research on democratization. Both
case-oriented and population-oriented researchers are interested in the ques-
tion, “What causes democracy?” However, they normally address this ques-
tion in different ways. The case-oriented researcher pursues it by asking what
caused democracy in certain cases, such as a set of democratic and nonde-
mocratic countries that are homogeneous on contextual variables. It is
common, for example, to ask why democracy occurred among some but not
other countries of a particular region (e.g., Yashar, 1997) or a particular his-
torical epoch (e.g., R. B. Collier, 1999). The analyst may explain the cases
under investigation without being able to generalize this explanation to a
broad range of places and times. The population-oriented researcher, by con-
trast, addresses the question by asking about the partial effects of independent
variables of interest on the distribution of democracy in a large number of
cases. For example, cross-national research on democracy is often concerned
with producing good estimates of the average effect of variables such as eco-
nomic development (e.g., Londregan & Poole, 1996) or the number of political
parties (e.g., Mainwaring, 1993). In these studies, the analyst may accurately
report the typical effects of particular independent variables without provid-
ing a comprehensive explanation of democracy for any particular case.
Perhaps most comparativists believe that both case-oriented and population-
oriented forms of research are worthy. However, their many differences are
not well appreciated, which fosters misunderstandings (Mahoney & Goertz,
2006). Of these differences, perhaps the most basic one concerns concep-
tions of causality. Case-oriented and population-oriented approaches diverge
in their fundamental understandings of causation, leaving the comparative
field without a unified theory of causality. The challenge of unification
involves reconciling the apparently contradictory claims about causation
endorsed in the two approaches. How can causation be both a process that
enables or generates specific outcomes in cases and a statistical likelihood
that operates probabilistically within a population? A unified theory should
tell us why there is no contradiction here and why (and if) we need such
seemingly different understandings of causation at the case level and the
414 Comparative Political Studies

population level. It should in fact provide the tools for translating the kind
of causal language that is used at the case level into the kind of causal lan-
guage that is used at the population level (and vice versa).
In this article, I explore how to unify the case-oriented and population-
oriented approaches to causation. The theory for unification that I propose is
reductionist—it assumes that causal effects at the population level manifest
themselves only insofar as causal processes are operating in the individual
cases.2 The population level does not exhibit any “emergent properties” that
cannot be reduced to (i.e., explained in terms of) processes that occur in the
individual cases. Causation at the population level is thus epiphenomenal;
case-level causation is ontologically prior to population-level causation.
Although to some this bottom-up approach will seem obvious, the more
common approach to achieve unification has been top-down: Scholars try to
understand causation at the level of the individual cases using ideas that
apply to the population level. As we shall see, this approach is fraught with
problems that are corrected by starting with a firm understanding of causa-
tion at the level of the individual cases and then extending this understanding
to the level of the population.
In developing a unified theory of causation, I do not explore all differences
between the case-oriented and population-oriented approaches. Perhaps most
notably, I do not consider here important questions related to temporality,
causal mechanisms, and the transmission of causal effects over time.
Nevertheless, the issues covered in this article provide a necessary founda-
tion for the further explication of these and other differences between the
two approaches.

The Case-Oriented Approach

Case-oriented researchers seek to explain particular outcomes in specific

cases. They ask questions such as, “Why did European countries develop
either liberal-democratic, social-democratic, or fascist regimes during the
interwar period?” (Luebbert, 1991); “Why did the United States provide
generous benefits for Civil War veterans and their dependents?”(Skocpol,
1992); and “Why did Korea and Taiwan but not Syria and Turkey experience
sustained economic development after World War II?” (Waldner, 1999). In
addressing these questions, the researchers try to identify the values on vari-
ables that actually caused the particular outcomes in the specific cases.
This research goal seems straightforward enough. But what concretely
do case-study researchers mean when they assert that a given variable value
 Mahoney / Causality 415

is a cause of a particular outcome? For example, what does Skocpol (1992)

mean when she argues that competitive patronage democracy was a cause
of the Civil War pensions? There are different possible answers to these
questions, some more useful than others.

Probability-Based Definitions
Perhaps the most common approach to defining causation in the indi-
vidual case is to assume that it works like causation at the level of the pop-
ulation. Here, causality is conceived in terms of likelihoods and probabilities.
A cause is specifically a value on a variable that makes an outcome more
likely; a cause increases the probability that an outcome will take place.
This definition of cause as “probability raiser” stems from the probability
theory that underpins population-oriented research.3
Yet at the level of the individual case, there are various problems with
the idea that causes are probability raisers. For one thing, probabilities must
be derived from populations. And causes that increase the probability of a
given outcome in a population need not increase the probability of that out-
come in any particular case. Indeed, some factors that one would want to
call “causes” of an outcome in an individual case actually decrease the
probability of the outcome in a larger population. Philosophers use stylized
scenarios to illustrate the idea,4 but students of comparative politics will be
aware of examples. For instance, although much research suggests that eco-
nomic development increases the probability of democracy (or democratic
stability), it has long been treated as a cause of the breakdown of democ-
racy and the emergence of authoritarianism in South America during the
1960s the 1970s (e.g., D. Collier, 1979; O’Donnell, 1973; also see Mainwaring
& Pérez-Liñán, 2003). Likewise, the election of leftist and labor-based gov-
ernments historically makes the initiation of radical market-oriented reforms
less likely on average, but these governments have been treated as a cause
of such reforms in several contemporary developing countries (Levitsky &
Way, 1998).
What is more, the very idea of viewing causation in terms of probabilities
when N = 1 is problematic. At the individual case level, the ex post (objec-
tive) probability of a specific outcome occurring is either 1 or 0; that is, either
the outcome will occur or it will not. This view is consistent with nearly all
interpretations of probabilities. Thus, according to frequency probability
approaches: “It makes no sense to speak of a single-case probability . . . . On
a frequentist interpretation probabilities are properties of the whole ensem-
ble, not of the individual events” (Appleby, 2004, p. 449). Other realist
416 Comparative Political Studies

approaches that see probabilities as objective features also treat single-case

probabilities as meaningless (Milne, 1986). Likewise, for different reasons,
Bayesian subjectivists reject the idea of single-case probabilities (see
Albert, 2005).5 To be sure, the ex ante (subjective) probability of an out-
come occurring in a given case can be estimated in terms of some fraction.
But the real probability of the outcome is always equal to its ex post prob-
ability, which is 1 or 0. For example, across many trials, the probability of
a craps player rolling snake eyes (1s on two six-sided dice) is 1 in 36. Yet
for any individual roll, the real probability of snake eyes at the time of the
release of the dice is equal to 1 or 0. The outcome for the particular role is
affected not only by the fact that each dye has six sides but also by initial
position, velocity, angular momentum, and so forth—factors that determine
infallibly and, in principle, predictably (not haphazardly, not quantum ran-
domly) whether the dice will come up snake eyes.6
We can make these ideas more concrete with an example from compar-
ative politics: the emergence of democracy in India. Scholars who work on
this question routinely note that India’s long-standing democracy is sur-
prising given what we know about population-level probabilities (e.g.,
Kohli, 1988, 2001; Rudolph & Rudolph, 1959; Varshney, 1998; Waldner,
2006). After all, India has many features (e.g., poverty, ethnic heterogene-
ity, inequality, regionalism) that are believed to severely decrease the like-
lihood of democracy. Yet given that democracy did happen, the challenge
for case-oriented researchers has been to explain it (as opposed to assum-
ing that it was a product of random chance). Among other things, most
case-oriented researchers point to the Congress Party as a key promoter and
stabilizer of democracy. Of course, in other contexts, mass-incorporating
parties of this nature have triggered stable authoritarianism and even long-
lived totalitarian regimes (Huntington, 1968). Why should the party have
been a cause of democracy in India? Interestingly, case-oriented researchers
suggest that some of the very factors that made democracy in India so sub-
jectively surprising also explain why the Congress Party promoted democ-
racy. Thus, hierarchical social structures and ethnic divisions led the
Congress Party to adopt a “rule-based internal functioning” in the course
of the nationalist movement (Varshney, 1998). The presence of a hetero-
geneous society also encouraged elites to incorporate into the party mid-
dle and rich farmers—actors who occupied a strategic position between
landed elites and landless workers. In turn, internal bureaucratic function-
ing and a broad accommodationist alliance meant that the Congress Party
was well poised to lead a peaceful and sustainable transition to democracy
with independence. The crucial point for us is that the conditions that
 Mahoney / Causality 417

caused democracy in India included some of the very factors that proba-
bilistically decrease the likelihood of democracy in general. Without all of
these obstacles, India’s Congress Party may not have played its historic
role, and the country may not have developed a stable democratic regime.

Necessity and Sufficiency Definitions

Rather than thinking about case-level causes as probability raisers, we
will do better to adopt an orientation grounded in the philosophy of logic.
From this orientation, it is common to define cause in the individual case
as a variable value that is necessary and/or sufficient for an outcome. The
idea that causality should be viewed as specifically necessary causation fol-
lows a long tradition going back to Hume (Goertz, 2003; Lewis, 1986). The
approach captures the intuition that a cause is something that—when coun-
terfactually taken away under ceteris paribus conditions—fosters a differ-
ent outcome. For instance, Moore (1966) famously quips “no bourgeoisie,
no democracy” (p. 418) to highlight the idea that a strong and independent
bourgeoisie was necessary for a path to democracy in early modern cases.
More recently, Weyland (1998) argues that profound crises were necessary
for leaders to initiate “shock” plans of economic adjustment in the contem-
porary developing world; Tarrow (1989) asserts that deep, visible structural
cleavages and political opportunities have been necessary causes of histor-
ical protest cycles; and Amsden (1992) contends that a relatively equitable
distribution of income has been necessary for successful late industrializa-
tion. In these examples, the author believes that, in the absence of the cause,
the outcome of interest would not have happened.
Although useful, this approach cannot accommodate sufficient causes.
With sufficient causes, the counterfactual absence of the cause may not
change the outcome in an individual case and thus could be interpreted as
not exerting an effect under the necessary cause definition.7 There is in fact
a large philosophical literature, also going back to Hume, which defines
cause in terms of sufficiency rather than necessity.8 Some comparativists at
least implicitly use this approach. For instance, Goldhagen (1997) argues
that a culture of virulent anti-Semitism was sufficient to cause Germans to
be motivated to kill Jews. Alternative causal factors, such as the rise of the
Nazis and Hitler, were not necessary. Germany’s anti-Semitism was enough
by itself to deliver the motivational basis for the Holocaust.
The real problem with these frameworks is not that they fail to speak of
causes, but rather that they are not exhaustive. Individual causes do not take
the form of only necessary and/or sufficient causes. One can easily think of
418 Comparative Political Studies

examples of causes that were neither necessary nor sufficient. In each of these
examples, one will find, the cause works together in combination with other
causes to produce an outcome. It is the larger combination that generates the
outcome; or stated differently, the values on two or more variables—not any
single variable—are jointly sufficient (or possibly jointly necessary) for the
outcome. Let us examine these causes.

INUS and SUIN Causes

Case-oriented researchers rarely treat any single variable value as suffi-
cient for a given outcome. Instead, when attempting to identify the causes
that generate a specific outcome, they usually treat individual variable val-
ues as INUS causes. The acronym INUS is derived by Mackie (1965) as
follows: “the so-called cause is, and is known to be, an insufficient but nec-
essary part of a condition which is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the
result” (p. 246; also see Mackie, 1980). A stylized illustration of INUS cau-
sation is the idea that a building can burn down (Y1) either because of a
short circuit (A1) combined with wooden framing (B1) or because of a gaso-
line can (C1) combined with a furnace (D1); that is, Y1 = (A1 & B1) v (C1 &
D1), where “&” represents the Logical AND, the “v” represents the Logical
OR, and “=” represents sufficiency. There is no necessary cause for the out-
come; instead, alternative combinations are each sufficient.
INUS causes are commonplace in case-oriented research. For instance,
consider Moore’s (1966) argument that democratic pathways in the early
modern world required both a strong bourgeoisie and an aristocracy that
either aligned with this bourgeoisie or was historically weakened. In the
argument, there are two combinations that generate democracy: (a) a strong
bourgeoisie that is allied with aristocratic elites, and (b) a strong bourgeoisie
and a weak aristocracy. Although a strong bourgeoisie is a necessary cause,
the bourgeois–aristocratic alliance cause and the weak aristocracy cause are
INUS causes. We can summarize the argument as follows:

Y1 = X1 & (A1 v B1), (1)

where Y1 = democratic pathway; X1 = strong bourgeoisie; A1= alliance

between bourgeoisie and aristocracy; and B1 = weak aristocracy. Neither A1
nor B1 is individually necessary or individually sufficient. Instead, they are
INUS causes that combine with X1 to form two possible combinations that
are sufficient for Y1. Many other studies that use Qualitative Comparative
Analysis (QCA) in either its dichotomous or its fuzzy-set version assume
 Mahoney / Causality 419

INUS causation and seek to identify the different causal pathways to given
outcomes.9
An alternative kind of combinatorial cause, one that is linked to neces-
sity, is a SUIN cause. A SUIN cause is, to make a parallel with Mackie’s
INUS cause, a sufficient but unnecessary part of a factor that is insufficient
but necessary for an outcome (Mahoney, Kimball, & Koivu, 2007). Here
the constitutive attributes of a necessary cause are treated as causes them-
selves. For example, a well-known theory holds that nondemocracy (i.e., a
nondemocratic dyad) is necessary for war. There are various attributes that
by themselves would constitute nondemocracy, including fraudulent elec-
tions, high levels of repression, and severe suffrage exclusions. By virtue of
constituting nondemocracy all by themselves, each of these conditions is a
SUIN cause of war. Fraudulent elections, repression, and suffrage exclu-
sions are neither necessary nor sufficient for war, but rather factors that can
constitute nondemocracy, which in turn is necessary for war. Or consider
again Moore’s (1966) argument. We saw how a bourgeois–aristocratic
alliance and a weak aristocracy are INUS causes. If we now imagine that
Moore were to treat these two factors as each examples of a third factor—
politically subordinate aristocracy—then they would be SUIN causes: con-
stitutive parts sufficient for a necessary cause (politically subordinate
aristocracy) of democracy. We can summarize this idea as follows:

Y1 = X1 & Z1; Z1 = A1 v B1 , (2)

where Y1 = democratic pathway; X1 = strong bourgeoisie; Z1 = politically

subordinate aristocracy; A1 = alliance between bourgeoisie and aristocracy;
and B1 = weak aristocracy. Here A1 and B1 are SUIN causes of a democratic path.
Logically speaking, then, there are five kinds of causes that can be used in
case-oriented research. A cause may be (a) necessary but not sufficient, (b)
sufficient but not necessary, (c) necessary and sufficient, (d) INUS, or (e)
SUIN. This list appears to be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
(Mahoney et al., 2007). Of these five causes, the prototypical one is a neces-
sary and sufficient cause. All other causes are derivative of a necessary and
sufficient cause. In fact, the other four causes become more important to the
extent that that they approach the threshold of being a necessary and suffi-
cient cause (Mahoney et al., 2007; also see Braumoeller & Goertz, 2000;
Goertz, 2006; Hart & Honoré, 1959; Ragin, 2006). Thus, necessary causes
are increasingly important as they approach causal sufficiency. Sufficient
causes are more important as they approach causal necessity. And INUS and
SUIN causes gain importance as they become closer to being individually
necessary and sufficient.
420 Comparative Political Studies

To embrace necessary and/or sufficient causation (including INUS and

SUIN causation) is to assume that the world of human beings is deterministic.10
This assumption does not of course mean that a given researcher will be suc-
cessful at identifying the causes of any outcome. Nor does this assumption
mean that the researcher will achieve valid measurement or carry out good
research. The assumption of an ontologically deterministic world in no way
implies that researchers will successfully analyze causal processes in this
world. But it does mean that randomness and chance appear only because of
limitations in theories, models, measurement, and data.
The only alternative to ontological determinism is to assume that, at least
in part, “things just happen”; that is, to assume that truly stochastic factors—
whatever those may be (see Humphreys, 1989)—randomly produce out-
comes. The assumption of a genuinely probabilistic world finds its best
defense with indeterministic relations in quantum mechanics. Yet whether or
not subatomic processes are truly indeterministic is still debated among
physicists. Moreover, as Waldner (2002) suggests, quantum theorists argue
that the kinds of issues addressed in the social sciences do not work like quan-
tum mechanics. Randomness at the subatomic level seems inappropriate
when applied to the world of human beings and their objects, assuming that
these entities function like all other known nonparticle entities.
Before concluding this section, I want to note that various methods exist
for analyzing necessity and sufficiency (including INUS and SUIN causes).
Indeed, all of the major small-N cross-case methods used in this field—
Mill’s methods of agreement and difference, typological theories, counter-
factual analysis, Boolean algebra, and fuzzy-set analysis—assume these
kinds of causes (e.g., Elman, 2005; George & Bennett, 2005; Goertz &
Levy, 2007; Mahoney, 1999; Ragin, 1987, 2000). Here is not the place to
review the huge literature on these methods, including critiques of them,
but the methods are out there, and they are a basic part of the tool kit of
case-oriented research in comparative politics.

The Population-Oriented Approach

Population-oriented researchers do not have as their primary goal the

explanation of any particular case. Instead, they want to accurately estimate
the effects of variables within whole populations. They ask questions such
as, “What is the effect of presidentialism on the consolidation of democracy?”
(Cheibub, 2007); “To what extent is globalization a cause of inegalitarian
distribution?” (Garrett, 1998); and “Does regime type matter for economic
growth?” (Gerring, Bond, Barndt, & Moreno, 2005). In addressing these
 Mahoney / Causality 421

questions, the researchers want to generalize about the typical effects of the
particular causal factor(s) of interest.

Mean Causal Effects

The population-oriented approach in many ways parallels experimental
research.11 Experiments are usually not designed to provide comprehensive
explanations of outcomes. Nor are they designed to explain particular cases.
Rather, they are intended to accurately assess the typical effects of particular
treatments for populations. Experimenters want to know what difference (if
any) one or more treatments has for an outcome on average. The approach is
quite consistent with the idea that causes are probability raisers. One can in
fact say that a treatment is a cause when its presence raises the probability of
an outcome occurring in any given case of a larger population.
The experimental template underpins the definition of causality used in
the population-oriented approach, a point well illustrated by King, Keohane,
and Verba’s (1994, pp. 76-81) famous discussion of “mean causal effect” (β).
They present this concept using the example of the effect of incumbency on
the vote fraction received by a candidate running for office. The mean
causal effect in the example is the difference between the mean distribution
of the vote fraction received by an incumbent candidate across multiple
hypothetical elections and the mean distribution of the vote fraction
received by a nonincumbent across multiple hypothetical elections. In their
notation, β = µ Ii _ µ Ni , where µXi is the mean of the distribution of the depen-
dent variable under condition X and I and N are incumbent and nonincum-
bent, respectively. This understanding of β as being equal to the difference
between the means of two distributions is shared by many leading statisti-
cal methodologists (Braumoeller, 2006).12
Population-oriented comparativists often identify causes by estimating β
coefficients in multivariate statistical models. They are especially concerned
with two aspects of β. The first is substantive significance, which derives from
the size of the coefficient and may be evaluated in various ways. The second
is statistical significance, which summarizes the likelihood that the observed
finding is a product of sampling error or other random error and is affected by
the number of variables and cases used in the statistical test. For example,
Gerring et al.’s (2005) argument that democratic stock is an important cause of
economic growth is based on the substantive and statistical significance of β for
the democracy stock variable in their multivariate models. In contemporary
comparative politics, it is worth noting, independent variables of theoretical
422 Comparative Political Studies

interest that meet a specified level of statistical significance (e.g., p ≤ .05) are
often considered important causes even if the size of their effect is modest.
Indeed, the total explanatory power of most statistical models is modest when
evaluated using a measure such as adjusted R2. This underscores the experi-
mental underpinning of this tradition: The goal is to assess the average effects
(if any) of individual variables rather than comprehensively explain variation
on an outcome.

Net Causal Effects

Causal research in the population-oriented tradition has for decades been
concerned with distinguishing genuine causation from spurious covariation
(e.g., Pearl, 2000, pp. 78-85, 173-200). When one seeks to estimate the
mean effect of X on Y in the context of an observational study, the question
immediately arises as to which other variables should be held constant.
Both the size and statistical significance of an effect can change radically
depending on the other variables that are included. These other variables—
known as covariates, concomitants, or confounders—must be controlled for
(conditioned on) if one wishes to correctly estimate the net effect of X on
Y. Net effects are essentially calculated by partitioning the population into
subgroups that are homogenous on the control variables, measuring the
effect of values of X on the distribution of Y in the subgroups, and then aver-
aging the results (e.g., Turner, 1997). The goal of this form of multivariate
analysis is not to deny that the control variables are causes of Y, but to rule
out the possibility that they account for the observed effect of X on Y.
Explanation in population-oriented research makes various specification
assumptions to mitigate the potential problems that arise from the use of
observational data rather than experimental data (e.g., Shadish, Cook, &
Campbell, 2002). With an experiment, of course, cases are randomly assigned
to different values of an independent variable, such that in theory their prior
characteristics are unrelated to those values. But this kind of independence
is almost never true with observational data. Hence, population-oriented
researchers need to control for variables using tools such as stratification to
achieve conditional independence on average (mean conditional indepen-
dence). Conditional independence is, in effect, a way of trying to meet the
counterfactual assumptions of causation embedded in this approach.
Population-oriented researchers make other familiar and related assump-
tions, each of which can be justified to varying degrees, depending on the
study in question. These include the following:
 Mahoney / Causality 423

1. Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption—the idea that influences

among observations do not affect outcomes and the notion that a given
value on an independent variable is stable across cases (for an excellent
recent discussion, see Brady & Seawright, 2004).
2. Absence of endogeneity—in comparative politics, endogeneity is often
discussed in conjunction with the specific problems that arise from reci-
procal causation. Strictly speaking, though, endogeneity arises whenever
an independent variable is correlated with the error term.
3. Temporal stability—the assumption that causal effects are stable over
time. Unrecognized differences across time can produce missing vari-
able bias.
4. Measurement transience—the assumption that the act of observing cases
and measuring variables does not alter causal effects or, if it does, that
this impact can be modeled.

The proliferation of more and more advanced statistical techniques is part

of an ongoing quest to meet these various assumptions. How successful con-
temporary research is at doing so is debated.13 For our purposes, this debate
need not distract us any more than analogous debates over the merits of
small-N methods mentioned above. Rather, we need to explore how this
approach to causal analysis, which thinks about causation in terms of proba-
bility theory, can be unified with the case-oriented approach discussed above,
which thinks about causation in terms of logic.

From the Cases to the Population (and Back):

Toward a Unified Theory

The starting point for a unified theory is the recognition that, at the popu-
lation level, causation occurs almost exclusively through INUS causes. To see
why this is true, we need to explore the relationship between INUS causes and
variables that exert partial effects in statistical models. As we shall see, these
variables have the effects they do because they are INUS causes.

Causation at the Population Level

If one accepts that causation at the population level derives from causation
at the case level, then the five kinds of causes that can apply to individual
cases—necessary, sufficient, necessary and sufficient, INUS, and SUIN
causes—are the only kinds of causes that can operate at the population
level. Four of these five types, however, are usually not relevant when ana-
lyzing populations. We saw below how two types—sufficient causes and
424 Comparative Political Studies

necessary and sufficient causes—are very infrequently used at the case

level. As one generalizes to the population level, these types will, if any-
thing, be even less common. By contrast, necessary causes are standard in
case-oriented research. Yet when we shift to the population level, necessary
causes become hard to find. For example, causes that were necessary for
high unemployment in Germany may not have been necessary for high
unemployment in France; necessary causes for particular cases often do not
generalize. Indeed, with only a few possible exceptions, such as the hypoth-
esis that nondemocracy (i.e., a dyad with a nondemocratic state) is neces-
sary for war, comparativists have not found many necessary causes that
apply to broad populations. Because SUIN causes work through necessary
causes, they will also not often be discovered at the population level.
This leaves INUS causes as the main type of cause that applies at the pop-
ulation level. If INUS causes are present, different sets of variable values lead
to a particular outcome. The presence of multiple combinations of variable
values that produce the same outcome is sometimes called “equifinality”
(George & Bennett, 2005). Although equifinality is usually associated with
QCA techniques (Ragin, 1987, 2000), its emphasis on multiple paths to a
given outcome is implicitly present in most population-oriented research,
including the additive linear models that comparativists frequently use. There
are countless ways to arrive at an outcome (i.e., a particular range of values
on the dependent variable) in an additive linear model. Each independent
variable exerts its own effect, and each independent variable can potentially
compensate for any other. One case may have the outcome of interest because
it has high values on certain variables, whereas a different case arrives at the
same outcome because it has high values on other variables. No variable
value is necessary, but different variable values (in conjunction with the error
term) are sufficient to produce the outcome. Equifinality is thus omnipresent
in mainstream population-oriented research (Mahoney & Goertz, 2006).
Equifinality is not the only issue to which analysts of INUS causes must
attend. Another key assumption underpinning INUS causation is that vari-
ables often do not exert effects independently of one another. Instead, the
effect of one variable depends on the values of one or more other variables.
Variables work together as packages, not isolated factors. Boolean algebra is
the usual way in which case-oriented researchers try to formally model this
kind of causation (Ragin, 1987, 2000). Some statistical methodologists have
developed broadly parallel tools such as Boolean probit and Boolean logit
(Braumoeller, 2003). Moreover, the study of interaction effects, which is not
uncommon (e.g., perhaps 25% of quantitative comparative articles now include
at least one interaction term), has moved statistical research in the direction
 Mahoney / Causality 425

of combinatorial causation (Kam & Franzese, 2007). Insofar as statistical

comparativists start to use saturated interaction models in which all possible
interactions are assessed and simplified in a top-down manner, we would
essentially see an integration of QCA techniques and statistical methods. The
key point here is that there are various methods that can, in principle, be used
to study INUS causes and combinatorial causation across broad populations.
Indeed, some leading scholars suggest that many or most outcomes at
the population level need to be explained in terms of combinatorial causa-
tion (e.g., Achen, 2005; Franzese, 2003; Hall, 2003; Ragin, 1987). If they
are right, one might wonder if thinking about causation in terms of the
mean effects of individual variables—the traditional focus of population-
oriented research—is useful at all. Doubts are reinforced by recent writings
on interaction effects in the population-oriented tradition. Methodologists
have made it clear that one should include lower order constitutive terms
when testing multiplicative interaction models, but one cannot interpret the
coefficient on these terms as an average effect (Brambor, Clark, & Golder,
2005; Braumoeller, 2004; Kam & Franzese, 2007). As the number of inter-
action terms increases, the idea of thinking about coefficients as reporting
the effects of individual variables starts to drop out altogether. If one were
to use a saturated interaction model, in fact, one could say virtually nothing
about the individual variables. With QCA models, analogously, the focus is on
the causal combinations, not the individual factors (with the exception of
causes that are individually necessary or sufficient). How, then, is the notion
of a mean causal effect for an individual variable—still the dominant way of
conceptualizing causation in political science—relevant to thinking about
causation?

Mean Causal Effects as Symptoms of INUS Causes

The answer to this question is that independent variables that exert par-
tial effects in well-specified statistical models are INUS causes; they are
normally, in fact, important INUS causes. However, with only a few partial
exceptions (Brady & Seawright, 2004; Marini & Singer, 1988; Shadish et al.,
2002), the possibility that mean causal effects are symptoms of INUS
causes has not been developed in the methodological literature.
The relationship between a mean causal effect and an INUS cause can be
better understood if we first define an “important” INUS cause. The general
criterion is that an INUS cause becomes more important as it becomes
closer to being a necessary and/or sufficient cause; beyond this, it must also
be a nontrivial cause.14 Borrowing from the language of probability theory,
426 Comparative Political Studies

we can say that important INUS causes are “probabilistically necessary”

and/or “probabilistically sufficient” causes at the population level. The
extent to which they are probabilistically necessary or probabilistically suf-
ficient can be assessed in practice with one or more available techniques
(see Braumoeller & Goertz, 2000; Clark, Gilligan, & Golder, 2006; Dion,
1998; Eliason & Stryker, in press; Ragin, 2000).
INUS causes that are probabilistically necessary are factors that usually
or almost always have to be present for the outcome to occur. They are thus
normally present in the different combinations of variable values that can
each generate the outcome of interest. Arguably, smoking as a cause of lung
cancer is a good example. Smoking is an INUS cause because it must com-
bine with other environmental and biological factors to generate the cancer.
At the same time, smoking may well be probabilistically necessary for lung
cancer—that is, it is usually present in the various distinct combinations of
variable values that generate lung cancer.15 Smoking, of course, exerts a
partial effect on lung cancer in population-oriented research (i.e., it raises
the probability of the outcome). The reason why smoking exerts this partial
effect and thus can be treated as a probability raiser is precisely because it
is an important INUS cause. The causal properties of the variable (i.e., its
status as a probabilistically necessary INUS cause) lead it to manifest the
population-level statistical effect.
Probabilistically necessary INUS causes are often implicitly discussed in
the comparative politics literature as well. An example is the presence of an
economic crisis as a cause of third wave transitions to democracy. As Bermeo
(1990) remarked in her review of O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead’s
(1986) Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: “It is surely not coincidental that
economic crises accompanied every transformation reviewed here. The pat-
tern suggests that economic crises might be a necessary though not sufficient
incentive for the breakdown of authoritarian regimes” (p. 366). Although one
can now easily find cases of recent democratic transition without economic
crisis (e.g., Chile), it seems fair to conclude that crisis was a probabilistically
necessary cause of a third wave democratic transition (i.e., countries rarely
experienced transitions during economic good times; for systematic evi-
dence, see Haggard & Kaufman, 1995, pp. 32-36). Statistical models that
show an individual effect for economic crisis on democratic transition at the
population level (e.g., Gasiorowski, 1995) are picking up this variable’s
status as a probabilistically necessary INUS cause.
The other kind of important INUS causes are those that are probabilisti-
cally sufficient. These causes do not have to combine with many other (non-
trivial) causes to generate the outcome of interest. Rather, probabilistically
 Mahoney / Causality 427

sufficient causes can almost produce the outcome by themselves (but need
some help from other variables). For instance, lung cancer is probabilisti-
cally sufficient for death. Most deaths do not involve lung cancer, but when
lung cancer is present, it will generate death under most circumstances
(though there are some exceptions). Again, INUS causes that are proba-
bilistically sufficient will manifest themselves as variables that exert partial
effects when included in correctly specified statistical models.
Probabilistically sufficient INUS causes are also readily found in the com-
parative literature. For example, one of the most celebrated empirical findings
in the field concerns the relationship between economic development and
democracy. Although the specific workings of this relationship are subject to
debate, much evidence suggests that a high level of economic development is
probabilistically sufficient for either democracy or democratic stability (e.g.,
Boix & Stokes, 2003; Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, & Limongi, 2000). Rich
countries are thus almost always democratic. There are some exceptions, and
certainly one would not want to say that wealth alone is fully sufficient for
democracy (or democratic stability). However, when significant wealth is
present, one can be nearly certain that democracy (or democratic stability)
will also be present. Statistical results that show that economic development
has a significant effect on democracy (e.g., Londregan & Poole, 1996) are
likely an artifact of the probabilistically sufficient status of this variable.
Again, the implication is that the variable shows up as a probability raiser
because it is an important INUS cause.
We may conclude, then, that individual variables that reveal partial effects
in correctly specified statistical models are causes. But the effects they exhibit
as summarized by a statistical coefficient are not what make them causes.
They are causes by virtue of being important INUS causes (i.e., they are prob-
abilistically necessary and/or sufficient for outcomes). And their exhibited
effects are just symptoms of this underlying logical status.16

Translating Back and Forth

Treating variables that exhibit mean causal effects in statistical models
as INUS causes is helpful in several ways. For one thing, it is substantively
enlightening to know whether a variable exerts its effect because it is
probabilistically necessary or because it is probabilistically sufficient (or
both). For example, the finding that a higher level of economic develop-
ment is almost always sufficient for democracy is of obvious substantive
importance. It tells us that the promotion of economic growth beyond a cer-
tain level nearly guarantees the promotion of human freedom. The same is
428 Comparative Political Studies

true of the finding that high levels of cumulative left governance are almost
always necessary for high levels of public day care (Stryker, Eliason, &
Tranby, in press). The implication is that public day care programs will be
dislodged only with a long-term shift to the right in government. Although
these kinds of findings are not about partial effects as traditionally under-
stood, they are clearly useful if correct.
Moreover, by translating an initial statistical finding into the language of
INUS causation, the researcher can better theorize how the factor should be
included in a subsequent model that assesses combinatorial causation. In the
case of INUS causes that are probabilistically necessary, they must be
included in nearly all causal combinations of a QCA model (and would nor-
mally need to appear in many terms in a multiplicative interaction model as
well). For example, because nondemocracy (i.e., a nondemocratic dyad) is
at least probabilistically necessary for warfare, this factor must be included
as one cause in nearly all of the causal combinations of a QCA model of
interstate warfare. INUS causes that are probabilistically sufficient, by con-
trast, often do not need to be included in causal combinations. This is true
because these causes can generate the outcome of interest almost by them-
selves, needing only a little help from other (nontrivial) factors. For instance,
if the presence of a large historically exploited minority group is nearly suf-
ficient for initially low levels of social performance in Spanish America
(Mahoney, 2003), then this cause can be analyzed reasonably well by itself
without including it as part of a larger causal package.
The population-oriented approach can thus help researchers locate impor-
tant INUS causes. And the INUS causes can then be evaluated subsequently
with more complex QCA or interaction models. The importance of finding
the right variables and combinations to be included in these models can
hardly be overstated. Our theories in comparative politics routinely posit
complex interactions (Hall, 2003), but they are almost never precise enough
to locate all relevant INUS causes, with potentially devastating implications
for testing causal theories in practice (e.g., Kam & Franzese, 2007). Tools for
better specifying our combinatorial causal models are of tremendous value.
Beyond this, of course, researchers will always be interested in trying
to estimate the mean effects of individual variables in their own right.
Information about mean effects helps one make informed predictions and
estimate the future impact of a given intervention. Individuals and political
actors seek this kind of information as they maneuver in the world. For
example, it is one thing to know that authoritarianism is a probabilistically
necessary INUS cause of social revolution (or that smoking is a probabilisti-
cally necessary INUS cause of lung cancer). This tells us that governments
 Mahoney / Causality 429

can ward off social revolutions by promoting formal democratic institutions

(or that we can be fairly certain to avoid lung cancer by not being exposed
to tobacco smoke). Yet it is another thing to have a good estimate of the risk
of social revolution a government faces by having authoritarian institutions
(or the risk of lung cancer we face by smoking). The true probability of the
outcome occurring at the case level is 1 or 0. However, in the absence of
full knowledge about all of the sufficiency combinations that can produce
the outcome, we would like to know if the probability is more likely 1 or 0,
and exactly how much more likely! We seek insight about what we can
most reasonably expect to happen in a context of limited knowledge. The
population-oriented tradition can help decision makers formulate better
guesses about whether, given a particular course of action and other known
conditions in the world, the probability of a specific outcome of interest
occurring is really 1 or 0.17
These observations bring us full circle. Just as one might want to trans-
late findings from population-oriented research into the causal language of
the case-oriented tradition, so too might one wish to translate findings
about probabilistically necessary and probabilistically sufficient INUS
causes into the language of mean causal effects.

Conclusion

This article has explored the unification of case-oriented and population-

oriented approaches to causality in comparative politics. The method of
unification proposed here entailed extending the case-oriented approach to
the population level, under the assumption that causal patterns at the popu-
lation level must be derivative of causation that is occurring at the case
level. With this extension, it became clear that INUS causes are really what
are indirectly studied in most population-oriented research. In particular,
important INUS causes (i.e., probabilistically necessary and/or sufficient
INUS causes) manifest themselves as variables that exhibit partial causal
effects in well-specified statistical models.
A basic implication of this analysis is that more comparative researchers
need to try to study INUS causes as directly as possible at the population
level, using statistical models with various interaction terms or the tools of
QCA. To be sure, these researchers will face daunting methodological chal-
lenges in the effort to generate interpretable results given the tremendous data
requirements of these models. But this kind of complexity-sensitive analysis
may be the only road, over the long run, to valid causal generalization across
430 Comparative Political Studies

many cases in comparative politics. Meanwhile, those who work on this

agenda will surely benefit from the insights of ongoing research on both
mean effects for individual variables and specific causes in particular cases.

Notes
1. Here, I modify Ragin’s (1987) terminology, which distinguishes between case-oriented
and variable-oriented approaches. The distinction between these two approaches also appears
in the philosophical literature, sometimes identified as the difference between “token causa-
tion” and “type causation,” or between “single-case causation” and “property causation” (see,
e.g., Woodward, 2003).
2. This is known as the “singularist view” in philosophy. Its advocates include Anscombe
(1971), Mellor (1995), and Woodward (1990). The rival position is known as the “superve-
nience view,” and it is exemplified by Eells (1991).
3. Gerring (2005) adopts this approach for political science. Philosophers who think about
causation at the level of the population have also long embraced this definition. For example,
“A probabilistic account—essentially the idea that a cause raises the probability of its effect—
is now commonplace in science and philosophy” (Dowe & Noordhof, 2004, p. 1). Also see
Cartwright (1989); Eells (1991); Eells and Sober (1983); Good (1961, 1962); Lewis (2000);
Menzies (2004); Pearl (2000); Skyrms (1980); Suppes (1970).
4. For instance, “Imagine a golf ball rolling towards the cup, such that its probability of
dropping in is quite high. Along comes a squirrel, who kicks the ball away from the cup, thus
reducing the chance of it going in. Then, through a series of improbable ricochets, the ball
drops into the cup. How are the squirrel’s kick and the ball’s dropping in the cup related? I
want to argue that the squirrel’s kick reduced the probability of the ball’s dropping in and the
squirrel’s kick caused the ball to drop in” (Sober, 1984, pp. 406-407). A standard objection to
this kind of example is that if one characterizes the specific causes (i.e., the squirrel’s kick and
subsequent ricochets) in great enough detail, then it will become clear that this intervention
did not really lower the probability of the ball dropping in. I agree; the real probability of the
ball dropping in was always equal to 1. Probabilities do not make sense for the explanation of
singular events (as I discuss below). Also see Dowe (2004), on chance-lowering causes; and
Schaffer (2000), on probability raising without causation.
5. The major attempt to defend single-case probabilities is Popper’s (1959) propensity
interpretation. But his approach is widely rejected (see Williams, 1999).
6. Seemingly random processes such as dice rolling and coin flipping are not really ran-
dom (Ekeland 1988; Ford, 1983). It is true that dice rolling and coin flipping exhibit extreme
sensitivity to initial conditions and may be good examples of the dynamics of chaos theory.
However, chaos theory is fully a deterministic approach to explanation (Waldner, 2002).
7. The problems that redundant causation (also called symmetrical overdetermination)
poses for necessity definitions of cause are very well known. See Ehring (1997); Menzies
(1996); Scriven (1966).
8. The Humean notion of sufficiency understood in terms of constant conjunction subse-
quently became the basis for the covering-law model of causation associated with mid-20th
century positivists (e.g., Hempel, 1965; Nagel, 1961; Popper, 1959).
9. Examples of comparative works include Amenta’s (1996) study of New Deal social
spending; Berg-Schlosser and DeMeur’s (1994) analysis of democracy in interwar Europe; Huber,
Ragin, and Stephens’s (1993) work on the welfare state; Griffin, Botsko, Wahl, and Isaac’s (1991)
 Mahoney / Causality 431

study of trade union growth and decline; Mahoney’s (2003) work on long-run development in
Latin America; and Wickham-Crowley’s (1992) study of guerrillas and revolutions.
10. Determinism is the thesis that “there is at any instant exactly one physically possible
future” (Van Inwagen, 1983, p. 3). For a discussion of common misconceptions of the entail-
ments of determinism, such as the incorrect notion that determinism denies free will and
human agency, see Dennett (2003).
11. Angrist, Imbens, and Rubin (1996) assert that “causal inference in statistics . . . is fun-
damentally based on the randomized experiment” (p. 444).
12. King, Keohane, and Verba (1994) follow Holland (1986) in referring to “mean causal
effect.” The same idea is varyingly called “average treatment effect” (Sobel, 1996), “average
causal response” (Angrist & Imbens, 1995), and “average causal effect” (Dawid, 2000).
13. For some skeptical views, see Clogg and Haritou (1997); Freedman (1991); Lieberson
(1985); Shalev (2007).
14. Empirically speaking, a necessary cause is trivial if it is always (or almost always) pre-
sent, irrespective of the outcome. A sufficient cause is trivial if it is almost never present and
thus almost never generates the outcome of interest (see Braumoeller & Goertz, 2000; Goertz,
2006; Ragin, 2006; also see Hart & Honoré, 1959). For example, the presence of oxygen is a
trivially necessary cause of a revolution, because it is always present in all cases. INUS causes
that are close to being trivial in this empirical sense are not important.
15. Apparently, there are relatively few cases (i.e., about 10%) of lung cancer in which
smoking is not involved.
16. To be sure, not all INUS causes will exert mean effects in population-oriented research.
For example, it is easy to write a Boolean equation in which a variable and its negation are
both INUS causes of the same outcome (e.g., Y = A&B v ∼A&D). When this is true, the vari-
able and its negation may end up canceling out one another’s effect, such that the variable
overall exerts no mean effect in a population.
17. In the population-oriented tradition, a respected body of work views causation in terms
of this kind of decision maker understanding (e.g., Dawid, 2000; Rubin, 1978).

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James Mahoney is a professor of political science and sociology at Northwestern University.

He is the author of The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in
Central America and coeditor of Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. His
work also includes articles on political and socioeconomic development in Latin America,
path dependence in historical sociology, and causal inference in small-N analysis.