Temporal Horizons in the Study of Turkish Politics: Prevalence of Non-Causal Description and seemingly Global Warming Type of Causality

Year 2019, , 117 - 133, 01.07.2019

Şener Aktürk

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.472127

Cited By: 2

Abstract

In this article, I
critically evaluate the causal and temporal dimension of social scientific
studies focusing on Turkish politics. A very important and yet often neglected
aspect of social scientific analysis involves the temporal dimension of causal
processes. The temporal dimension of causal processes has direct consequences
for operationalization and measurement, and hence it is an essential component
of research design. Does the dependent variable (outcome) of interest unfold
over the short term or the long term? Do the hypothesized independent variables
(causes) unfold over the short term or the long term? Paul Pierson (2004)
provided a classification of four types of causality based on the temporal
dimension of causes and outcomes using metaphors of natural disasters: tornado,
earthquake, meteorite, and global warming. Operationalization and measurement
of long term causes and outcomes pose a major challenge, compounded by the
challenges of periodization of causes and effects. Unfortunately, a large
proportion of the studies of Turkish politics do not have a clearly discernible
independent variable (cause) to begin with, and they are thus better
characterized as works of “non-causal description.” Moreover, many of the studies
of Turkish politics tend to imply, but rarely state explicitly, a global
warming type of causality (long term cause and long term outcome), which
necessitates focusing even more intensively on such challenges of measurement
and periodization. Yet the operationalization of the key (dependent and
independent) variables is often missing even in articles published in reputable
academic journals of Turkish politics and society. In the spirit of
constructive criticism, I suggest a number of guidelines for research design in
order to address the problems of causality and temporality discussed in this
article. 

Keywords

Causality, conceptualization, operationalization, periodization, temporality

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