...to the tendency to confuse empirical regularities with causal relationships. As Sayer (1992) notes, what causes something to happen has nothing to do with the number of times that thing has happened, and the same event can have different causes under different circumstances....

...causation is not understood on the model of regular successions of events, and hence explanation need not depend on finding them, or searching for putative...happen has nothing to do with the number of times we have observed it happening.7 Explanation depends instead on identifying causal mechanisms and how they...

...designs do; rather, they provide descriptive representative generalisations lacking in explanatory depth. The conventional impulse to prove causation by gathering...happen has nothing to do with the number of times we have observed it happening. Explanation depends instead on identifying causal mechanisms and how they...

...explain and predict spatial outcomes. ite Haw?!1. a aflamo! problem with tl type of explanation is that what causes something to happen has nothing to do with the number of times or the regularity with which it happens: as Sayer points out, 'unique events are caused no less than...

...them, or searching for putative social laws. The conventional impulse to prove causation by collecting data on regularities, repeated occurrences, is therefore...happen has nothing to do with the number of times we have observed it happening. Explanation depends instead on identifying causal mechanisms and how they...