The Grammar of Time A Toolbox for Comparative Historical Analysis

Macro-causal analysis pivots between exploring patterns of change and exploring causal patterns. It employs a bounded conception of history, keeping causal factors constant, but expands the length of causal chains to explore how their temporal order affects causal outcomes. It analyzes this causal order in terms of elements of physical time: timing, sequencing, tempo, and duration. In paying attention to these elements, it in effect unfreezes physical time, which defines the existing linear notions of causality. Macro-causal analysis relaxes these linearity assumptions by expanding the analysis from what Pierson called short–short to short–long, long–short, and long–long explanations. It thus recognizes that theories rest on temporal assumptions and that understanding those assumptions invites exploring backgrounded causal factors that can help update theories. This udpating process is abduction, which ultimately makes hypotheses more testworthy. Besides elongating causal chains, this type of analysis also elongates outcomes by paying attention to a range of near-miss outcomse that are frequently overlooked but provide often important new inductive insights.