Rethinking mechanism and process in the geographical analysis of uneven development

Abstract

Speaking directly to economic and political geographers working on uneven development, this article critically examines the deployment of two key concepts, mechanism and process, as analytical tools for causal explanation in geographical analysis during the past two decades. Drawing upon critical realism to develop a theory of mechanism, this article clarifies the conceptual distinction between mechanism and process. Whereas process is conceived as a contingent change in the sequential series of entities and their relations, mechanism serves as a necessary relation to connect an initial causal condition with its particular socio-spatial outcomes in context. This analytical distinction between a contingent process of change and a necessary mechanism for an outcome requires a careful specification of the concrete outcomes to be explained and the working of various mechanisms. Illustrating my case through existing studies of neoliberalization and, briefly, path dependence, I argue that there is a tendency in the literature to conflate mechanism and process in different meso-level theories of socio-spatial change. This conflation, in turn, distorts the causal links in core concepts and reduces their explanatory efficacy in accounting for uneven development. Rethinking mechanism and process can therefore help revitalize systematic explanations of uneven development as one of geography's core intellectual projects and contributions to the social sciences; it can also allow geographers to engage more productively with the rapidly growing mechanistic thought in analytical sociology, political science and the philosophy of social science during the past two decades.

Regional worlds: from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks

“…This search for different causal mechanisms to account for related diversification is both necessary and important, whether it is in the EEG strand or the GPN genre of the literature in regional studies. These mechanisms are the necessary building blocks of any causal theories of regional evolution (Yeung, 2019a(Yeung, , 2019b. This diversity of mechanisms and the search for them in causal theory building is recognized in Martin and Sunley's (2015, n. 3, p. 728) reappraisal of EEG that calls for the eschewing of 'any belief that there is a single superior all-embracing framework to be discovered'.…”

“…3, 15) thus critiqued that this earlier GPN approach 'suffers from the failure to offer analytical models that prioritize causes and identify causal mechanisms'. While Sunley does not provide a theory of causal mechanisms, his call for more causal analysis in network approaches in human geography is a valid one (see also Yeung, 2019aYeung, , 2019bYeung, , 2021.…”

Process, mechanism and the project of economic geography

“…There is little to dispute in the idea that analyses (and theories) of uneven development, focusing ‘primarily on uncovering diverse processes of spatial formations in late capitalism’ (Yeung, 2019: 226, emphasis added), represents one of human geography’s key contributions to the social sciences. Indeed, improving our analyses of uneven development in light of its intensification and the violence of its impacts feels more pressing than ever.…”

“…The second aspect I flag is related to this first issue, in the sense that Yeung’s theorization of mechanism is informed by a desire to reinvigorate causal analysis in EG, which is as much a normative project as an epistemological one. In rooting his arguments in recent exchanges about ‘economic geography’s core intellectual project being “lost”’ (Yeung, 2019: 227), and in the context of general hand-wringing about fragmentation, disengaged pluralism and defections to business schools, Yeung’s rationale for focusing on ‘big issues’ – and his particular recipe for doing so – reads to someone looking on from the edges of ‘the project’ 2 as an attempt to reassert that core in normative terms. In other words, despite claiming that ‘my article is not about the reinvigoration of critical realism in human geography’ (p. 229), Yeung makes the association between the ‘possible weakening of the wider analytical strength of economic geography’ (p. 228), the move of the discipline away from ‘the earlier and much more intense theorization of causality and mechanisms in critical realism (CR) during the 1980s and early 1990s’ (p. 228), and the weakening and fragmentation of EG.…”

The geo‐constitution and responses to austerity: Institutional entrepreneurship, switching, and re‐scaling in the United Kingdom

“…Responding to Yeung's (2019) plea for greater focus on the causal mechanisms involved in creating particular outcomes, we clearly need to better understand the role of particular institutions (in our case local government) and the actors within them (councillors, officers, and voters) as well as the tools deployed (such as asset transfer), in making something happen or not. In so doing, we need the means to better understand political institutions, their historical trajectory, roles, relationships, and operational cultures.…”