孙婧婧,和经纬

• 1:中山大学港澳珠江三角洲研究中心、粤港澳发展研究院
• 2:香港教育大学亚洲及政策研究学系

摘要(Abstract)：

公共政策的学术研究同其他社会科学一样,都追求对因果机制的解释。然而,现实世界的公共政策过程往往非常复杂,传统的量化研究方法很难完全解释因果机制。近年来,因果过程追踪(Causal Process Tracing,简称CPT)作为一种基于溯因推理逻辑的实证研究方法,在多方法研究(multi-method research)中得到越来越广泛的应用。该方法使用严密的案例内推断来追踪事件,透过过程分析撬开将原因和结果联系起来的因果机制,具有识别并纠正虚假因果关联以及遗漏变量偏误等内生性问题等方法论优势,有助于弥合质性研究和量化研究的鸿沟。因果过程追踪方法不受意识形态的限制,其包容的理论多元性为公共政策研究提供了独特的分析视角和框架,具有较高的推介价值。在梳理因果过程追踪方法发展脉络的基础上,本文选取了近期发表在著名国际学术期刊上的4篇关于因果过程追踪方法的学术论文,着重评介这一方法在公共政策学术研究中的价值和操作策略,以期推动中国公共政策研究的方法论多元化。

关键词(KeyWords)： 因果过程追踪;溯因推理;因果机制;贝叶斯推断;公共政策研究方法

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基金项目(Foundation):

作者(Author): 孙婧婧,和经纬

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• (1)20世纪以来，社会科学因果机制研究自罗伯特·默顿(Robert Merton)在《论中观社会科学理论》(On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range)一文中明确提出。中观理论(middle-range theories)避免试图涵盖人类社会普遍存在的宏大系统历史概括，集中关注具体的“机制”如何动态地在特定理论假设上产生社会反应(Merton,1949)。因果机制是研究变量之间因果关系的过程理论，被视为区分因果关系与虚假关联的非实验方法。
• (1)基于对公共政策参与者行为的跟踪观察所得的时序性证据，称为“因果过程观察”证据(Brady and Collier,2004)，也有研究者称之为“诊断证据”(diagnostic evidence)(Bennett and Checkel,2014)。
• (1)工业是二氧化碳排放的主要来源，对全球环境造成污染。工业脱碳是各国必须要实行的公共政策。工业脱碳政策可以分为原有产业升级和创新产业替代两种方式。中印两国都采取了风力涡轮机发电和太阳能光伏发电这两种替代性的创新技术产业政策。这篇文章研究讨论了这两种创新技术产业政策为何在中印两国产生了不同创新绩效。