The deliberate quest for causal explanations will reinvigorate social science’s relevance in mass media and policy

Daily news reports and journalistic coverage highlight the powerful traction of causality for our everyday understanding of events and phenomena. From the 2011 UK riots to traffic accidents, Kamila Pieczara argues social scientists offer a competitive advantage when it comes to case-specific explanations on how various mechanisms work in relation to other factors. But this relevance also calls to question the danger involved when making general explanations, which may lead to inflated or disproportionate causal understandings.