Historical Analysis of Political Processes
in Jonathan H. Turner, ed., Handbook of Sociological Theory (2001) New York: Kluwer/Plenum

Historical Sociology, Political Contention, Social Mechanisms

The article urges sociologists to renew their search for robust causal mechanisms and processes in history. It then outlines an analytical program that includes goals such as pursuing robust mechanisms and processes that make up large social phenomena, explaining puzzling features in historical episodes, explaining puzzling features of whole classes of historical episodes, and detecting analogies among ostensibly dissimilar episodes.