There is an almost trivial answer to this question that is already implied by Colemanโs famous boat diagram (link): when we want to understand how actors came to have the motivations and beliefs that we have observed.
Are there other kinds of meso-foundational explanations? Can we provide satisfactory meso-level explanations of meso- or macro-level facts? Consider this possibility. Suppose we find that S&L institutions are less likely to become insolvent than large commercial banks. And suppose we find that the regulatory regimes governing S&Ls are more strict than those for commercial banks. The mechanism leading to a lower likelihood of insolvency is conveyed from "strict regulations" to "low likelihood of insolvency". (We can provide further underlying mechanisms, of the traditional microfoundational variety: officers of S&Ls understand the requirements of the regulatory regime; they prudently miminize the risk of civil or criminal penalties; and their institutions have a lower likelihood of insolvency.) This is a meso-level causal explanation of a meso-level fact, representing a causal relationship between one meso-level factor and another meso-level factor.
What about meso-foundational explanations of macro-level features? And symmetrically, what about macro-foundational explanations of meso- and micro-level features? Each of these pathways is possible. Consider a macro-level feature like โAmerican males have an unusually strong identification with gunsโ. And suppose we offer a meso-level explanation of this widespread cultural value: โThe shaping institutions of masculine cultural identity in a certain time and place (mass media, high school social life, popular fiction) inculcate and proliferate this feature of masculine identity.โ This is a meso-level explanation of a macro-level feature. Moreover, we can also turn the explanatory lens around and explain the workings of the meso-level factors based on the pervasive macro-level factor: the prevailing male obsession with guns reinforces and reproduces the meso-level influences identified here.
The conclusion to be drawn from these observations is a bit disorienting. The examples imply that there is no โupโ and โdownโ when it comes to explanatory primacy. Rather, social factors at each level can play an explanatory role in accounting for the features of facts at every level. Explanation does not necessarily proceed from โlower levelโ to higher level entities. "Descending", "ascending", and "lateral" causal explanations all have their place, and ascending (microfoundational) explanations have no special priority. Rather, the requirement that should be emphasized is that the adequacy of any explanation of a social fact depends on whether we have discovered the causal mechanisms that give rise to it. And causal mechanisms can operate at all levels of the social world.
The diagram at the top of the post, originally prepared to illustrate the idea of a "flat" social ontology, does a good job of illustrating the multi-directionality of social-causal mechanisms as well.
An earlier post offered what is for me a fairly large change of orientation on fundamental questions of social ontology: a conviction that the concept of ontological individualism is no longer supportable. My concern there was that this phrase gives too much ontological priority to individual actors; whereas the truth about the social world is more complex. Individuals are indeed the substrate of social structures and entities, but social entities are in turn constitutive of individual social actors.
The implication is that our social ontology needs to give equal priority to both actors and structures. But how can we make sense of these three ideas in a non-paradoxical way:
The most compelling answer will sound a bit foreign to analytically-trained philosophers, but it seems inescapable: actors and structures are linked in an inseparable loop of mutual influence over time, with both actors and structures dependent on the current ensemble of โactors-within-structuresโ within which they have developed, changed, and persisted. The social world is thus inherently โfluxyโ, reflecting unpredictable changes in all its elements at the same time. This implies a vision of the social world that is radically different from the ancient Greek idea of โatomismโ, where unchangeable โatomsโ constitute more complex wholes. In this view, both parts (actors) and ensembles (structures) take on their current properties as a result of the properties of actors and ensembles in the recent past. (Thatโs what makes this a diachronic view of social ontology.) I can imagine Heraclitus applauding, given his cryptic suggestions about flux and patterns.
This view has radical ontological implications. For one thing, neither actors nor structures have โessential naturesโ or fixed and unchanging properties. Rather, the properties of structures are determined by the past and present actions and thoughts of actors and prior characteristics of structures; while the mental characteristics of present actors are shaped by the ambient social arrangements within which they develop. (We must concede that there is a biological precondition: human beings must be the kinds of โcognitive-practical machinesโ that can embody very extensive change.) Further, actors are influenced by ambient structures (external causes); but a given generation of actors is capable of genuine innovation and creativity (internal causes). And likewise, structures are modified by generations of actors (external causes); but structures also create opportunities for structural innovation (internal causes).
A second implication is that neither form of simple conceptions of causal determination is at work: bare individuals do not โdetermineโ the workings of structures, and abstract structures do not โdetermineโ the features of social agency and identity possessed by a generation of actors at a time. Both actors and structures are influenced by features of the other; but influence is not the same thing as determination.
A third implication is that the fact of interaction over time (history) is crucial for understanding the nature of social change. At a given moment in time we find a (contingent) stock of actors and structures. Through their current mental frameworks, actions, and strategies, the actors influence the future development of the structures โ whether by supporting their persistence or by introducing changes into their workings. Simultaneously the current structures influence the development of the mental frameworks, normative schemes, and practices of the actors โ sometimes by largely reproducing the features of actors of the recent past, and sometimes by contributing to major shifts in identity, mental framework, and social dispositions.
For given explanatory purposes we can begin our analysis of actors-within-structures at a moment in time. So, for example, we can attempt to explain several centuries of change in the Roman Empire by beginning with Augustus; investigating the public and private mentality of Romans at the time; and investigating the specifics of the institutions of power that existed in public and military institutions at the time. But the story will then unfold with a dynamic interplay between changing institutional arrangements and changing mentalities. The processes of change described here are extended over time, and they imply a high degree of contingency in the directions of change and persistence that are induced. The extended โsystemโ of actors-embedded-in-current-structures evolves in unpredictable ways. And this is an inherently diachronic process; it is crucial for social explanations to reflect the iterative process of influence that is at work over time.
These observations imply at least four pathways of social causation โ none of which is prior to the others.
There is another important fact to keep in mind. This is the fact of heterogeneity of both structures and actors. Roman institutions were heterogeneous across space, and Roman mentalities were heterogeneous across social groups and other differentia. This point is worth emphasizing:
The โProtestant Ethicโ was not a single unitary social-cultural framework across the face of Europe, and capitalist economic practices were not the same in Sweden as in Italy. Likewise, the identities and mental frameworks of individual actors and populations of actors differ across time and space. So instead of a simple causal relationship โ โThe Protestant Ethic diffused Europe and produced economically rational actorsโ we have a complex causal relationship โ โA range of instantiations of post-Catholic Christian daily culture existed across Europe and produced a range of instances of social actorsโ.
All of this is somewhat abstract. But it coheres well with the approach to institutions, actors, and change taken by Kathleen Thelen and other new institutionalists in historical sociology. The view of institutional change offered by Mahoney and Thelen in Explaining Institutional Change is instructive. For example:
Exactly what properties of institutions permit change? How and why do the change-permitting properties of institutions allow (or drive) actors to carry out behaviors that foster the changes (and what are those behaviors)? How should we conceptualize these actors? What types of strategies flourish in which kinds of institutional environments? What features of the institutions themselves make them more or less vulnerable to particular kinds of strategies for change? (3)
And the malleability of the actor herself is emphasized as well:
If institutions involve cognitive templates that individuals unconsciously enact, then actors presumably do not think about not complying. (10)