Critical Realism and Social Science

The approach taken to the philosophy of social science has important consequences for developing
empirical concepts. The position taken to ontology (‘what exists?’), epistemology (‘how do we know
what exists’?), the similarities between the social and natural sciences, the role of structure and agents and the nature of causal relationships, all have important consequences for the theoretical
frameworks being constructed to understand a given problem.

Critical realism has grown to become established as an alternative approach to the social sciences to
mainstream positivism, rational choice theory and constructivism, in recent years. At its core, the
approach holds that social structures always pre-exist humans and agents – but that human agency is necessary for the reproduction of social structures and is capable of changing them over time.

The approach has been applied to re-understand a wide range of political problems and puzzles – see below!

What is critical realism?

This video is a great starting point.