276 ANALYZING DATA
Singular causation is sharply different from the necessary-and-sufficient kind of causation
advocated by neopositivists, in which the aim is the isolation of systematic correlations of factors
across cases (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 75–82). By contrast, Weber advocates a more
speculative procedure, in which a causal configuration—itself an ideal-typical account of a his-
torical situation^21 —is identified and demonstrated by showing how the configuration in question
interacts with a range of possible factors, where possible factors emerge from a historically grounded
study of the situation itself. In other words, scholars know that some configuration of factors is
causally adequate if they cannot plausibly conceive of that configuration not producing the out-
come in question.
Causality in this conception involves the concatenation of causal mechanisms: the contingent
coming together of processes and patterns of social action in such a way as to generate outcomes
(McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001, 13). Although each specific combination of mechanisms is
historically unique, the mechanisms themselves may occur in other contexts and other combina-
tions (Tilly 1995). Any comparison or generalization that takes place in this sort of research
occurs at the level of mechanisms and their concatenation, and not at the level of presumptively
whole and stable “cases” subject to assumptions of causal homogeneity (P.T. Jackson and Nexon
2002). The basic analytical bet is that similar patterns of action in different contexts and in differ-
ent sequences will generate different outcomes, and the empirical task is to parse the situation at
hand using a spare and abstract specification of causal mechanisms in order to see what insights
can be generated.
For the analysis of legitimation, the component mechanisms are the conventional tactics by
which rhetorical commonplaces may be combined or opposed.^22 Specification, which involves
the attempt to define a commonplace and its implications in a relatively precise way in the
course of a debate, is the chief tactical mechanism, since rhetorical commonplaces by defini-
tion always stand in need of further elaboration before they can be definitively linked with a
particular outcome in a particular context. Specification gives rise to two subordinate mecha-
nisms, breaking and joining, with the former referring to the use of a specified commonplace
to disrupt the bond between commonplaces simultaneously held by an opponent and the latter
referring to the use of a specified commonplace to help to “lock down” the meaning of an-
other one.
These mechanisms, in turn, give rise to bargaining tactics like brokering alliances or threaten-
ing rejection by a represented constituency if certain demands are not met. For example, Adenauer
regularly used the threat of a Schumacher-governed West German state to induce the occupying
Allies to be more sympathetic to his demands. This option was enabled by his use of “Western
Civilization” to encompass both Germany and the occupying Allies in a way that Schumacher
simply did not: Adenauer, as a fellow “Westerner,” was someone whom the Allies could trust,
whereas Schumacher’s nationalist-flavored criticism of Allied policies and his insistence that
Germany should remain more distant from emerging institutions of Western European coopera-
tion made the prospect of a Schumacher government unappealing. Mechanisms involving rhe-
torical commonplaces, one might say, are the more basic conditions of possibility for these other
bargaining tactics.
How did these mechanisms operate to produce Schumacher’s accusation and Adenauer’s policy
against which it was deployed? Adenauer’s policy of cooperation with the occupying Allies was
publicly justified with reference to “Western Civilization” as a larger civilizational community in
which both Germany and Germany’s conquerors participated. At a party rally in 1947, Adenauer
declared that present circumstances