Natural experiments always depend on prior political interventions

Evidence

The idea of a “natural” experiment is misleading. The so-called natural experiment typically depends on some prior political intervention—in other words, a project or an experiment of some sort, which arranges the sociotechnical world in a way that offers further opportunities for experimentation. This intervention must be beyond the direct control of the investigator. But that does not insulate the second experiment from the effects of the first. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1977

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: ‘natural experiments’ as misnomers hiding the ideological projects that make them possible.
• XREF: connects to: Economic ‘natural experiments’ depend on prior policy programs, not nature — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1985; Natural experimental conditions allow rigorous causal tests of media effects; Eugenics converted Darwinian natural selection into a consciously applied tool of political intervention — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 474 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic ‘natural experiments’ depend on prior policy programs, not nature #corroborates (0.92) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1985
• Natural experiments use policy changes to produce quasi-random variation in data #expands (0.88) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1936
• Eugenics converted Darwinian natural selection into a consciously applied tool of political intervention #exemplifies (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 474
• Neoliberal policy experiments are preconditions that make economic research findings possible #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1955
• Neoliberal policies produced experiments whose results fed yet more neoliberal projects #exemplifies (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1983
• Interpretation of experiments depends on the history of their implementation #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1956
• Natural experimental conditions allow rigorous causal tests of media effects #qualifies (0.75)
• The political moment must always prevail over the military in strategy #complicates (0.72)