本文主要的目的在於爬梳社會科學方法論中因果機制分析的發展和演進，並進一步評估政治學研究中如何運用因果機制來進行解釋以及討論相關的解釋效力的問題。本文將具體評析政治學國際關係領域中民主和平論之論點，以此來衡量政治學運用因果機制解釋的優勢和侷限。因果機制研究層面上，本文聚焦在機制的定義和類型、機制的觀察性、因果機制與因果關係、法則和中介變數的差異、機制的層次、機制的運作和測量、機制的路徑圖。因果機制運用層面上，本文側重於民主和平論的源起和演進、 民主和平論的重要論述、對於民主和平論的挑戰以及..

The main purpose of this paper is to parse out the development and evolution of causal mechanism and to further evaluate how political research adopts the method of causal mechanism to explain and discuss the explanatory effect in the field of qualitative methods. Our focus is to shed light on the causal mechanism of democratic peace theory in the field of international relations and to gauge its advantages and restraints. On the dimension of causal mechanism, this paper focuses on the definition of mechanism, observation of causal mechanis..

當代民主和平研究已不再局限於民主政體間的戰爭機率，有些學者已經開始轉向研究威權政體間的戰爭機率。這樣的研究發展，有利於促進國際政治和比較政府兩個次領域的對話，而本文亦嘗試將威權政體分類相關的比較政治研究，帶入國際政治場域進行分析。2002 年 Mark Peceny、Caroline C. Beer和 Shannon Sanchez-Terry 提出 「獨裁政體和平假說」(dictatorial peace)，主張威權政體間亦存在低武裝衝突機率。而且，如果再將威權政體進一步分類，則僅有單..

When analyzing the relationship between regime type and the possibility of militarized interstate conflict, an interdisciplinary dialogue between the fields of comparative politics and international relations is vitally demanded, especially when stepping into the further area of democratic peace, “dictatorial peace." In 2002, Mark Peceny, Caroline Beer, and Shannon Sanchez-Terry concluded that a lower conflict possibility does exist among non-democratic regimes. Moreover, after classifying non-democracies into three categories, t..