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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za(1) An explanation is usually an answer to a why question, or, stateddifferently, a phenomenon is explained when one indicates why it hasoccurred. This implies that explanations are always explanations in termsof causes or in terms of reasons (compare our discussion on causality inChapter 2).(2) Causal explanations or rational explanations (in terms of reasons ormotives or aims) can be either universal or contextual. In the first case theexplanation occurs in terms of some physical law or generalization. In thesecond case the phenomenon is explained in terms of the specificcontextual factors that obtain. An example of the first is Smelser’s theoryof collective behaviour (chapter 5) in which a universal relationship ispostulated between certain determinants and collective behaviour.According to this theory, the presence of the specific determinants(provided they occur at a given intensity) will generally result in theoccurrence of uninstitutionalized collective behaviour. Examples of morecontextual explanations are usually to be found in qualitative studieswhere the aim is to explain a given phenomenon of human behaviour interms of the distinguishing, and even unique, circumstances associatedwith a single case or with a small number of cases.(3) To a greater or lesser extent scientific explanation entails that a given(observable) phenomenon or event is associated with an inferred orunderlying mechanism or structure. In the Reiger Park riots the observablecollective behaviour is also explained as the specific consequence ofunderlying structures or mechanisms (for example structural strain,generalized beliefs). This characteristic of scientific theories, which isemphasized in realistic perspectives of explanation, is indubitably one ofthe most noticeable characteristics of theories. Irrespective of whether thetheory offers an explanation which may be generalized or whether itapplies to individual behaviour only, some underlying mechanism orconstruct will inevitably form the basis of such an explanation. Anexample of the first type is to be found in Weber’s well-knownexplanation of the rise of modern capitalism in terms of what he referredto as the Protestant ethic. An example of the second is Freud’s explanationof the hallucinations and visions of psychotic patients in terms of the socalledprimary process — a process of the id in terms of which anindividual will attempt to alleviate tension by construing an image of anobject that will reduce the tension.(4) Because theories explain phenomena by identifying specific causes of thephenomena, the relationship between the theory (an explanation) and thephenomenon or phenomena that it explains (the so-called explanandum) ismuch more specific than the relationship between a model and thephenomenon to which the model relates. Since a model is deliberatelyused to simplify and abstract, it is typified as an ‘as if framework’. Atheory, on the other hand, postulates real relationships between real143