Practices -- specific, recurrent types of human action and activity -- are perhaps the most fundamental "building blocks" of social reality.　　This book argues that the detailed empirical study of practices is essential to effective social-scientific inquiry. It develops a philosophical infrastructure for understanding human practices, and argues that practice theory should be the analytical centrepiece of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences.　

What would social scientists' research look like if they took these insights seriously? To answer...

Through case studies in sociology, economics and legal studies, this book advances new philosophical foundations for the methods of the social sciences, providing an account of how to establish or evaluate causal claims, and offering a new way of thinking about evidence-based policy, basic social science research and mixed methods research.

The Problem of the State provides a new perspective on what the social and political sciences can contribute to understandings of the state and the ambivalent place it occupies in our collective affairs, distinguishing empirical and theoretical approaches before advocating a return to the problem in social and political practice.