Wars, hotel fires, and plane crashes

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN D. KRASNER
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
International System ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Is Theory ◽  
Adequate Research

Alexander Wendt has drawn on an exceptional range of theoretical literature in his effort to reconceptualize the nature of the international system. His discussion of scientific realism ought to be required reading for any student of international relations, or political science for that matter. He puts to rest the notion that constructivism is necessarily postmodern, devoid of an objective referent. In John Searle's felicitous formulation it is possible to have a subjective ontology but an objective epistemology. In emphasizing that all knowledge is theory laden, Wendt underscores the point that facts never simply speak for themselves. In both the social and natural sciences brute empiricism is never an adequate research strategy. Our theories shape the way we see the world but they cannot remake the world in their own image.

The poverty of Grand Theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Brown
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Is Theory ◽  
The One ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Made In

The editors of the special issue, in their call for papers for this special issue, expressed a degree of disquiet at the current state of International Relations theory, but the situation is both better and worse than they suggest. On the one hand, in some areas of the discipline, there has been real progress over the last decade. The producers of liberal and realist International Relations theory may not have the kind of standing in the social/human sciences as the ‘Grand Theorists’ identified by Quentin Skinner in his seminal mid-1980s’ collection, but they have a great deal to say about how the world works, and the world would have been a better place over the last decade or so if more notice had been taken of what they did say. On the other hand, the range of late modern theorists who brought some of Skinner’s Grand Theorists into the reckoning in the 1980s have, in the main, failed to deliver on the promises made in that decade. The state of International Relations theory in this neck of the woods is indeed a cause for concern; there is a pressing need for ‘critical problem-solving’ theory, that is, theory that relates directly to real-world problems but approaches them from the perspective of the underdog.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Evolution of International System: Reflections on the Role of Religion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarwar J. Minar
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
City States ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The City

Religion has been significant in human life since the day of human creation and since then played important role throughout various phrases of the world history. The paper investigates the role of religion in the development of International System. In tracing out the role of religion, the paper uses a qualitative research method. Though an interpretive approach, the paper explores the role of religion from the very beginning moment of creation of earth and human being, throughout various historical development phrases. The paper finds that religion has historically played a significant role in human life, in the organization of the social entities, and therefore in the relations among them. The paper finds immense influence of religion in prehistoric societies, in the pre-Westphalian system, in the city states and empires. However, in the Westphalian era religion was left aside and secularism took the place but was not excluded entirely. In the present era religion has again emerged as an influential force in the world affairs. Presenting an evaluation ofreligion‘s role in the 21st century international system, the paper concludes attempting to integrate religion into the theories of International Relations.

Defending the Difference

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Natural Entities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Methodological Difference ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Assessing Contemporary Crises: Aligning Safety Science and Security Studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bibi van den Berg ◽  
Ruth Prins ◽  
Sanneke Kuipers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Safety Science ◽  
Key Topics

Security and safety are key topics of concern in the globalized and interconnected world. While the terms “safety” and “security” are often used interchangeably in everyday life, in academia, security is mostly studied in the social sciences, while safety is predominantly studied in the natural sciences, engineering, and medicine. However, developments and incidents that negatively affect society increasingly contain both safety and security aspects. Therefore, an integrated perspective on security and safety is beneficial. Such a perspective studies hazardous and harmful events and phenomena in the full breadth of their complexity—including the cause of the event, the target that is harmed, and whether the harm is direct or indirect. This leads to a richer understanding of the nature of incidents and the effects they may have on individuals, collectives, societies, nation-states, and the world at large.

scholarly journals O potrzebie rekonstrukcji przestrzeni badawczej w nauce o stosunkach międzynarodowych. Refleksje natury polityczno-normatywnej, systemowej i metaforycznej

2018 ◽  
pp. 25-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa ŁOŚ-NOWAK
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
International Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Relationship

The world of the 21st century provides an intriguing space for academic reflection, offering new challenges and stimulating new concepts of international relations. In this context there emerges the significant question of the essence and direction of these concepts. They may entail deconstruction followed by a reconstruction of the research space in this field. Astrategy of resetting cannot be excluded here, either. Assuming that reconstruction is the appropriate solution there are significant issues of its scope and direction. If a total reset is considered rational we need to address the issue of what it should involve. This is a difficult question for researchers into international relations because it would mean that the hitherto achievements of this subject are being questioned. The post-positivist approach of numerous researchers, which manifests their response to the positivist methodology in the field of international relations, has not so far produced a unified methodological formula or a relatively coherent theory of international relations. Questions concerning the function of science, the nature of the social world (ontology) and the relationship between knowledge and the world (epistemology) remain open. Therefore, it may be worth going back to M. Wight’s provocative thesis that it is impossible to construct a reasonable theory of international relations, mainly owing to the dichotomy of the two fields of research that – in his opinion – cannot be overcome, namely the dichotomy of the ‘international’ (the realm of external affairs of states) and ‘internal’ (the realm of internal affairs within state), which are mutually exclusive because of their specificity; and once again ask the questions of how sensible the thesis of the dichotomy of both these environments is in a world that is strongly conditioned by the cross-border actors, interdependence and globalization. While the separateness of the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ state environments was, for Wight, an important obstacle, making it impossible to construct an academic theory explaining international relations, at the same time the current theory regarding their exclusivity in the context of the internalization of international affairs and the externalization of conditions inside states seems unsustainable. This phenomenon currently allows us to explain the imperative for combining these two environments, overlapping them …breaking down the old, established orders as a result of the now clearly visible phenomena and processes of the ‘internal state’ merging into the ‘international environment’ and vice versa, the disappearance of the traditional functions of borders, the weakening of old institutions and structures for steering the international environment as well as replacing them with entirely new institutions and structures.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION CRISIS ON EUROPE’S CULTURAL CONDITIONS: WHY ARE THE POLES ‘APPREHENSIVE’ ABOUT MUSLIMS?

2020 ◽  
pp. 313-335
Author(s):  
Anna М. Solarz
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Cultural Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

The 2015 immigration crisis revealed the weak cultural condition Europe finds itself in, given the adoption by a majority of states of a model for development that deliberately severs ties with common civilisational roots. However, while Poles do not really nurture prejudices against either Islam or immigrants, a decided majority of them voiced their unwillingness to accept new (mainly Muslim) arrivals, in the context of a solution to the above crisis the EU was intending to impose. A change of policy was thus forced upon the Union by Poland and other CEECs, given the latter’s strong guiding conviction that pursuit of a multicultural ideology leads to a weakening – rather than any improvement – in the condition of culture in Europe, and hence to a sapping of the continent’s power in the international relations sphere. As the crisis has made clear, the EU will probably have to start taking more account of preferences in this part of Europe. This means opportunities for the political science of religion to research the likelihood of a return to the Christian component of European identity, as well as the role this might play in improving the cultural condition of this part of the world.

Global Bourdieu

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-586
Author(s):  
Niilo Kauppi ◽  
David Swartz
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domination ◽  
The Web

Pierre Bourdieu was a prolific scholar whose multifaceted work inspired research in a wide variety of areas. Beyond sociology we find his influence in anthropology, history, cultural studies, political science, and international relations. Particularly after 1995, when he engaged in a fight against neo-liberalism, he became the pre-eminent public intellectual. Bourdieu clearly stands in the pantheon of the greatest contemporary social scientists. This article explores the social mechanisms that enabled the global circulation of Bourdieu’s oeuvre. Multiple factors in multiple intellectual fields contributed to this process. There are “global Bourdieus.” Throughout his career Bourdieu was a defender of the dominated, and a sharp critic of established powers; his work provides individuals in a variety of central and peripheral fields weapons against social domination whatever its form. This narrative weds together his biography and oeuvre, and forms the web that unites him with the social carriers of his work globally.

The Worldwide Instantiation of the University

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-42
Author(s):  
David John Frank ◽  
John W. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Research Universities ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
World Class ◽  
The University ◽  
University Expansion

This chapter describes the multi-dimensional expansion of the university, focusing especially on its accumulating numbers and global diffusion. It stresses the transcendence and universalism of the university at the global level. It also analyzes how university expansion is expected to occur earlier and more fully in the global core than in the global periphery, in democracies than in dictatorships, in the natural sciences than in the social sciences or humanities, and in world-class research universities more than local teaching colleges. The chapter highlights the university as a global institution and the global knowledge society that arises upon it. It examines the spread of universities around the world and studies local instances of a general model that is a central point to sociological neo-institutional theory.

Scientific realism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Keat
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Realist Conception

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in broadly the same sense in which this term is applied to physics, chemistry, biology and so on. In the long history of debates about this issue, both naturalists and anti-naturalists have tended to accept a particular view of the natural sciences – the ‘positivist’ conception of science. But the challenges to this previously dominant position in the philosophy of science from around the 1960s made this shared assumption increasingly problematic. It was no longer clear what would be implied by the naturalist requirement that the social sciences should be modelled on the natural sciences. It also became necessary to reconsider the arguments previously employed by anti-naturalists, to see whether these held only on the assumption of a positivist conception of science. If so, a non-positivist naturalism might be defended: a methodological unity of the social and natural sciences based on some alternative to positivism. That this is possible has been argued by scientific realists in the social sciences, drawing on a particular alternative to positivism: the realist conception of science developed in the 1970s by Harré and others.

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