Foregrounding ontology: dualism, monism, and IR theory

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICK THADDEUS JACKSON
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Knowledge Claims

AbstractWhile the recent proliferation in philosophical discussions in International Relations indicates a welcome increase in the discipline’s conceptual sophistication, a central issue has gone relatively unremarked: the question of how to understand the relationship between scholarly observers and their observed objects. This classical philosophical problem has a number of implications for the conduct of inquiry in the discipline, and raises particular challenges for the status of knowledge-claims advanced by constructivists. I clarify these issues and challenges by distinguishing between ‘dualist’ and ‘monist’ ontological standpoints, in the hope of provoking a more focused philosophical discussion.

Islam and international law

2005 ◽  
Vol 87 (858) ◽  
pp. 269-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheikh Wahbeh al-Zuhili
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article by an Islamic scholar describes the principles governing international law and international relations from an Islamic viewpoint. After presenting the rules and principles governing international relations in the Islamic system, the author emphasizes the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and the aspiration of Islam to peace and harmony. He goes on to explain the relationship between Muslims and others in peacetime or in the event of war and the classical jurisprudential division of the world into the abode of Islam (dar al-islam) and that of war (dar al-harb). Lastly he outlines the restrictions imposed upon warfare by Islamic Shari'a law which have attained the status of legal rules.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Renshon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Escalation Of Commitment ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

This book has examined the importance of status in world politics. It has introduced the status dissatisfaction theory and applied it directly to the realm of international relations. It has tested the theory using a variety of approaches, including network analysis, by investigating the relationship between status dissatisfaction and war, if and how status concerns motivated German decision making during the Weltpolitik era, and the link between heightened status concerns and the escalation of commitment. The book concludes by discussing four broad lessons that can be drawn from the findings as well as the open questions that remain: status is local; there are many paths to status; status concerns are what count and not status itself; and status dissatisfaction leads to escalation and conflict. It also considers the policy implications of the theories of international politics.

‘The battle is all there is’: philosophy and history in International Relations theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Devetak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Alternative Mode ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Shed Light

There is an expectation today that International Relations (IR) theory ought to engage with philosophy as a meta-knowledge capable of grounding and legitimizing knowledge claims in the discipline. Two assumptions seem to lie behind this expectation: first, that only philosophy can supply the necessary meta-theoretical grounding needed; second, that theory is inherently a philosophical register of knowledge. This article treats these assumptions with scepticism. While not denying philosophy’s contribution to IR theory, the article makes the case for contextual intellectual history as an alternative mode of political and international theory. It seeks to shed light on the ‘philosophization of IR’ by depicting the broad contours of the historical and continuing rivalry between philosophy and history in the humanities and social sciences and, by reference to Machiavelli and Renaissance humanism, reminding the discipline of IR of the value of studying politics and international relations in a historical mode.

scholarly journals Politics of the Living Dead: Race and Exceptionalism in the Apocalypse

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Fishel ◽  
Lauren Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The zombie, as a Western pop culture icon, has taken up residence in International Relations. Used both humorously and as a serious teaching tool, many scholars and professors of IR have written of the zombie as a useful figure for teaching IR theory in an engaging manner, and have used zombie outbreaks to analyse the responses of the international community during catastrophe, invasion, and natural disasters. The authors of this article would like to unearth another aspect of the zombie that is often left unsaid or forgotten: namely, that the body of the zombie, as a historical phenomenon and cultural icon, is deeply imbricated in the racialisation of political subjects and fear of the Other. Through a critical analysis of biopower and race, and in particular Weheliye’s concept of habeas viscus, we suggest that the figure of the zombie can be read as a racialised figure that can provide the means for rethinking the relationship of the discipline of IR to the concept of race. We read The Walking Dead as a zombie narrative that could provide a critical basis for rethinking the concepts of bare life and the exception to consider ‘living on’ in apocalyptic times.

scholarly journals The Struggle for Recognition or Enhancement of Satus: Conditions for the Stability and Development of Unrecognized States Using the Example of Eurasia

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-219
Author(s):  
Maxim Bratersky ◽  
◽  
Andrei Skriba ◽  
Arina Sapogova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
International Recognition ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

In this article, the prospects or changing the status of unrecognized states in Greater Eurasia are analyzed. Status and recognition are close but distinct categories in international relations (IR) theory and international law. Status defines a state’s rank in the hierarchical international system. Recognition is a different category; legally, it defines whether other states recognize a particular state as fully established and sovereign. Sovereignty is a third category related to the issue of recognition but not equal to it since it includes internal and external (international) sovereignty. There are examples of sovereign states that effectively control their territories and collect taxes, but which are not recognized as sovereign by other states. The analysis in this article focuses on whether an unrecognized state can strengthen its status and improve its position in the international system. It is argued that this is possible, and that the absence of international recognition should not be regarded as an unsurpassable impediment to the economic development of the country.

History, theory, and contingency in the study of modern international relations: the global transformation revisited

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 468-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Anievas
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Configurational Approach ◽  
Structural Forces ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
The Relationship

Debates engaging the problems of ahistoricism and Eurocentrism in International Relations (IR) theory have taken on new dimensions in recent years. Scholars from a variety of different theoretical traditions have aimed to reconstruct IR theory on stronger historical–sociological grounds, while re-orienting the study of IR away from the fetish of ‘Western’ thought and agency. Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation offers a welcome contribution to these endeavours to furnish a non-Eurocentric historical sociology of international relations. This article seeks to push their project further by re-assessing the relationship between history, theory, and contingency. In particular, it interrogates whether Buzan and Lawson’s ‘configurational’ approach to the ‘global transformation’, emphasizing the contingent concatenation of historical events and social processes, results in a displacement of theory through an over-emphasis on the interaction of free-floating contingently related causes, causes that are external to any theoretical schema. This approach obscures the deeper, structural forces in the making of global modernity, most notably those that escape Buzan and Lawson’s singular focus on the ‘long 19th century’.

Analytic eclecticism—continuing the conversation

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-443
Author(s):  
Rudra Sil
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

In this response to the contributions in this symposium, I approach the above articles not as wholesale critiques requiring point-by-point rebuttal but as constructive engagements that require clarification or invite further reflection as part of an ongoing conversation. In some instances, I revisit and elaborate upon the main motivations and assumptions that Peter Katzenstein and I had in mind as we sought to lay out the significance of analytic eclecticism for different audiences. At other times, I take it upon myself to consider aspects of our approach that might be updated or reframed in light of concerns raised by some of the authors. I specifically address four issues that have been raised: the core logic of analytic eclecticism and its operationalization with respect to once-dominant paradigms in International Relations; the link between complexity, causality, and constitutive logics; the status of metatheory and the links between eclecticism and pragmatism; and the relationship between scholarly debates and “real-world” issues of policy and ethics. Whether the response is satisfactory or not, it is worth bearing in mind that, for Peter Katzenstein and myself, analytic eclecticism was always meant to be more of an ethos than a method or manifesto; that ethos long predates our published work and is evident in the thoughtful contributions that constitute this symposium.

scholarly journals Populism, Hindu Nationalism, and Foreign Policy in India: The Politics of Representing “the People”

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Wojczewski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
The People ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract There is today a growing sense of a global rise of populism. Right-wing populist leaders and parties claim to represent the people and pit them against a “corrupt” elite and “dangerous” Others. However, the international dimensions of populism remain largely unexplored in the populism and international relations (IR) literature. By analyzing the relationship between foreign policy and populism, this article seeks to show how the phenomenon of populism can be integrated into IR theory and how IR scholarship can inform debates on populism. The article argues that poststructuralist IR, with its focus on foreign policy as a boundary-drawing practice that demarcates the Self from the Other, allows us to study how populist actors can use foreign policy as a site for the reproduction of their claim to represent the people. To grasp this, the article identifies different discursive strategies through which the people/elite antagonism can be constructed and interacts with other antagonisms such as the inside/outside divide of nationalism. It illustrates its arguments with a case study on India's foreign policy discourse under the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who has promised to purify India from a corrupt elite and pursue an “India first” policy.

A world of their making: an evaluation of the constructivist critique in International Relations

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
RONEN PALAN
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

IR constructivism maintain that a proper understanding of the way subjects interact with the world and with each other alerts us to the fallacy of conventional IR theory. And yet, for a theory that is so obviously dependent upon a rigorous working of the relationship between social theory and its IR variant, it is curious that, with one or two exceptions, IR constructivists often advance incompatible theories. I argue that the confused manner by which, in particular, ‘soft’ constructivism relates to social theory is not accidental but a necessary component of a theory that asserts, but never proves, the primacy of norms and laws over material considerations, in domestic and international politics.

Part II Analytical Approaches, Ch.9 International Relations Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Peter
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
International Environmental Agreements ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
State Behaviour ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter evaluates the importance of international relations (IR) in international environmental law (IEL). IR theory and empirical studies provide insights into how international environmental agreements may be modified to effectively address environmental threats. Key issues include whether sanctions are essential for compliance and effectiveness, and whether the choice of hard law rather than soft law makes a difference. Reform strategies either make explicit assumptions about how international law affects state behaviour, or such assumptions remain implicit. Either way, IR theory throws light on the relationship between international law and state behaviour. The chapter then explores the relationship between power and IEL. It also addresses legitimacy and democratization, and examines how scientific knowledge can be incorporated into IEL.

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