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’.

History and quantitative conflict research: A case for limiting the historical scope of our theoretical arguments

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Benjamin O Fordham
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Conflict Research ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Precise Theory

This essay examines the relationship between history and the quantitative study of international conflict. The usual distinction between these two pursuits does not hold up to close scrutiny. In fact, both research communities are in the business of using theory to explain social processes that occur within historical bounds. Making these historical bounds explicit is an appropriate response to the nature of our subject matter. Doing so also has some important advantages, including more precise theory, higher quality data, better model specification, and the potential to help explain important historical events.

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.

Capitalism, Jacobinism and International Relations: Re-interpreting the Ottoman path to modernity

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eren Duzgun
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
International Order ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
Sociological Approaches

AbstractDebates over ‘modernity’ have been central to the development of historical-sociological approaches to International Relations (IR). Within the bourgeoning subfield of International Historical Sociology (IHS), much work has been done to formulate a historically dynamic conception of international relations, which is then used to undermine unilinear conceptions of global modernity. Nevertheless, this article argues that IHS has not proceeded far enough in successfully remedying the problem of unilinearism. The problem remains that historical narratives, informed by IHS, tend to transhistoricise capitalism, which, in turn, obscures the generative nature of international relations, as well as the fundamental heterogeneity of diverging paths to modernity both within and beyond western Europe. Based on the theory of Uneven and Combined Development, Political Marxism, and Robbie Shilliam’s discussion of ‘Jacobinism’, this article first reinterprets the radical multilinearity of modernity within western Europe, and then utilises this reinterpretation to provide a new reading of the Ottoman path to modernity (1839–1918). Such a historical critique and reconstruction will highlight the significance of Jacobinism for a more accurate theorisation of the origin and development of the modern international order, hence contributing to a deeper understanding of the international relations of modernity.

scholarly journals THEORIZATION IN IR AND THIRD WORLD STATES: THE PROMISE OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY IN EXPLAINING THE NEXUS BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL SPHERES

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-32
Author(s):  
Yihenew Wubu Endalew ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Third World ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Spatial Variance ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Alternative Theories

Until alternative theories that sought a serious consideration of third world states in International Relations (IR) proliferated in the last quarter of the 20th century, knowledge production remained monopolized by dominant Western-centered theories. Historical Sociology in International Relations (HSIR) is one of the approaches that aimed at directing IR towards more inclusive inquiries that acknowledge temporal and spatial variance; especially against ahistorical and ‘asociological’ foundations of Neorealism. Despite this motivation, most of the studies and debates within HSIR are concentrated on illustrating the approach’s applicability in the study of Western states. Through a review of the available literature, this paper aims to demonstrate the promise of HSIR in explaining the relationship between domestic and foreign affairs of third world states. To achieve this objective, the paper mainly draws from the works of John Hobson and Fred Halliday and suggests the incorporation of third world states in the inquiries and debate within HSIR.

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.

The promise of historical dynamism for the American study of international relations

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bear Braumoeller
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
American Study ◽  
Ir Theory

WhileThe Global Transformationmakes a compelling case for the importance of the oft-ignored 19th century for IR theory, the book also represents an opportunity for an audience for which it was probably not intended: American IR scholars working in the quantitative empirical tradition, whom it should prompt to re-think the question of how the interactions that they seek to understand are conditional on deeper material and ideational dynamics.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Sport and Politics in the International Arena of the Modern and Contemporary Period

GYMNASIUM ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol XXI (2 (Supplement)) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Paul Claudiu Cotîrleț
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Free Time ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Balkan Region ◽  
The Relationship

For a long time in the theory of international relations, the role of sport in promoting and developing relations between different states was neglected, which attracted criticism from specialists such as, for example, Trevor Taylor. The need for studies on the role of sports movement in the development of international relations was pointed out by Peter Beck, who pointed out that the theory of international relations has kept an appreciable distance from sport. In this paper I want to fill this information gap based on a series of unprocessed documents, primary sources, found especially in the Balkan region. Sport overcame the barrier of behaviors and social processes that are based on spending free time, succeeding through the involvement of politics to become a "player" in the arena of international relations.

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.

Shrinking planet, expanding imaginary: the imperial press system and the idea of Greater Britain

2021 ◽  
pp. 004711782110456
Author(s):  
Andrew Dougall
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Communication Media ◽  
White Settler ◽  
Global Modernity ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between the 19th century ‘global transformation’ and the contemporary intensification of communication media through the lens of Greater Britain, a late-Victorian ordering imaginary centred on the integration of Britain and its white settler colonies. Contrary to existing conceptions of globe-spanning media as either components of ‘interaction capacity’ or boundary conditions that set broad outer limits for political thought, I advance an understanding of media as socio-technical and political structures in their own right and explore how they surface meanings and representations upon which imaginaries such as Greater Britain depended. The argument thereby contributes to IR debates on global modernity, communication media and the dynamics of historical change.

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.

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