For a 'second-wave' Weberian historical sociology in international relations: a reply to Halperin and Shaw

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Hobson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Second Wave

Historical Sociology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Hobson ◽  
George Lawson ◽  
Justin Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern System ◽  
Constitutive Properties ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Core Features

Over the past 20 years, historical sociology in international relations (HSIR) has contributed to a number of debates, ranging from examination of the origins of the modern states system to unraveling the core features and relative novelty of the contemporary historical period. By the late 1980s and 1990s, a small number of IR scholars drew explicitly on historical sociological insights in order to counter the direction that the discipline was taking under the auspices of the neo-neo debate. Later scholars moved away from examining the specific interconnections between international geopolitics and domestic social change. A further difference that marked this second wave from the first was that it was driven principally by IR scholars working within IR. To date, HSIR has sought to reveal not only the different forms that international systems have taken in the past, but also the ways in which the modern system cannot be treated as an ontological given. Historical sociologists in IR are unanimous in asserting that rethinking the constitutive properties and dynamics of the contemporary system can be successfully achieved only by applying what amounts to a more sensitive “nontempocentric” historical sociological lens. At the same time, by tracing the historical sociological origins of the present international order, HSIR scholars are able to reveal some of the continuities between the past and the present, thereby dispensing with the dangers of chronofetishism.

Historical Sociology and International Relations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Large-Scale Historical Change and Global Order

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besnik Pula ◽  
Yannis A. Stivachtis
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Second Wave

Historical Sociology (HS) is a subfield of sociology studying the structures and processes that have shaped important features of the modern world, including the development of the rational bureaucratic state, the emergence of capitalism, international institutions and trade, transnational forces, revolutions, and warfare. HS differs from other approaches in sociology given its distinction between routine social activities and transformative moments that fundamentally reshape social structures and institutions. Within international relations, the relevance of history in the field’s study has been highly disputed. In fact, mainstream international relations (IR)—Neorealism and Liberalism—has downplayed the importance of history. Nevertheless, World History (WH) and HS have exercised a significant degree of influence over certain theoretical approaches to the study of international relations. The history of HS can be traced back to the Enlightenment period and the belief that it was possible to improve the human condition by unmaking and remaking human institutions. HS was then taken up by a second wave of historical sociologists who were asking questions about political power and the state, paving the way for greater engagement between IR and sociology. Third wave HS, meanwhile, emerged from a questioning of received theoretical paradigms, and was thus characterized by theoretical and methodological revisions, but only minor and incremental changes to the research agenda of second wave Historical Sociology.

Historical Sociology and International Relations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Large-Scale Historical Change and Global Order

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Besnik Pula ◽  
Yannis A. Stivachtis
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Second Wave

Historical Sociology (HS) is a subfield of sociology studying the structures and processes that have shaped important features of the modern world, including the development of the rational bureaucratic state, the emergence of capitalism, international institutions and trade, transnational forces, revolutions, and warfare. HS differs from other approaches in sociology given its distinction between routine social activities and transformative moments that fundamentally reshape social structures and institutions. Within international relations, the relevance of history in the field’s study has been highly disputed. In fact, mainstream international relations (IR)—Neorealism and Liberalism—has downplayed the importance of history. Nevertheless, World History (WH) and HS have exercised a significant degree of influence over certain theoretical approaches to the study of international relations. The history of HS can be traced back to the Enlightenment period and the belief that it was possible to improve the human condition by unmaking and remaking human institutions. HS was then taken up by a second wave of historical sociologists who were asking questions about political power and the state, paving the way for greater engagement between IR and sociology. Third wave HS, meanwhile, emerged from a questioning of received theoretical paradigms, and was thus characterized by theoretical and methodological revisions, but only minor and incremental changes to the research agenda of second wave Historical Sociology.

Forum: Nonuse of Nuclear Weapons in World Politics: Toward the Third Generation of “Nuclear Taboo” Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Smetana ◽  
Carmen Wunderlich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Large N ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract That nuclear weapons have not been used in war since 1945 is one of the most intriguing research puzzles in the field of international relations. It has sparked a fruitful scholarly debate: Can the persistence of the nonuse of nuclear weapons be understood with reference to a normative “taboo” subject to a constructivist logic of appropriateness, or does it rather constitute a prudent tradition based on a logic of consequences as rationalist scholars would have it? Recently, a study by Daryl Press, Scott Sagan, and Benjamin Valentino provided further impetus for this debate and opened up a “second generation” of “taboo” research. Unlike the first generation, the second wave examined attitudes toward nuclear use among the general public rather than elite decision-makers and used large-N experimental surveys rather than in-depth interviews and archival research. In particular, these studies raised several methodological questions on how to capture the “atomic aversion”: Is it meaningful to examine public attitudes in order to grasp the validity of the nuclear “taboo” (as opposed to elite perspectives) and can we infer a weakening of the normative aversion toward nuclear use from public surveys? Bringing together the pioneers of the original debate as well as more recent contributors, this special forum seeks to take stock of the progress that has been made by discussing the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological underpinnings of the research on the nonuse of nuclear weapons. Specifically, the contributions critically reflect upon the second wave of nuclear taboo scholarship with the overall aim to build bridges between different theoretical approaches and to identify avenues for further research in this area. Ultimately, this forum seeks to present the relevance of re-envisioning nuclear taboo research to a broader audience.

The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and Its Laws of Race Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-42
Author(s):  
Robert Vitalis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Science ◽  
The Way

We now know that the ‘birth of the discipline’ of international relations in the United States is a story about empire. The foundations of early international relations theory are set in not just international law and historical sociology but evolutionary biology and racial anthropology. The problem is the way in which scholars today deal with the place of race in the thought of John Hobson, Paul Reinsch, and virtually all other social scientists of the era. The strand of thought that still resonates in our own time about empire, states, and the like is raised up and depicted as the scientific or theoretical core in the scholars’ work, while the strand that involves now archaic racial constructs is downgraded and treated instead as mere ‘language’, ‘metaphors’, and ‘prejudices’ of the era. To undo this error and recover in full the ideas of early international relations theorists it is necessary to bring the work of historians of conservative and reform Darwinism to bear on the first specialists and foundational texts in international relations.

scholarly journals Returning to the root: Radical feminist thought and feminist theories of International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-375
Author(s):  
David Duriesmith ◽  
Sara Meger
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Radical Feminism ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Second Wave

AbstractFeminist International Relations (IR) theory is haunted by a radical feminist ghost. From Enloe's suggestion that the personal is both political and international, often seen as the foundation of feminist IR, feminist IR scholarship has been built on the intellectual contributions of a body of theory it has long left for dead. Though Enloe's sentiment directly references the Hanisch's radical feminist rallying call, there is little direct engagement with the radical feminist thinkers who popularised the sentiment in IR. Rather, since its inception, the field has been built on radical feminist thought it has left for dead. This has left feminist IR troubled by its radical feminist roots and the conceptual baggage that feminist IR has unreflectively carried from second-wave feminism into its contemporary scholarship. By returning to the roots of radical feminism we believe IR can gain valuable insights regarding the system of sex-class oppression, the central role of heterosexuality in maintaining this system, and the feminist case for revolutionary political action in order to dismantle it.

Capitalism, British Grand Strategy, and the Peace Treaty of Utrecht: Towards a Historical Sociology of War- and Peace-making in the Construction of International Order

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Benno Teschke
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
International Order ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

Benno Teschke offers a specific focus on the historical sociology of normative change in the transition from early modernity to modernity in Europe. How can we explain international diplomacy and peace accords from within critical International Relations (IR) Theory? Teschke addresses this question by focusing on the Peace of Utrecht (1713) that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession. It tracks the relations between the domestic sources of the rise of Britain as a great power, the revolutionary transformations of its post-1688 foreign policy institutions, the formulation of a new British grand strategy—the blue water policy—in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, and its strategic ability to impose through coercive and secret diplomacy a new pro-British ‘normative’ set of rules for post-Utrecht early modern international relations during the ‘long eighteenth Century’ (1688–1815). This British-led reorganization of early modern international order cannot be captured through prevailing IR concepts, including automatic power-balancing, off-shore balancing, hegemony, international society, formal or informal imperialism, or collective security.

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