Reality-congruence, emancipatory politics and situated knowledge in International Relations: a process sociological perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
André Saramago

Recent discussions of the epistemological and political implications of the situatedness of knowledge in International Relations (IR) have raised important questions regarding the future development of the discipline. They pose the challenge of understanding under what conditions human beings develop more or less reality-congruent knowledge about world politics and what are the implications of such knowledge for emancipatory political activity. This article argues that process sociology should be understood as a relevant complement to these discussions. Assuming a fundamentally ‘realist’ orientation, process sociology provides a sociologically informed analysis of the material, ideational and emotional forces shaping the development of knowledge. As such, it can help those concerned with the implications of the situatedness of knowledge in IR reinforce their capacity to both understand the social conditions under which it is possible to develop more detached and reality-congruent knowledge about the world and better identify and explain the historically emergent values that should orientate the emancipatory transformation of world politics.

Author(s):  
Daniel Jacobi

“Human nature” is not a notion that has originated from theories of world politics. On the contrary, it represents one of the oldest points of reference in various cultural traditions of thought. An aspect, however, that makes the current status of the human in international relations (IR) interesting is the fact that since the 1980s, the discipline has undergone a rigorous and critical examination of its core terminologies. Above all, this effort has led scholars to become aware of the concurrent appropriations of their terms: once as scientific concepts and once as ontological facts. However, while various aspects of the human have always found their way into the theorization of world politics, so far the actual impact of the equally diverse “models of man” on the latter has hardly been subjected to systematic consideration. Observing “human nature” not only as a “naturally given fact” but also as an observational concept connects IR with the broader literatures on how the (political) world may be interpreted and analyzed. The proposition to begin a reappraisal of “human nature’s” framing effects on the basis of the distinction of anthropological and post-anthropological approaches (Human Beings in International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015) calls upon IR scholars to appreciate what happens when they study world politics through a lens that either places the human at the center of its observations or one that opts to decenter it to different extents. A reflection on the distinction of an international political anthropology and an international political post-anthropology as a starting point for theory building then not only draws attention to what is included and excluded in regard to the human when studying world politics. It moreover exposes how different views on the (post)human come to shape different theoretical architectures. What is more, it also reveals that such foundations do not run parallel to the classical IR heuristic of distinct paradigms. A closer look at their post-human foundations then shows how much these schools of thought, once conceived as highly coherent, have now been differentiated internally. The said absence of a systematic debate on the status of the human in the IR theories also poses a challenge to this article. Not only is the human still rarely reflected upon as a theoretical core concept; at the same time, parallel debates exist that are guided less by theoretical frameworks but rather by the problems that arise from specific ideas about the post-human. In this sense, this article also pursues a dual strategy: on the one hand, the listing either of obvious or subtle uses of post-human views by various theoretical traditions, and on the other hand, the identification of specific core problems that have formed in the wake of specific angles on the post-human. Since inquiries into the post-human also include an intersection of IR theories with other scientific literatures, the article also features text references that will help readers find their way into the state of the art of those important adjacent debates.


1963 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann

For many reasons Rousseau's writings on international relations should interest students both of Rousseau and of world politics. The former have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of Emile and of The Social Contract. Those works, and the Discourse on Inequality have been analyzed incessantly and well. But Rousseau's ideas on war and peace, dispersed in various books and fragments, some of which are lost, have had only occasional attention, and some of that is of the hit-and-miss variety. Incomplete as his own treatment of the relations between states remains, the frequency and intensity of his references indicate the depth of his concern.


2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-686
Author(s):  
Michael Mann

This is a rich, impressive and timely book. At a time when American and neoliberal triumphalism deny the significance of any revolution later than 1776, and when almost no-one in the social sciences is still studying either revolution or class, Fred Halliday has demonstrated that we have been living in a revolutionary age, dominated by the conjoined effects of war and class revolution. In case you find his sub-title mysterious, Karl Marx noted that the Europe of his time was dominated by five Great Powers, but Revolution, ‘the sixth Great Power’, would soon overcome them all. Halliday would suggest that Marx was only half-right. Revolution did not overcome all five Powers, but it did transform them all—and their successors. Hannah Arendt and Martin Wight also emphasized that couplings of war and revolution have dominated much of modernity. But Halliday adds that these are not to be seen as ‘disruptions’ of International Relations, they are International Relations, since they have set the overall parameters of the modern international system. They did so, he says, in three distinct revolutionary phases from the sixteenth century to the present-day: sixteenth-seventeenth century religious wars/revolutions, late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Atlanticist wars/revolutions, and twentieth century wars/revolutions which became increasingly dominated by communism.


Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett ◽  
Martha Finnemore

This chapter examines how prominent theories capture the various ways that the UN affects world politics. Different theories of international relations (IR) cast the UN in distinctive roles, which logically lead scholars to identify distinctive kinds of effects. We identify five roles that the UN might have: as an agent of great powers doing their bidding; as a mechanism for interstate cooperation; as a governor of an international society of states; as a constructor of the social world; and as a legitimation forum. Each role has roots in a well-known theory of international politics. In many, perhaps most, real-world political situations, the UN plays more than one of these roles, but these stylized theoretical arguments about the world body’s influence help discipline our thinking. They force us to be explicit about which effects of the world organization we think are important, what is causing them, and why.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupama S

Abstract Covid-19 is re-defining life globally. Human beings are trying to address the social, economic and political implications of the pandemic through various policy initiatives. But, the psychosocial impact of the pandemic remains implicit and hence unaddressed. The pandemic has upended the psychosocial equilibrium of society. It is crucial to restore this lost equilibrium through effective psychosocial management of the pandemic. This study tries to establish the need for such an approach and suggest ways for accomplishing the same. In the first part, an attempt is made to review the psychosocial impact of the pandemic. The second part undertakes a case examination of the acclaimed ‘Kerala model’. The model specific individual, community and institutional level initiatives that helped in effective pandemic management are analysed. Such case specific explorations can help to develop Psychosocial Response models. This can serve as a standard guideline for dealing with future emergencies and help mainstream psychosocial wellbeing. Such models can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of community to manage future emergencies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Peter J. Katzenstein

This article defines, operationalizes, and illustrates the value ofanalytic eclecticismin the social sciences, with a focus on the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Analytic eclecticism is not an alternative model of research or a means to displace or subsume existing modes of scholarship. It is an intellectual stance that supports efforts to complement, engage, and selectively utilize theoretical constructs embedded in contending research traditions to build complex arguments that bear on substantive problems of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Eclectic scholarship is marked by three general features. First, it is consistent with an ethos of pragmatism in seeking engagement with the world of policy and practice, downplaying unresolvable metaphysical divides and presumptions of incommensurability and encouraging a conception of inquiry marked by practical engagement, inclusive dialogue, and a spirit of fallibilism. Second, it formulates problems that are wider in scope than the more narrowly delimited problems posed by adherents of research traditions; as such, eclectic inquiry takes on problems that more closely approximate the messiness and complexity of concrete dilemmas facing “real world” actors. Third, in exploring these problems, eclectic approaches offer complex causal stories that extricate, translate, and selectively recombine analytic components—most notably, causal mechanisms—from explanatory theories, models, and narratives embedded in competing research traditions. The article includes a brief sampling of studies that illustrate the combinatorial potential of analytic eclecticism as an intellectual exercise as well as its value in enhancing the possibilities of fruitful dialogue and pragmatic engagement within and beyond the academe.


Author(s):  
Lene Hansen

This chapter examines the core assumptions of poststructuralism, one of the International Relations (IR) perspectives furthest away from the realist and liberal mainstream. It explores whether language matters for international relations, whether all states have the same identity, and whether the state is the most important actor in world politics today. The chapter also considers poststructuralist views about the social world, state sovereignty, and identity and foreign policy. Finally, it discusses poststructuralism as a political philosophy. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with discourses on the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the other relating to Russian discourse on Crimea. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether poststructuralism provides a good account of the role that materiality and power play in world politics.


1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID ARMSTRONG

One of the most common themes in the vast literature on globalization is that it is gradually undermining the state by making it meaningless if not obsolete. This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to challenge that thesis. It does so by arguing that there are two distinct sets of processes at work in contemporary world politics: globalization and interstate interaction. While the former tends to break down territorial boundaries and replace them with new, uniform configurations of power, money and culture, the latter reconfirms territorial boundaries and the structures and processes contained by them. The interaction among states, which is often ignored by globalization theorists, may best be understood by situating it within the traditional international relations concept of an international society, provided that this is redefined to give it a more ‘constructivist’ orientation.


Author(s):  
Jérémie Cornut

In the social sciences, IR included, the study of practices starts from a very simple intuition: social realities - and international politics - are constituted by human beings acting in and on the world. Their ways of doing things delineate practices that enact and give meaning to the world. When seen through these lenses, the concerns of other IR approaches – war, peace, negotiations, states, diplomacy, international organizations, and so on – are bundles of individual and collective practices woven together and producing specific outcomes. Rather than as a unified approach, the Practice Turn (PT) in International Relations Theory is best approached through a series of conceptual innovations and tools that introduce novel ways of thinking about international politics. The review article here first introduces the main conceptual tools in PT’s toolbox focusing on defining practices, the logic of practice, field, capital, and symbolic domination. It then situates PT within IR, and shows how it departs from both rationalism and constructivism. The article closes by focusing on the methodological, epistemological and normative debates among practice turners.


Author(s):  
Lene Hansen

This chapter examines the core assumptions of poststructuralism, one of the International Relations (IR) perspectives furthest away from the realist and liberal mainstream. It explores whether language matters for international relations, whether all states have the same identity, and whether the state is the most important actor in world politics today. The chapter also considers poststructuralist views about the social world, state sovereignty, and identity and foreign policy. Finally, it discusses poststructuralism as a political philosophy. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with discourses on the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the other relating to Russian discourse on Crimea. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether poststructuralism provides a good account of the role that materiality and power play in world politics.


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