International Relations and Asian Studies: The Subordinate State System of Southern Asia

1963 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brecher
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
State System ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Southern Asia ◽  
The Social

Asian studies have long since ventured beyond the traditional limits of Orientalia to embrace history and the social sciences; they have not as yet, however, applied the insights of international relations to an area framework. Similarly, international relations specialists have all but ignored the relevance of their discipline to Asia. The purpose of this article is to help bridge the serious gap between these two fields.

International Relations an a World of Revolutionary Change

1949 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Easton Rothwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
New York ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Carnegie Corporation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wartime Experience

A PROJECT of collaborative research concerning major world trends affecting international relations has been launched this year at the Hoover Institute and Library. This project has been made possible by a three-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.1Beneath the original planning for the project lay the conviction born of wartime experience, that a deeper understanding of the dynamics of international relations could be obtained by pooling the contributions of the social sciences and related disciplines and by taking account of practical experience in the international field. The need for new and more penetrating approaches to international relations had been put by Arnold Toynbee in a few challenging words: “There is nothing to prevent our Western Civilization from following historical precedent, if it chooses, by committing social suicide. But we are not doomed to make history repeat itself; it is open to us through our own efforts, to give history, in our case, some new unprecedented turn.” Natural scientists, as well as social scientists are agreed that any “new unprecedented turn” must be sought in deeper understanding of relations among people and among nations.

The Edwards' Report and the International Relations profession

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Science Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Community

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.

Local Institutions at the Crossroads of Environmental Regionalism in Southeast Asia: State-Civil Society Interplays and Tensions

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Antonio P. Contreras
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Interactions ◽  
Civil Societies

This paper inquires into the implications of the different discursive imaginations on civil societies and the state from the perspective of the social sciences, particularly political science and international relations. It focuses on some interfaces and tensions that exist between civil society on one hand, and the state and its bureaucratic instrumentalities on the other, particularly in the domain of environment and natural resources governance in the context of new regionalisms and of alternative concepts of human security. There is now a new context for regionalism in Southeast Asia, not only among state structures, such as the ASEAN and the various Mekong bodies, but also among local civil societies coming from the region. It is in this context that issues confronting local communities are given a new sphere for interaction, as well as a new platform for engaging state structures and processes. This paper illustrates how dynamic are the possibilities for non-state domains for transnational interactions, particularly in the context of the emerging environmental regionalism. This occurs despite the dominance of neo-realist political theorizing, and the state-centric nature of international interactions.

Relations, Human and Non-human

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-135
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter argues for an extension of how we think relationally via relational cosmology. It places relational cosmology in a conversation with varied relational perspectives in critical social theory and argues that specific kinds of extensions and dialogues emerge from this perspective. In particular, a conversation on how to think relationality without fixing its meaning is advanced. This chapter also discusses in detail how to extend beyond discussion of ‘human’ relationalities towards comprehending the wider ‘mesh’ of relations that matter but are hard to capture for situated knowers in the social sciences and IR. This key chapter seeks to provide the basis for a translation between relational cosmology, critical social theory, critical humanism and International Relations theory.

scholarly journals Teach a Student to Fish? International Relations Scholars in the Classroom

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (01) ◽  
pp. 214-220
Author(s):  
Nina Srinivasan Rathbun ◽  
Brian C. Rathbun
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Practical Skills ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
The Social

ABSTRACT American higher-education institutions are under increasing pressure to prepare their students with practical skills for the workplace, and the social sciences—including political science—are not immune. Political figures have suggested—sometimes seconded by academics themselves—that research distracts academics from imparting practical skills to undergraduate students. Using a survey of international relations (IR) scholars, this article shows that this is not the case. Those who spend more time on research actually devote more time to policy-relevant research in their courses than more abstract and theoretical work, and they incorporate more contemporary issues. Research seems to encourage academics to teach their students to fish.

13. Ethnography and Participant Observation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Political Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Terrorist Groups

This chapter discusses the principles of ethnography and participant observation: what they are, how (if) they became standardized as a research method, what form of evidence they constitute, and what place they occupy in the study of Politics. Participant observation has emerged as a popular research tool across the social sciences. In particular, political ethnographies are now widely carried out in a wide variety of contexts, from the study of political institutions and organizations to the investigation of social movements and informal networks, such as terrorist groups and drugs cartels. Political ethnography is also becoming a research method of choice in the field of International Relations. The chapter examines the strengths of ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on issues relating to sampling, access, key informants, and collecting observational data. It also addresses the weaknesses of ethnography, especially issues of subjectivity, reliability, and generalizability.

Reflexivity and International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inanna Hamati-Ataya
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Ethical Problem ◽  
Research Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Sociological Studies

Reflexivity has in the past few decades become a core concept and concern in the social sciences and has increasingly shaped (meta) theoretical debates in the field of International Relations (IR) since the 1980s. While there is no single understanding of what reflexivity (sometimes referred to as reflectivity or self-reflexivity) means or entails, a broad consensus identifies reflexivity as the capacity to reflect on one’s own epistemic situation and process, and how these affect the nature and meaning of the knowledge one produces. As such, there are different strands of reflexive or reflexivist scholarship in IR, based on how these different elements are envisaged and addressed. Expanding beyond mere “control against bias,” which was a core concern of American behavioralist scholars in the 1950s, reflexivity has turned from a standard for the pursuit of “objective” knowledge to a problematization of, and response to, the historicity and social-situatedness of knowledge. Discussions of reflexivity in IR are thus typically generated within self-labelled post-positivist intellectual traditions, wherein reflexivity becomes a fundamental epistemological, methodological, and/or ethical problem that requires constant engagement as an integral part of the research process, and that also affects other aspects of the scholarly vocation and practice, including pedagogy and public engagement. Within this broad literature, this annotated bibliography will cover works that have contributed to clarifying and promoting reflexivity as a metatheoretical standard for IR (i.e., reflexivity as a core question for epistemology, ontology, methodology, and ethics), but also works that have contributed to an empirical understanding of IR’s historical and social embeddedness. The reason for including the latter within reflexivist IR—in the broad sense of the term—despite the fact that many authors of such works have not necessarily self-identified as reflexivists, is that they in effect provide an important empirical basis upon which the problematization and clarification of the problem of reflexivity become possible in philosophical and praxical terms. Indeed, in most social sciences such empirical investigation of the embeddedness of knowledge within social structures and orders is provided by historiographical and sociological studies on the sociohistorical conditions of the “production” or “constitution” of knowledge. But IR scholars have in the past few decades developed an in-house historiographical and “science studies” agenda that has increased the whole community’s understanding of the specific sociopolitical and institutional contexts and factors that shape its nature and evolution. The two literatures are therefore conceptually and practically connected, and together contribute to whatever level of reflexivity IR as a field can now be said to enjoy.

Geopolitical Economy and the Chimera of Hegemony

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-293
Author(s):  
Rowan Lubbock
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
State System ◽  
International Regimes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Discipline ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility

Abstract This review critically engages with Radhika Desai’s concept of geopolitical economy as a framework for understanding the evolution of the capitalist state system. While presenting a useful challenge to many of the most deeply-held beliefs in International Relations theory, Desai’s over-reliance on a geopolitical lens produces a relatively one-sided account of the ways in which capitalism forges distinct international regimes and ideological formations under a given set of historical conditions of possibility. Thus, Desai’s somewhat opaque reading of the international relations of capitalism clouds our understanding of what the current conjuncture might entail for any possible future beyond the social discipline of capital.

Historiography and narration in transnational history

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Christina L. Knudsen ◽  
Karen Gram-Skjoldager
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Sociology Of Knowledge ◽  
Transnational History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body

AbstractThe ‘transnational turn’ has been one of the most widely debated historiographical directions in the past decade or so. This article explores one of its landmark publications: The Palgrave dictionary of transnational history (2009), which presents around 400 entries on transnational history written by around 350 authors from some 25 countries. Drawing on narrative theory and the sociology of knowledge, the article develops an extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of the most prominent narrative structures that can be found across the Dictionary, thus piecing together a coherent historiographical portrait of the book's many and multifarious entries. In doing so the article wishes to demonstrate a possible methodology for analysing the growing body of reference works – in the form of dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and handbooks – that are currently mushrooming in expanding research areas across the social sciences and the humanities such as international relations, governance, and globalization studies.

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