Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
LG601 Political and International Theory Postpositivism 0 Overview Positivism: a critical review Positivism & postpositivism Explaining & Understanding How postpositivism is regarded (by a sub-sector) The Great Debates Marginalising postpositivism Postpositivism: postmodernists, poststructuralists, feminists, Critical Theorists (and some social constructivists) The researcher’s process Mapping understandings of knowledge Postpositivism: discourse theory and analysis as a method 1 Positivism – a critical review Smith argues that positivism is terribly ill-defined. There are three common ways of using the term in IR. The first use has characterised international relations although the overlap of usages is especially marked: 1 positivism is treated as the same thing as empiricism, each is seen as an epistemology (how we might know something about the world) 2 positivism is used in a methodological way, it is a set of rules for the practice of science or study 3 positivism is equated with behaviouralism, meaning a very restrictive reliance on quantitative data and a disregard for what goes on inside actors’ heads, as a basis for knowledge claims 2 Positivism and Post-positivism: concept of theory P&IR theories in positivism = empirical propositions that can be tested This empirical theory must be consistent with well-established knowledge in related fields of inquiry (unity of behavioural and natural sciences) Epistemology is key: scholars can make generalisations about the social world, including international relations, which are verifiable Theory=> hypotheses => test => eliminate => diverse tests => pass, modification or fail? Independent, dependent and intervening variables are specified, all of which are involved in explaining domestic and international politics In P&IR: Quantitative research/Rational Choice Theory: game theory (logical) Problem is that humans rarely conform to simple models of their behaviour. Models make reference to values, but overlook disagreements based on values 3 Positivism – a critical review Smith rejects Nicholson’s definition of positivism as epistemology (empiricism). Sees positivism as a methodological commitment, tied to an empiricist epistemology =>results in a very restricted range of permissible ontological claims. Empiricism underestimates the amount of theory involved in perception and observation Epistemology must be separated conceptually from ontology and methodology. Smith sees neither as prior => they are mutually and inextricably interrelated. The interrelationship of the epistemological, methodology and ontological entailments of positivism are ignored and most theorists are unaware of the consequences 4 Explaining and Understanding: key concepts Holism Cause External (material) structure Degrees of Determinism – constraints present Law-generating Individualism Meaning and Rules Social (and material) structure Degrees of determinism change possible Actor’s perspectives Theories of social action natural science approach Positivist interpretative approach Post positivist 5 Explaining and Understanding: Explaining “Explaining and Understanding” frames the positivist vs post-positivist debate Explaining: is an outsider’s story = the scientist explaining the natural world The human realm is treated as part of nature The social world is an independent and predictable environment Science says events are caused according to laws that determine under what conditions an event will occur, i.e. Similar events occur in similar conditions Those that explain differ to the degree to which they think similar effects always occur in similar conditions, i.e. weak or strong determinism Strong determinism suggests it makes no difference whether Obama or McCain is elected, US foreign policy behaviour will be the same – do you agree? Theories cast in terms of external structures and systematic forces are called ‘holist’ (meaning the parts of the whole behave as the whole requires) by Hollis and Smith in terms of the range of causal theories = they seek to explain 6 Explaining and Understanding: Understanding H&S: Considerations of meaning may take us beyond the scope of scientific method Can you make room for meaning by saying that human relations are a little more complex than other workings of nature? Can do one of two things: (1) put meaning aside and concentrate on behaviour because science must stick to what it can in principle be tested against experience and observation. => behaviouralism (2) make meaning central and construct a [scientific] method peculiar to the social world => hermeneutics/ interpretative tradition Action must always be understood from within e.g. winking, meaning of winker and interpretation of person being winked at vs causal laws that explain the mechanics of how winking biologically happens; causal laws of physical movement => Hermeneutic objection to behaviouralism 7 Postpositivism evaluated in IR Positivist empiricist epistemology has determined what could be studied in IR because it has determined what kinds of things existed in international relations Positivism is seen the gold standard by which to judge all newcomers. Positivists judge the worth of postpositivism on positivist grounds. The criteria favours rationalism and the very foundations of knowledge that postpositivists are challenging The debate between traditional and post-positivism theory is so important that it is defined as the third “discipline-defining debate” in international relations history 8 First 1900-1949 The “Great Debates”: Second 1950-1999 2000 - ? Methodological issues Methodological issues: ontological and epistemological Substantive issues What were the causes of World War I? What were the causes of World War II? How is it possible to achieve peace/prevent war? Third How can the politics/IR world be studied with methods of the natural science? How can facts and regularities be discovered? What is reality / how do we know what we know is real? Post-positivists: critical constructivists/postBehaviouralists /neorealists structuralists vs vs traditionalists positivists: neorealists/ neoliberals, conventional Liberal idealism vs Scientific approach vs law, constructivists realism history...perception/intuition Law, history Meta-theoretical, Explaining/predicting reality subjective/interpretative Normative/prescriptive objectively/rigorously using vs ‘objective’ scientific vs dangers of normative, (in)dependent variables. approach describing the reality of Using theory to better the world predict reality Theory - practice -‘reality’9 Marginalising postpositivism in IR Many scholars adopt strategies that marginalise critical scholarship Krause’s 4 mainstream methods to respond to critical scholarship: (1)cooptation – changing the label but not the focus of strategic studies to security studies (2) exclusion – not part of discipline if you don’t test theories (3) character assassination – e.g Walt, Keohane, realist conference attendees (4) definitional fiat –maintaining the ground rules for studying particular issues through tautological assertions that balancing or bandwagoning models account for centuries of interstate relations, which ignores how identities groups emerge, and the possibility that nationalism can be projected through prisms other than state relations etc 10 Postpositivism in IR New critical approaches to international theory have in common a rejection of the assumptions of positivism and their claims about knowledge/the world By ‘critical’ here is meant the work of post-modernists, Critical Theorists (in the Frankfurt School sense), feminist theorists and Poststructuralists The international world is an entirely humanly-constructed arrangement: approach required is different from natural science, needs to acknowledge that people conceive/construct/constitute the worlds they live in, including the international world Jackson and Sorensen classify critical theory, postmodernism and normative theory as post-positivist methodologies BUT no mention of poststructuralism, Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory or Derridian deconstruction – “postmodern deconstruction”? Postmodernists ≠poststructuralists Note: There is a difference when using the term critical theories (small ‘c’ and small ‘t’) which refer to a generic notion of all postpositivist approaches and Critical Theory (big C and big T) of Frankfurt School of Critical Theory 11 Postpositivist writers and premises Central tenet of postmodern work is to over throw all positivist positions on epistemology There are three writers that have helped in overthrowing the positivist epistemology: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. Foucault argues that academic discourses emerged not as a result of scholarly enquiry but as the direct consequence of power relations; “power/knowledge”; Derrida argues that reason is a product of specific cultural and historical setting of thinking and writing; the knower is always caught up in a language and mode of thinking which, far from interpreting a world, instead constructs it Rorty argues that the mind cannot mirror nature; what matters is the coherence of beliefs, so we should give up on the notion of truth and defend particular values 12 Postpositivism: POMO Approaches Postmodernism: ‘incredulity towards narratives’, i.e. theories of IR, etc. Main target is neorealism POMOs: • Deny the notion of objectivity, of human progress through enhanced knowledge • Sceptical of universal truths, deflates academic egos • Conform to academic conventions of intellectual enquiry; tendency to nihilism Moderate POMOs: theories have elements of subjectivity (our values/perspectives) and objectivity (agreement on substantial insights about what the real world is like) 13 Postpositivism: CT Approaches Critical Theory developed from Marxist thought; German group of scholars: Frankfurt School; work of Robert Cox and Andrew Linklater CT rejects three basic premises of positivism: (1) an objective, external (to the observer) reality (2) subject/object distinction (3) value-free social science Theory is always for someone and for some purpose; knowledge in IR is either positivist/problem-solving or critical/emancipatory: do you agree? Critical Theory: International system is a construct of the most powerful states • Focus on power and domination, not just states and state system • Seek to determine the political interests that IR theories/theorists serve • Seek to provide knowledge on human progress and possibilities for emancipation • Use theory to help bring about change; echoing the Idealists • Cannot escape one’s position 14 Postpositivism: NT Approaches Normative Theory is not post-positivist, it is ‘pre- and post-positivist’ NT addresses the ethical nature of relations between communities and states NT: • rejects premises of positivism because positivism does not normally consider moral decisions and dilemmas, which for NT, are the most important issues in IR • has a common thread with constructivism, sharing a focus on intersubjective meanings, ideas and beliefs • is another name for political theory or the moral philosophy of international relations 15 Postpositivism in IR: poststructuralist approaches Poststructuralism is a label applied to scholars by those people who don’t do poststructural work Poststructuralism‘s critical purpose is to destabilize truths, reveal their contingency and the nature of their production Poststructural work draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault Most of these scholars have not entered the broad church of Critical Security Studies, but their work inspires some members to engage in it Muttimer explains you can’t come up with a list of bullet points that inform poststructural work Instead he lists authors and texts that are cited as poststructural. e.g. Klein 1994 Strategic Studies and World Order and David Campbell, 1998 Writing Security 16 Postpositivism in IR: The Matrix Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about? …It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Neo: What truth? Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Morpheus: You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. 17 The researcher’s process… Research interest Ontology Literature Theoretical paradigm Research question Ontology Epistemology Method/approach Formal/statistical model Cognitive/discursive Critical Constructivism Epistemology Teaching Juppille points out that,is“different disciplines example, The term “paradigm” used in two different(for senses. On the one sociology, economics, political science) and subdisciplines (for hand, it stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, example, Comparative Politics and International Relations within techniques, andoften so onentail shareddifferent by the members of a of given political science) architectures inquiry. They provide On different sets itofdenotes receivedone wisdoms empirical community. the other, sort of(and element in that puzzles), leading suggested answers. that sense, constellation, thequestions concreteand puzzle-solutions which, In employed as while they are not usually recognised as such, disciplines and models orarguably, examples, replace explicit(emphasis rules as a basis for(2005: the subfields, arecan metatheoretical” added). solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science (Kuhn. 175). 211) Constructivism Anti-empirical Unobservable Immaterial Abstract Realism/Liberalism Empirical Observable Material Concrete Postpositivism: posties, pomos, feminists, social constructivists Poststructuralists, postmodernists, some feminists and social constructivists share certain theoretical commitments about how discourses work and that discursive studies of the knowledge/power nexus in IR = critical theorizing Reject positivist epistemology / challenge ‘scientism’ of mainstream IR BUT: Conventional social constructivists have distanced themselves from ‘postmodern’ constructivists - don’t want to be tarred with the same brush Critics argue that post/critical social constructivism is unusable because it cannot determine what is true and every result is one among many other possible stories about reality It is politically unusable because it cannot determine what is good/bad. When conditions are identified as needing change, it is just the constructivists’ expression of their own contingent views (See Houghton article) Critical methodology does not imply rejection of the idea that there are better or worse interpretations – only a rejection of the idea that these are arbitrated against some external ‘reality’ rather than against social actors’ understandings of their world 19 Research materials of discourse theory and analysis Discourse theorists use texts such as diplomatic documents, theory articles, transcripts of interviews as the main research materials Should look at a set of texts by different people presumed, according to the research focus, to be authorised speakers/writers of a dominant discourse The goal is to establish a particular discourse, to establish how the different texts overlap and the structure of meanings they share Identify the “space of objects” that are differentiated from, but related to each other Draw up a list of predications attaching to the subjects the text constructs and clarifying how these subjects are distinguished from and related to one another The USA vs Iraq in the second Gulf War Democratic Ideals Dictatorship Honest Subversive Protector Dangerous Legal Combatants Illegal Combatants 20 Mapping understandings of knowledge Behaviouralism Positivism Materialist: material object ‘out there’ Copenhagen School Stable: Enough to be ‘objective’ Conventional constructivism Contingent: Everything is subjective Critical Theory Critical Constructivism postmodernism Poststructuralism Discursive: constituted by language 21 Positivism and Post-positivism: Combining Approaches? Some scholars try to avoid the extreme positions on the positivist-postpositivist debate Seek out a middle ground between pure explaining and pure understanding Hollis and Smith argue that it is impossible to compare theories of IR because the theories define what is evidence in different ways – “there is no body of evidence that we could use to compare their explanations” (1990: 61) They have different analyses of human nature AND different ways to study it THEREFORE “there is no easy way to combine a natural science approach with an interpretative one” It is held by positivism that the theory appears to be consistent with the facts or inconsistent: BUT what if theory is involved in deciding what the facts are Weberian notion of social science advocates a science which attempts the interpretative understanding of social action to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects Understanding does not prevent scholars from proceeding to frame hypotheses to test empirical theories that seek to explain social phenomena: is it either/or, can it be both/and Some of the major debates in IR are about this issue: Do you think it is either/or or both/and? 22