Download LG601: International Relations Theory

LG601: International Relations
Theory
Dr Ken McDonagh
DCU
11.10.10
Overview:
• Two stories to tell?
• The case for scientific theory
– Rationalism and explanation
• The case for interpretive theories
– Reflectivism responds
• Still two stories to tell?
Explanation & Understanding:
two stories to tell?
• “To understand is to reproduce the order in the
minds of actors; to explain is to find causes in
the scientific manner” (Hollis & Smith, p87)
• Both allow for a degree of generalization
• Explanation restricts the model of research and
what counts as knowledge
– ‘if I can’t count it, it doesn’t exist’ – Geoff Evans
• Understanding is more expansive but can fall
down on giving an adequate causal account
Explanation: Positivism and the
Social Sciences
• Newton’s Mechanics
• System of Cause and effects
• The purpose of science is to uncover these
forces that produce effects
• Humean scepticism: observation and experience
– ‘Constant conjunctions’ rather than certainty of
causes
– Probabilistic model
• Explanation in the Social sciences seeks to
uncover these ‘causal’ forces
Is Science Science?
Criticisms of the Scientific model
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Kuhn (1970) - Paradigms
Feyeraband (1975) – Relativism
Lakatos (1980) – Research Programmes
Is Science about the world out there? Or is it a
projection of itself?
– WVO Quine – Dogmas of Empiricism
– Pickering Constructing Quarks
– One problem for ‘Scientific’ approaches to the Social
world is there isn’t a single model that can be adopted
from the Natural Sciences
Understanding:
• Max Weber: “The science of society attempts
the interpretative understanding of social action”
(1922)
• Verstehen (understanding)
• Social rules v Natural rules
• Two stories: The man with the umbrella
• Weber focuses on rationality of the individual
– Instrumental and Value-based
– Explanatory understanding:
• Historical, Sociological, Ideal-typical
Understanding:
• Peter Winch- To learn about world is to master
the relevant concepts
– To know ‘how to go on’
– Not referenced to an independent external reality as
such
– Different ‘worldviews’ produce different realities
– In a culturally diverse world, how can there be
universal causal laws?
• Hermeneutics, Post-positivism
The case for a scientific approach
• Bueno de Mesquita & the modest goals of rationalist
research
• Theories should be:
– Explicit
• Variables
• Assumptions
• Hypotheses
– Internally Consistent
• E.g. Morgenthau
– Parsimonious
– Judged based on their ability to account for variation in the
observable outcomes
– Falsifiable
The Rationalist Research
programe
• Keohane:
• Generalizations rather than ‘universal Laws’
• Verifiable body of knowledge
– Testable hypotheses
• Rationalist theory allows us to explain aspects of
international relations
• Institutions and practices – States, IO’s
• How and when is cooperation likely, effective,
inefficient?
• Neo-Realism, Neo-liberalism
The challenge to Reflectivism
• Reflectivists highlight ommissions in
Rationalist programmes
– But all theories are limited
• Lack of clear reflectivist research
programme
• Need for a-priori expectations, empirical
evidence, evaluation
• A synthesis may be possible, but only after
such work is done
Smith & the case for an Interpretive
approach
• Keohane – critique of early reflectivists – Ashley, Ruggie,
Alker
• Smith (2004) ‘Singing our world into existence’
• “I want to claim that the ways in which the discipline, our
discipline, not their discipline or the U.S. discipline,
constructs the categories of thought within which we
explain the world, helps to reinforce Western,
predominately U.S., practices of statecraft that
themselves reflect an underlying set of social forces. In
short, I aim to place on centre stage the relationship
between social power and questions of what, and how,
we study international relations.”
Singing our world into existence
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Ethics and theory
Power and knowledge
Critique of Keohane and Rational Choice
“My point is that the dominant method in the
dominant IR academic community is producing a
discipline that is marked by political assumptions
masquerading as technical ones.”
• Who defines the game, the actors, the
assumptions?
• Productive and efficient but to what effect?
Singing our world into existence
• Contrasts the violence of September 11th with
other forms of ‘structural violence’
– Poverty, disease, inequality,
• Why is one set of deaths significant?
• The essence of a reflectivist approach is
‘questioning the nature of representation’
• “We sing our worlds into existence, yet rarely
reflect on who wrote the words and the music,
and Singing Our World into Existence virtually
never listening out for, nor recognizing, voices
or worlds other than our own until they
occasionally force us into silence.”
The debate:
• “Reflective approaches are less well specified as
theories: their advocates have been more adept at
pointing out what is omitted in rationalistic theory than in
developing theories of their own with a-prior content”
(Keohane 1988)
• “So, as a start, let us ask the victims of world
politics to reinvent the future…The world they
would conceive would surely point to ‘justice as
fairness’ more closely than the world traditionally
described and explained by the academics of
the powerful. The victims of world politics would
indicate different anchorages from which to start
reinventing the future” (Booth 1995)
Still two stories to tell?
• What do the two approaches have in common:
• An interest in analysing the world around us
• An acknowledgement that we are limited in our
capacity to grasp that world in theoretical &
practical terms
• A readiness to base our ideas on our experience
of that world, although we disagree on the
reliability, nature and meaning of that experience
Still two stories to tell?
• Where do they disagree:
• The goal of theory:
– For explanatory theories, prediction or
accounting for variance in the dependent
variables
– For understanding theories, prediction is
neither a desirable nor an attainable goal due
to the open and malleable nature of social
reality
Questions:
• Why is the rationalist research programme
dominant?
• Can reflectivists meet the challenge as
Keohane defines it?
• Are all theories of the Social World ethical
by their nature?
• How can we judge between competing
theories?