International Relations Theories PDF

International Relations Theories New to this edition Updated chapters and case studies reﬂect new developments in world politics. A new chapter on critical theory expands coverage of a key school of thought. International Relations Theories Discipline and Diversity THIRD EDITION Edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2013 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First edition published 2007 Second edition published 2010 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978-0-19-969601-7 Printed in Italy by L.E.G.O. S.p.A—Lavis TN Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Preface Welcome to the third edition of International Relations Theories. The responses to the ﬁrst two editions have been overwhelmingly positive and so we have kept changes to this new edition to a minimum. We cover the same theoretical ground as in the previous edition except for one major change. In light of the fact that there has been some demand for a detailed run-through of the critical theoretical literature, we decided to devote an entire chapter to this important theoretical orientation in the discipline. The new chapter contribution on critical theory is written by Steven C. Roach. All the chapters have been updated to reﬂect recently published work and the cases have been revisited to include considerations of new developments in world politics. Rationale for the book Underpinning the ethos of the book are a number of thematics about theory and the nature of the discipline of International Relations (IR). When using this term, we are following the important convention that distinguishes between capital IR denoting the academic study of International Relations, and lower-case international relations which is shorthand for the object of the discipline’s investigations (the actors, interests, institutions, and identities on a global scale). This distinction enables us to examine the sociology of knowledge of IR as a discipline: how and when it became a distinct subject, what kinds of topics get taught, where the subject is studied, what kinds of research get funded. If we were to do away with the distinction, we would end up assuming that there is a direct read- across from the discipline to the interactions that constitute the real world of international relations. What thematics, then, underpin this book? We highlight seven as follows: 1. Theory is the discipline’s centre of gravity. Academic IR is a broad church. It includes a number of very active sub-ﬁelds, many of which are motivated by applied agendas. We would argue that the centre of gravity of the ﬁeld is IR theory (a point made by Ole Wæver in the concluding chapter). It is no coincidence that histories of the discipline tend to map directly onto the major theoretical contestations or debates. 2. Theory helps us to explain the world of international relations. All contributors agree that theory is central to explaining the dynamics of world politics, whether one is interested in regionalism, identity, security, or foreign policy. To put it more graphically, there is no hid- ing place from theory; there is no alternative but to engage with issues concerning causation, interpretation, judgement, and critique. The introduction and the opening chapter deal at some length with what theory is, how it is interpreted differently, and what is at stake in applying theory to the world. vi PREFACE 3. Theoretical diversity is to be valued. All books on IR theory include a variety of dif- ferent theoretical positions, particularly the historically dominant traditions of realism, liberalism, and Marxism: latterly, it is commonplace, especially in US-based scholarship, to include constructivism in the mix. We go much further in terms of defending diversity. To these four we have added the English school (resurgent in the last two decades), feminism, critical theory and poststructuralism (powerful critical voices since the 1980s), and two relatively recent theories in the form of postcolonialism and green theory. The order of the chapters proceeds along a continuum, from established at the beginning of the book to the newer theories at the end. This does not mean, however, that we believe the established traditions ought to be discounted for being ‘old’: indeed, the fact that we allocate two chapters to realism and neorealism, and liberalism and neoliberalism, underscores the importance we attach to these two rich theoretical perspectives as well as recognizing the presence of a signiﬁcant fault-line within each. 4. Theoretical diversity is contested. Related to the above, we are aware of the fact that the positive value we attach to theoretical diversity is not universally shared. Many established scholars think that the core of the discipline—the focus on inter-state dynam- ics of conﬂict and cooperation—is being undermined. We disagree. We think more is better, and that theoretical pluralism not only enables old issues to be addressed in new ways, but also opens up new agendas which speak more directly to changing threats and potentialities. As Steve Smith shows in his introduction, inside the thick walls of the acad- emy, this debate has generated a great deal of anxiety. Those committed to a particularly narrow concept of theory as a set of propositions formulated as testable hypotheses have unnecessarily sought to discipline diversity. 5. The limits to theoretical diversity. The book does not have a clear answer to the ques- tion whether there are limits to theoretical diversity. On the one hand, the arguments we advance for letting new voices be heard must be extended into the future. Yet on the other, we agree with Ole Wæver that theoretical innovation within existing perspectives is more likely (hence the proliferation of different ‘wings’ within each overarching theory, discussed in the chapters themselves). 6. Choosing between theories. Those who advocate theoretical diversity need to con- front the question—often posed by students—how to decide between them. The introduc- tion goes into this issue in some detail. At this stage we remind our readers that each contributor is defending his or her particularly theory. As Milja Kurki and Colin Wight put it in the ﬁrst chapter, it is important that we remember theorists are ‘selling’ their ideas. They may not always admit to the weaknesses in their own position, which is why it is important for ‘buyers’ to read the alternatives. 7. Diversity and the reinvention of the discipline. The penultimate chapter by Colin Hay differs from the previous fourteen chapters in that it is not ‘selling’ a particular IR theory in the same sense as the others. Instead, the reader will ﬁnd an analysis of the impact globalization is having on mainstream IR theories such as realism. Rather than concluding that changes in global politics have brought the legitimacy of the entire disci- pline into question, both Hay in Chapter 15 and Wæver in Chapter 16 recognize that there are powerful structures at work which will ensure the ongoing resilience of International Relations. PREFACE vii How to use the book We anticipate that students will read the book in different ways, and that course tutors will recommend the book for different purposes. With some certainty, we can predict that all IR theory courses will cover some of the ground contained in the volume. It is equally certain that only a few IR theory courses will cover all of the same ground. The book has been compiled in such a way that tutors and students can read chapters as though they are free-standing. However, for those courses that follow more closely the pro- gression established throughout, we anticipate that there will be a pay-off in terms of cumu- lative learning. We think this is particularly true in the case of the introduction and the two opening chapters which cover contextual issues to do with the relationship between IR theory, and the social sciences, and between IR theory and ethical inquiry. Furthermore, many similar themes are interwoven through various chapters—understanding construc- tivism is going to help the reader to comprehend what is meant by feminist constructivism in a later chapter. Each chapter has followed the same format, and incorporates many of the learning aids which have proved to be highly successful in companion volumes such as Baylis, Smith, and Owens (eds.), Globalization of World Politics, also published by Oxford University Press and in its ﬁfth edition. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Kirsty Reade our editor at Oxford University Press, and our previous editors Ruth Anderson and Nicki Sneath. Throughout the six-year lifespan of the book and its two previous editions they have been extremely positive about the book and their input has been invaluable. We would also like to thank Jodie Hobbs, an editorial assistant with the ﬁrst edition, and Madeleine Fagan who helped us compile a consolidated bibliography and the glossary for the second edition. Our ﬁnal debt is to our students. It would be unthinkable to be involved in a project of this kind without the shared experience of talking about theory to excited (and sometimes frus- trated) students. In a very particular sense, the three editors directly shared this experience in that Steve taught both Tim and Milja; the former at the University of East Anglia in the late 1980s and the latter at Aberystwyth in the early 2000s. This book will have succeeded if it can stimulate the minds of the next generation to engage critically with the ever-changing disci- pline of International Relations. Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, Steve Smith May 2012 Brief Contents Preface v Acknowledgements viii Detailed Contents xi About the Contributors xvii Guided Tour of Learning Features xx Guided Tour of the Online Resource Centre xxii Introduction: Diversity and Disciplinarity in International Relations Theory 1 Steve Smith 1 International Relations and Social Science 14 Milja Kurki and Colin Wight 2 Normative International Relations Theory 36 Toni Erskine 3 Classical Realism 59 Richard Ned Lebow 4 Structural Realism 77 John J. Mearsheimer 5 Liberalism 94 Bruce Russett 6 Neoliberalism 114 Jennifer Sterling-Folker 7 The English School 132 Tim Dunne 8 Marxism 153 Mark Rupert 9 Critical Theory 171 Steven C. Roach 10 Constructivism 187 K. M. Fierke 11 Feminism 205 J. Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg 12 Poststructuralism 223 David Campbell x BRIEF CONTENTS 13 Postcolonialism 247 Siba N. Grovogui 14 Green Theory 266 Robyn Eckersley 15 International Relations Theory and Globalization 287 Colin Hay 16 Still a Discipline After All These Debates? 306 Ole Wæver Bibliography 329 Glossary 351 Index 359 Detailed Contents Preface v Acknowledgements viii Brief Contents ix About the Contributors xvii Guided Tour of Learning Features xx Guided Tour of the Online Resource Centre xxii Introduction: Diversity and Disciplinarity in International Relations Theory 1 Steve Smith All these theories but the bodies keep piling up 4 What do the theories share? 8 Diversity and disciplinarity 9 1 International Relations and Social Science 14 Milja Kurki and Colin Wight Introduction 14 The philosophy of social science in IR: a historical overview 16 Science, the fourth debate and beyond 20 Exploring the key implications of meta-theoretical differences in IR theory 26 Conclusion 32 Questions 33 Further reading 33 2 Normative International Relations Theory 36 Toni Erskine Introduction 36 Normative IR theory: deﬁning a distinct ﬁeld of scholarship 38 Normative IR theory: exploring IR’s implicit ethical assumptions 46 Case study: duties to ‘enemies’ and civilian casualties in Iraq 49 Conclusion 54 Questions 55 xii DETAILED CONTENTS Further reading 56 Important websites 57 3 Classical Realism 59 Richard Ned Lebow Introduction 59 Classical realism on order and stability 61 Classical realism and change 67 Classical realism on the nature of theory 71 Case study: classical realist analysis of Iraq 72 Conclusion: the tragic vision 74 Questions 75 Further reading 76 Important website 76 4 Structural Realism 77 John J. Mearsheimer Introduction 77 Why do states want power? 78 How much power is enough? 80 What causes great power war? 84 Case study: can China rise peacefully? 88 Conclusion 91 Questions 91 Further reading 92 Important websites 93 5 Liberalism 94 Bruce Russett Introduction 94 Four big changes in the world 96 The ‘epidemiology’ of international conﬂict 98 Analysing the global experience of a century 103 Are democracies peaceful in general? 104 A self-perpetuating system? 105 Case study: the European Union 108 Promoting order in anarchy 109 Conclusion: power, hegemony, and liberalism 110 DETAILED CONTENTS xiii Questions 112 Further reading 112 Important websites 113 6 Neoliberalism 114 Jennifer Sterling-Folker Introduction 114 How did neoliberalism emerge? 115 What are the barriers to international cooperation? 118 How does neoliberalism study international institutions? 120 Case study: the World Trade Organization 126 Conclusion 129 Questions 130 Further reading 131 Important websites 131 7 The English School 132 Tim Dunne Introduction 132 The interpretive mode of inquiry 135 International society 138 International society: between system and world society 144 Case study: human rights 146 Conclusion 149 Questions 150 Further reading 150 Important websites 151 8 Marxism 153 Mark Rupert Introduction 153 Historical materialism and the meaning of dialectical theory 154 Western Marxism and Gramsci’s theory of hegemony 160 Global power and hegemony 162 Case study: from Bush to Obama—US global power as twenty-ﬁrst-century imperialism? 164 Conclusion 167 Questions 168 xiv DETAILED CONTENTS Further reading 168 Important websites 169 9 Critical Theory 171 Steven C. Roach Introduction 171 The Frankfurt School 172 Critical international relations theory 174 Later phase: universal morality and political economy 175 Empirical challenges and institutional norms 177 Case study: the Arab Spring 180 Critical security studies 182 Conclusion 183 Questions 184 Further reading 184 Important websites 185 10 Constructivism 187 K. M. Fierke Introduction 187 The social construction of reality 188 Constructivism and rationalism 189 Constructivism as middle ground 193 Consistent constructivism 196 Case study: the War on Terror 199 Conclusion 201 Questions 202 Further reading 203 Important websites 203 11 Feminism 205 J. Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg Introduction 205 Gender in IR 206 Typology of IR feminist theories 208 Gender, security, and global politics 212 Case study: UN sanctions on Iraq 215 Conclusion 219 Questions 220 DETAILED CONTENTS xv Further reading 220 Important websites 221 12 Poststructuralism 223 David Campbell Introduction 223 The interdisciplinary context of poststructuralism 227 The reaction of IR to poststructuralism 229 The critical attitude of poststructuralism 231 Understanding discourse 234 Discourses of world politics 236 Case study: images of humanitarian crises 239 Conclusion 243 Questions 244 Further reading 245 Important websites 246 13 Postcolonialism 247 Siba N. Grovogui Introduction 247 International morality and ethics 249 Orientalism and identities 252 Power and legitimacy in the international order 256 Case study: the Suez Canal Crisis 260 Conclusion 262 Questions 264 Further reading 265 14 Green Theory 266 Robyn Eckersley Introduction 266 The emergence of green theory 267 The transnational turn in green theory 270 The greening of IR theory 274 Case study: the challenge of climate change 278 Conclusion 281 Questions 283 Further reading 284 Important websites 285 xvi DETAILED CONTENTS 15 International Relations Theory and Globalization 287 Colin Hay Introduction 287 What’s at stake in the globalization debate? 288 The semantics of globalization 293 The empirics of globalization: its extent and consequences 297 Case study: from the welfare state to the competition state? 300 Conclusion 303 Questions 304 Further reading 304 Important websites 305 16 Still a Discipline After All These Debates? 306 Ole Wæver Introduction 306 The discipline question 308 What kind of discipline is International Relations? Changes in social structure 312 Changes in intellectual structure? The end of great debatism? 317 Speciﬁc theories—what axes of debate? 319 Conclusion: What are we doing? How are we doing? 323 Questions 325 Further reading 325 Bibliography 329 Glossary 351 Index 359 About the Contributors David Campbell is a writer and producer, specializing in photography, multimedia, and poli- tics. He is a member of the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies in the UK and Honorary Professor in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia, and has been the A. Lindsay O’Connor Professor in the Peace and Conﬂict Studies Program at Colgate University. He is the author/editor of six books and some ﬁfty articles and essays, most notably Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and Politics of Identity and National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia, both of which are published by the University of Minnesota Press, and writes a blog on photography, multimedia, and politics at www.david-campbell.org. Tim Dunne is Professor of International Relations and Director of Research of the Asia-Paciﬁc Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland. He is an editor of the European Journal of International Relations and has written and edited nine books, including Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order (co-edited with Ken Booth, 2002) and Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Issues (co-edited with Steve Smith and Amelia Hadﬁeld, 2008). Robyn Eckersley is Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Mel- bourne, Australia. She is the author of Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach (1992) and The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (2004), co-author of Special Responsibilities: Global Problems and American Power (2012) (with M. Bukovansky, I. Clark, I., R. Price, C. Reus-Smit, C., and N. Wheeler); co-author of Globalization and the Environment (2013) (with P. Christoff), and has edited six books, the most recent of which are Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge (with Andrew Dobson, 2006) and Why Human Security Matters: Rethinking Australian Foreign Policy (with D. Altman, J. Camilleri, and G. Hoffstaedter). Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK. She is also Honorary Professor of Global Ethics at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She is past Chair of the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association (2008–10), and was Lurie-Murdoch Senior Research Fellow in Global Ethics at RMIT University (2008–11) and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge University (1999–2002). Her recent publica- tions include Embedded Cosmopolitanism: Duties to Strangers and Enemies in a World of ‘Dis- located Communities’ (2008) and (edited with Richard Ned Lebow) Tragedy and International Relations (2012). She is currently working on a monograph entitled Locating Responsibility: Institutional Moral Agency and International Relations. K. M. Fierke is Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She has previously held positions at Queen’s University Belfast; Nufﬁeld College, Oxford University; and Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam. She is the author of: Critical Approaches to International Security (2007); Diplomatic Interventions: Conﬂict and Change in a Globalizing World (2005); Changing Games, Changing Strategies: Critical Investigations in Security (1998); Political Self-Sacriﬁce: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations (forth- coming); as well as co-editor of Constructing International Relations: The Next Generation (2001). Siba N. Grovogui is Professor of International Relations Theory and International Law at The Johns Hopkins University. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is the author of Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-Determination in Inter- national Law (1996) and Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and xviii ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Institutions (2006). Grovogui is currently completing manuscripts on human rights and on the genealogy of the ‘international’. He is also collaborating on an NSF-funded research project on the rule of law under a World Bank-initiated experiment in Chad around an oil and pipeline development project. Colin Hay is Professor of Political Analysis at the University of Shefﬁeld where he is founding co- director of the Shefﬁeld Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). He has held visiting posts at Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Manchester. He is the author, co-author, or edi- tor of a number of books. These include: The Political Economy of European Welfare Capitalism (2012); The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (2009); Why We Hate Politics (2007, winner of the WJM Mackenzie Prize); European Politics (2007); The State: Theories and Issues (2006); Political Analysis (2002); British Politics Today (2002); Demystifying Globalization (2000); The Political Econ- omy of New Labour (1999); and Re-stating Social and Political Change (1996, winner of the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize). He is co-founder and co-editor of the journals Comparative European Politics and British Politics, and lead editor of New Political Economy. Milja Kurki is Professor in International Relations theory at Aberystwyth University. She is the author of Causation in International Relations (2008) and Democratic Futures (forthcoming) and the co-editor of Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion (2011). She is an associate editor of International Relations and currently the Principal Investigator of a European Research Council- funded project on theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of democracy promotion, entitled ‘Political Economics of Democratisation’. Richard Ned Lebow is Professor of International Political Theory at King’s College London and a Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is also James O. Freedman Presidential Profes- sor Emeritus at Dartmouth College. His most recent books are The Politics and Ethics of Iden- tity: In Search of Ourselves (2012) and, co-edited with Toni Erskine, Tragedy and International Relations (2012). John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Sci- ence at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He has published ﬁve books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr. Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt); and Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics (2011). He has also written many arti- cles for academic journals such as International Security, and popular magazines such as Foreign Policy and the London Review of Books. Steven C. Roach is an Associate Professor of International Politics in the Department of Govern- ment and International Affairs at the University of South Florida. Among his most recent books are: Critical Theory of International Politics: Complementarity, Justice and Governance (2010); Governance, Order and the International Criminal Court: Between Realpolitik and a Cosmopolitan Court (2009); Critical Theory and International Relations: A Reader (2008); and International Relations: The Key Concepts (with Martin Grifﬁths and Terry O’Callaghan, 2008). Mark Rupert is Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and teaches in the areas of International Relations and political economy. Mark’s research focuses on the intersection of the US political economy with global structures and processes. He is the author of Producing Hegemony (1995); Ideologies of Globali- zation (2000); and Globalization and International Political Economy (with Scott Solomon, 2005). Bruce Russett is Dean Acheson Research Professor of International Politics at Yale University. He received his BA in political economy from Williams College in 1956, a Diploma in Economics ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS xix from King’s College, Cambridge in 1957, and a PhD from Yale in 1961, as well as honorary doctorates from Uppsala University in 2002 and Williams College in 2011. He has also held appointments at Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Michigan, North Carolina, the Free University of Brussels, the Richardson Institute in London, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Tel Aviv, and Tokyo University Law School. Laura Sjoberg is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. She is author of Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006); Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics (with Caron Gentry, 2007); and Gendering Global Conﬂict: Towards a Feminist Theory of War (forthcoming). She is currently editor of the International Feminist Journal of Poli- tics, and has edited several books and special issues, including, most recently, The State of Femi- nist Security Studies: A Conversation (in the December 2012 issue of Politics and Gender, with Jennifer Lobasz). Her work has been published in more than two dozen political science and International Relations journals, and she currently serves as the chair of the International Stud- ies Association Committee on the Status of Women. Steve Smith is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter and Professor of International Relations. He has written or edited ﬁfteen books. His most widely read work is Explaining and Understanding International Relations (co-authored with the late Professor Martin Hollis). He was the editor of the prestigious Cambridge University Press/British International Studies Association series from 1986 to 2005. In 2003–4 he was President of the International Studies Association. He is an Academician of the Social Sciences (AcSS). Jennifer Sterling-Folker is Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Her books include Theories of Cooperation and the Primacy of Anarchy and the edited volume Making Sense of International Relations Theory. She is the author of articles and book chap- ters on a variety of theoretical subjects including constructivism, neoclassical realism, global governance, and identity politics in China–Taiwan relations. She is co-editor of the BISA journal, Review of International Studies. J. Ann Tickner is Professor Emerita, University of Southern California. She is the author of Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (1992) and Gender- ing World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era (2001). Her work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, International Political Science Review, and Millennium. She was President of the International Studies Association in 2006–7. Ole Wæver is Professor of International Relations at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Centre for Advanced Security Theory. He has written or edited twenty books and pub- lished in international journals such as Journal of Peace Research, International Affairs, Cooperation and Conﬂict, Journal of International Affairs, Journal of Common Market Studies, Review of Inter- national Studies, International Organization, and Millennium. His most recent books are Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (with Barry Buzan, 2003), 10x10 (ed. with Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Ole Dahl Rasmussen, 2007), and International Relations Scholarship around the World (edited with Arlene B. Tickner, 2009). Colin Wight is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sydney. Prior to this he worked at the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth, the Department of Politics in Shefﬁeld, and the University of Exeter. He is the author of Agents, Structures and International Relations (2006). He is currently Editor in Chief of the European Journal of International Relations. He has published articles in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Political Studies, and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Guided Tour of Learning Features This text is enriched with a range of learning tools to help you navigate the text material and reinforce your knowledge of International Relations theory. This guided tour shows you how to get the most out of your textbook package and do better in your studies. Reader’s Guides Reader’s Guide This chapter addresses how critical international theory h Reader’s Guides at the beginning of every chapter set ﬁrst assessing the ideas of Frankfurt School theorists, it the scene for upcoming themes and issues to be School’s critiques of authoritarianism and repression hav early and later critical International Relations (IR) theorists. discussed, and indicate the scope of coverage within gence and the features of the various strands of critical in each chapter. normative and political economy theory. The former str i li i fd l i d l i H b ’ Analysis International morality and ethics The main section of the chapter, where contributors Postcolonialism associates the development of int examine the deﬁning ideas of the theory in question, political economies with speciﬁc kinds of violenc as well as the central fault-lines within each position. association is not new; nor does it imply that one shou In the ﬁrst instance, postcolonial critics ﬁnd inspiration ethical, and moral thinkers worldwide who believe ‘b h h d’ b d i i i b h Case Studies Case study: from Bush to Obama—US globa twenty-ﬁrst-century imperialism? Students frequently point to the abstract nature of In a series of important books, realist scholar Andrew Bacev a great deal of theoretical discussion. While this text suggested that the very nature of the US state and the ways maintains that certain philosophical issues should not shaped by two inter-related historical processes: the deep em American culture, and a corresponding drive to sustain glob be sidelined, it also recognizes the value of showing privileged access to the world’s goods, energy, and credit. W the application of theory to concrete political problems. The case studies will facilitate class discussion and debate and help you to bridge theory and practice in your assessments. Featured Book/Articles Featured book Spotlights on key books or articles introduce you to Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and prominent works in the ﬁeld and expand your Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations, ﬁrst published in lifetime. It was the principal IR text in North American from knowledge of the available literature. generations of American college students were taught the p power and the balance of power as guarantees of security. T M h i P li i A N i 1) h GUIDED TOUR OF LEARNING FEATURES xxi Questions Questions A set of carefully devised questions has been provided 1. What are the core criticisms made by the ﬁrst wav to help you assess your comprehension of core socialist theories? Is green political theory modernis themes, and may also be used as the basis of seminar 2. What is the cause of the ecological blindness of trad 3. In what ways has the second wave of green political discussion and coursework. 4. Why are green IR theorists critical of dominant dis lo ic l od r i tio ? Wh t lt r ti s do th Further Reading Further reading To take your learning further, reading lists have been Buzan, B., Held, D., and McGrew, A. (1998), ‘Realism ve provided as a guide to ﬁnding out more about the International Studies, 24: 387–98. A fascinating exchange about the consequences of glob issues raised within each chapter topic and to help a (qualiﬁed) realism and the key proponent of cosmopo you locate the key academic literature in the ﬁeld. Cerny, P. G. (1997), ‘Paradoxes of the Competition Stat Government and Opposition, 32/1: 251–74. Important Websites Important websites At the end of most chapters you will ﬁnd an Council of Women World Leaders. www.womenworldl annotated summary of useful websites to guide WomanSTATS Project. www.womanstats.org further research into International Relations. UN Division for the Advancement of Women. www.un.o Women in International Security. wiis.georgetown.edu MADRE, an international women’s human rights organiz Gl b l F df W l b lf df Glossary Terms article remains the most inﬂuential application of Habermas’s di it involve the formulation of the logic of communication to bridg approaches, but it also develops the discursive elements of c Key terms are bold-faced in the text and deﬁned in argumentation, and reasoning within the context of the dec a glossary at the end of the book to aid exam revision. international institutions, including international law, diplomac (see Price and Reus-Smith 1998). In this way, Risse is able to expli of anarchy as a ‘thin lifeworld’ (a repository of interest and value social context of state action) and the discursive requirements for in the decision-making processes of international institutions. Guided Tour of the Online Resource Centre The Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book provides students and instructors with ready-to-use teaching and learning materials. These resources are free of charge and designed to maximize the learning experience. www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/dunne3e/ Revision Guide Key points that summarize the most important arguments developed within each chapter topic. GUIDED TOUR OF THE ONLINE RESOURCE CENTRE xxiii Important Websites Annotated web links, organized by issue area, have been provided to point you in the direction of different theoretical debates, important treaties, working papers, articles, and other relevant sources of information. Flashcard Glossary A series of interactive ﬂashcards containing key terms and concepts has been provided to test your understanding of International Relations theory terminology. PowerPoint Slides These complement each chapter of the book and are a useful resource for preparing lectures and handouts. They allow lecturers to guide students through the key concepts and can be fully customized to meet the needs of the course. This page intentionally left blank Introduction: Diversity and Disciplinarity in International Relations Theory STEVE SMITH All these theories but the bodies keep piling up 4 What do the theories share? 8 Diversity and disciplinarity 9 The study of international relations has classically focused on the analysis of the causes of war and the conditions of peace. Such an agenda seemed particularly pertinent in the twentieth century in the aftermath of two World Wars. Study of the use of force continues to motivate International Relations (IR) scholars and students even now as we move well into the second decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century. For example, the question of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the 2011 Libya intervention continues to open up ﬁssures between governments and within civil societies, just as the 2003 Iraq war did previously. Various narratives exploring the motivations for and the conditioning factors leading to such military interventions are put forward. One narrative argues that states have a right to ﬁght preventive wars against those who could pose a mortal threat to them if they are allowed to build-up their military power unchecked—a claim forcefully made by the George W. Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks on the USA. Another narrative argues that states have a duty to ﬁght humanitarian wars to protect civilians at risk of (or experiencing) egregious atrocity being committed. Both kids of ‘war talk’ have been heard since the turn of the century. Yet, set against these contending justiﬁcations for the use of force, we should also bear in mind the objections to both pre-emption and humanitarian intervention. Indeed, objections to both kinds of warfare converge on one key point: whether justiﬁed by fear or by a sense of moral duty, interventions are ‘really’ about furthering the national interests of those great powers doing the intervening. The causes of war and the justiﬁcations for intervention are not the only questions of con- cern, nor the only divisive questions, in the study of international relations today. Different kinds of questions have increasingly puzzled contemporary students and researchers of international relations, questions such as: 2 STEVE SMITH Are cooperative relations between competing hegemonic states, such as the USA and China? What role can international institutions play today in altering the preferences of powerful international actors? How are global power relations to be identiﬁed and where, and with whom, does power lie in world politics? What are the limits and possibilities of progress in tackling urgent world political problems, from poverty to the threat or experience of chronic insecurity, and from terrorism to climate change? This book is explicitly aimed at helping you think through such questions—both traditional questions concerning the causes or war and wider emerging questions in world politics. But why should we concern ourselves with theory when we deal with such questions? At ﬁrst sight, you might think that surely we do not need theory to answer them: we just go and ask world political actors why they do what they do, how they intend to act, and what they think will happen in the future. Thus we can dispense with academic theories. There are at least two main problems with this position: the ﬁrst, and less important one, is that such a position requires us to believe what world leaders said in reply to our questions. Maybe, for example, state leaders lie about the reasons for going to war. Or maybe American or Chinese administrations will not be entirely forthcoming in their strategic thinking. Per- haps not all international actors reveal their hand when they claim to do their utmost to tackle climate change. Therefore, we might not get to the ‘real’ reason for international behaviour simply by relying on the explanations given by leaders. The second, and more fundamental, problem in taking the views of actors at face value is that the world is rarely so simple that people can be completely aware of why they are acting in certain ways. Perhaps George W. Bush or Tony Blair, when deciding to go to war in Iraq, were looking for evidence of a clear and present danger to justify a feeling about what was ‘right’. Perhaps those advocating decisive military action against Colonel Gaddaﬁ genuinely thought their motivations were strictly humanitarian. Like all of us, they could not be entirely aware of the many reasons, personal and political, that triggered the particular course of action. The same goes for other state actors: not only may the US or China not want to expose all of their reasons for speciﬁc actions in public, but also, they may not be entirely sure why they hold particular views of their adversaries, nor why particular patterns of interactions have been resorted to. Also, many international actors may be quite unaware of the ways in which their thought and policy is already shaped by particular ideological or moral commitments, thus excluding from view other ways of coming at global interactions and problems. Thus, while global corporations tackle climate change, they may do so in good faith but yet remain unconscious of the ways in which particular assumptions about market efﬁciency and the imperative for economic growth limits their ability to advance the kind of changes needed to tackle the problem. It seems then that we need to locate the ‘reasons’ actors have for their actions in wider contexts, ones that the actors themselves may not even recognize. Both of these objections place us immediately in the realm of theory, since we have to make assumptions about actors’ behaviour and the extent to which they are either being truthful about their reasons or fully aware of the context within which they are acting. INTRODUCTION 3 This position could strike some readers as a bit harsh, since they might argue that surely world political actors know exactly what they are doing. My simple response is to ask each reader to think through their own behaviour: why is it that we feel what we feel, think what we think, say what we say, and do what we do? We know that in fact we are often not sure of our reasons, and sometimes catch a glimpse of ourselves acting in accordance with what is fashionable or what is consistent with a particular rationale which we hope will be publicly acceptable. In short, in the social world it is not enough simply to base our accounts of individuals solely on the reasons they give for their actions. The social world is one in which individuals exist within powerful economic, political, social, gendered, racial, linguistic, and moral structures. We might be able to describe action fairly easily (Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he supported the US President in going to war against Iraq), but it is far more difﬁcult to explain it (why was the action undertaken?). And, when it comes to explaining action, we are, whether we like it or not, in the realm of theory. Theories offer accounts of why things happened, and the fact that they offer a wide range of reasons for action reﬂects the fact that they have very different assumptions. Hence, you will get very different answers to world political puzzles and problems from the different theories represented in this book. In fact, if you were to ask each of the authors of the chap- ters what they think of any global confrontation whether it is the so-called global war on terror, or the challenge of China’s rise, or the battle against climate change, I suspect that you would get distinctly different answers from each advocate. Some of the differences would result from the fact that the authors focused on different aspects of world politics: some might focus on political economy issues; others might look at the role of international law and institutions; others might concentrate on notions of maximizing power; while others still would see world political problems as sites where unequal identities are constructed so as to reinforce power structures. Yet other differences would be because the authors saw the world in very different ways from one another: some would see a world of power and secu- rity; others would see a world of meaning and community; while others still would see a world of economic forces capturing political actors. These differences sometimes worry students new to the discipline of IR, since they expect some kind of ‘right’ answer, and are often frustrated when teachers of the subject keep refer- ring them back to a range of theories, each of which has a different take on the question. In my view, this is an absolutely central issue, and I hope in this introduction to show why, in the case of the social world, it is indeed interpretation all the way down. To be completely clear from the outset, I do not think that we can evaluate accounts of why people act as they do in a way that leads to one deﬁnitive story; in the social world there is always more than one story to tell. In this introduction I want to do three main things. First I want to explain why we (the three editors) have chosen to cover the theories that we have, and to say something about our view of international theory and its relationship to the world, an important issue which fea- tures prominently in the text through the use of case study analysis. Second, I want to look at the kind of assumptions about theory that underlie each of the approaches. Finally, I want to discuss explicitly the issue of how one might make a choice between the rival theories cov- ered in this book. 4 STEVE SMITH All these theories but the bodies keep piling up1 The book includes eight chapters on distinct theories of International Relations (IR), with two positions being divided across classical and neo-variants: realism/structural realism, liberalism/neoliberalism, the English school, constructivism, Marxism, critical theory, feminism, poststructuralism, green theory, and postcolonialism. These eight theoretical accounts stand alongside chapters that reﬂect on IR theory and its relationship to social science, normative theory, globalization, and the discipline’s identity. The existence of so many theories of IR does lead to one obvious query: why is there such a range of contending positions? In the history of the discipline of IR there have always been debates between competing theories. Kurki and Wight cover the history of these debates in Chapter 1, so I am not going to rehearse them here: sufﬁce it to state that from the earliest days of its existence as a discipline, the main debate has been between forms of realism and liberalism. In recent years this debate has been between versions of realism and liberalism known as neorealism and neoliberalism. Although there are clear linkages between classical and ‘neo’ variants, we allocated them separate chapters because we think that the later versions contain distinctly different assumptions about the nature of theory. Marxism has been the other main approach to studying international relations, and by the 1980s it was commonplace to speak of the three approaches (realism, liberalism, and Marxism) as constituting an ‘interparadigm debate’. This is how most of the textbooks of the 1980s and 1990s represented international theory and, as a consequence, this is how theory was taught. From the vantage point of today, it seems that there were a number of problems with this way of thinking about IR theory. First, it exaggerated the amount of debate: what actually happened was that realism dominated the discipline given that it claimed to explain the bipolar structure of the international system, while liberalism was able to cover secondary issues to do with institutions and trade, with Marxism being invoked to explain relative eco- nomic power and structural inequality. This notion of an interparadigm debate hinted at a kind of intellectual pluralism, whereby there was a level playing ﬁeld on which the theories competed. Yet, the priority accorded to explaining the military confrontation enabled real- ism to assume primacy. The key point to note is the power of assumptions about ‘what’ the world of international relations consisted of in determining the explanatory power of the rival theories. Thus, since international relations was deﬁned as being about war, the theory that would appear to be most useful in explaining it, not surprisingly, would be the one that focused on war. I am not saying that war is not a feature of world politics, only that the domi- nance of realism and neorealism reﬂected often implicit, unstated, ‘common-sense’ assump- tions about the content of world politics. But it was another problem that caused most reﬂection among those who felt uneasy at the notion of intellectual pluralism implied by the idea of an interparadigm debate. The phrase suggested that the three approaches were all vying for attention in terms of their abil- ity to explain the same world. The rather unsettling worry was that the three approaches were actually focusing on rather different features of international relations, and thus they were not in debate at all; what they disagreed about was which events should be the focus of the discipline. Thus, whereas realism might focus on the Cold War, liberalism might concen- trate on international economic relations between the leading capitalist economies, and INTRODUCTION 5 Marxism might stress the patterns of world trade and investment that create divisions between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. If you accept this argument, then it follows that the dominance of one theory is the result of a prior assumption about the main things in world politics that need explaining. This leads to a rather destabilizing thought, which is that some- thing as seemingly ‘academic’ and ‘non-political’ as deciding which theory is of most help in explaining international relations might in fact be a very political act, because which theory you see as being the most useful will depend on what you want to explain, and this, in turn, will depend on your values and beliefs about what international relations is all about. Put very simply, if you live in a wealthy part of the world, where there are no apparent military threats, you might think that the key features to be explained are those concerned with the economic relations between the main wealthy powers. If you live in a conﬂict zone, where the survival of your society is at issue, you might well want a theory that explains conﬂict. Finally, if you are in a very poor part of the world, you may see the central features of world politics as those related to the creation and support of differences between national levels of wealth. This sense of dissatisfaction with the comforting notion of an interparadigm debate led to what many have called the fourth great debate in IR, between what can broadly be called rationalist and reﬂectivist theories. This debate was launched by Robert Keohane in his 1988 International Studies Association (ISA) presidential debate, and referred to the tensions then emerging between rationalist approaches, such as neorealism and neoliberalism, on the one hand and reﬂectivist approaches, such as feminism and poststructuralism, on the other. To simplify things a bit, the chapters in this book dealing with neorealism and neolib- eralism would be seen by Keohane as rationalist, whereas most of the others, with two main exceptions, would be seen by him as reﬂectivist; the exceptions would perhaps be construc- tivism, normative theory, and the English school, all of which can best be understood as overlapping the rationalist/reﬂectivist divide (see individual chapters for details on how). The key difference between rationalist and reﬂectivist approaches is that, broadly speaking, rationalist accounts are positivist, whereas reﬂectivist approaches oppose positivism. Again, the Kurki and Wight chapter discusses this distinction in detail; for now it is enough to note that the central differences between rationalist and reﬂectivist accounts are epistemological and methodological, and only secondarily about what the world is like (ontology). That is to say that the fourth debate is one about how we know what we claim to know. In this impor- tant sense, the main dividing line between the signiﬁcant theories of IR for the last two decades has been their attitude towards positivist accounts of knowledge. Since the interparadigm debate of the 1980s, there has been an explosion of theories about international relations. Most of these theories have opposed the dominance of rationalist approaches (neorealism and neoliberalism), primarily on epistemological grounds. Rational- ist theories accept a notion of foundationalism, whereby there are secure grounds for making knowledge claims about a world that is separate from the theories commenting on it. Rationalist theories sometimes claim that their accounts are more accurate than others because, due to their systematic scientiﬁc approach, they can capture the essence of the way the world is in an empirically justiﬁable way. By way of contrast, reﬂectivist approaches do not share a commitment to the form of foundational positivism found in rationalist approaches. This has caused a signiﬁcant problem for reﬂectivist approaches, because they have been dismissed by leading rationalist scholars for not being legitimate social science. 6 STEVE SMITH Keohane made this point in his ISA presidential address: he claimed that reﬂectivism’s main weakness was the lack of a research programme: Until the reﬂective scholars or others sympathetic to their arguments have delineated such a research program and shown in particular studies that it can illuminate important issues in world politics, they will remain on the margins of the field, largely invisible to the preponderance of empirical researchers, most of whom explicitly or implicitly accept one or another version of rationalistic premises. Keohane 1989: 173 What was needed, he went on to add, was for reﬂectivist scholars to develop ‘testable theories’ without which ‘it will be impossible to evaluate their research programme’ (1989: 173–4). More recently, Stephen Walt, in a highly inﬂuential review of the state of IR theory, argues that although the key debate has been, and continues to be, that between realism and liberalism, there is a third approach which he sees as the main alternative to these two. But for Walt this alternative approach is not one of the main reﬂectivist approaches; instead it is constructivism, which concedes a great deal of philosophical ground to rationalism. But he goes further than this: Walt explicitly rejects reﬂectivism ‘because these scholars focused initially on criticizing the mainstream paradigms but did not offer positive alterna- tives to them, they remained a self-consciously dissident minority for most of the 1980s’ (1998: 32). Walt sets out the main features of these three ‘paradigms’ (realism, liberalism, and con- structivism) in a ﬁgure representing a classical Greco-Roman building with three pillars. Under the heading of constructivism he lists its ‘unit of analysis’ as ‘individuals’ and its ‘main instruments’ as ‘ideas and discourse’. Its ‘main limitation’ is that it is ‘better at describing the past than anticipating the future’. It is not just that this is a very thin account of constructivism but also that constructivism is portrayed as the only approach that deals with ideas, dis- course, and identities, which a variety of reﬂectivist theorists would see as their core concerns. Not only does Stephen Walt effectively silence more radical theoretical approaches, he understates the value of constructivism. This is evident in his belief that ‘the “compleat diplo- mat” of the future should remain cognizant of realism’s emphasis on the inescapable role of power, keep liberalism’s awareness of domestic forces in mind, and occasionally reﬂect on constructivism’s vision of change’ (1998: 44). By way of contrast, Walt argues that ‘realism is likely to remain the single most useful instrument in our intellectual toolbox’ (1998: 43). The current situation is one where there is a wide range of theories of IR. It is very impor- tant to stress that while some of these are trying to explain the same features of world politics, others are focusing on very different aspects. The problem is that many of the mainstream (rationalist) theorists deny the legitimacy of both sets of alternative theories. Those that are offering competing accounts of the same phenomena are usually deemed illegitimate, as not being ‘proper’ social science, while those focusing on other features of world politics (such as poverty, gender, race, international law, the environment, etc.) are dismissed as not dealing with the most important features of world politics (usually deﬁned as inter-state war). In an important respect, the dismissal of work as illegitimate (in terms of epistemology) is in many ways more insidious than a dismissal on the grounds that the INTRODUCTION 7 features focused on (that is to say, on grounds of ontology) are not central to international relations. None of this means that the traditionally dominant mainstream approaches are out- dated or peripheral to an explanation of international relations. Indeed, by giving each of the historically dominant traditions two chapters, we hope that we have made clear the importance that we place on these theories. In our view, they are absolutely central to explaining international relations but, equally importantly, we do not feel that they are sufﬁcient on their own. We believe that there are other accounts that explain areas of inter- national relations, and we feel that our job as editors is to offer as wide a range of accounts as possible in this book. We believe that the reader needs to understand both that the historically dominant approaches are vitally important for an understanding of interna- tional relations, and that these need to be complemented by other accounts that are equally legitimate. Some established scholars in the discipline, such as Kal Holsti, regret this proliferation of theories, and the disappearance of a discrete ﬁeld of inquiry. As he puts it: It is hard to say that there is any longer a particular core to the ﬁeld.... Our ﬁeld should be basically concerned with the relations between states, and relations between societies and non- state actors to the extent that those relations impinge upon and affect the relations between states. When we go far beyond these domains, we get into areas of sociology, anthropology, and social psychology that are best dealt with by people in those disciplines. Holsti 2002: 621 He adds: I am somewhat concerned that too many people may be spending time discussing great issues of epistemology and metaphysics... But beyond a certain point... concern with epistemology may lead us to lose sight of the subject matter. The greatest texts of our ﬁeld were written by those who were deeply immersed in the subject, and not by epistemologists. Holsti 2002: 623 We disagree with Holsti. We believe that the ﬁeld is now much healthier because of the proliferation of theories. Not only has this resulted in a signiﬁcant rethink about what the ﬁeld consists of, it has also led to a questioning of the main assumptions of the ontology and epistemology of the discipline. Together we see these developments as opening up space for much more debate, and, crucially, to legitimize a wider variety of theories. On the one hand, then, the range of theories allows us to think about more aspects of international relations than before, and because they are often based on epistemological positions far removed from positivism they also allow us to reﬂect on just how we think about the world. This widening of theories has been achieved in part by a much closer engagement with other social sciences, so that sociological or anthropological accounts of international relations are every bit as worthy as conventional political or economic accounts. We see this situation as better than that of most of the last century, when one theory (realism) dominated the discipline, and one view of knowledge construction (positivism) reigned supreme. But, of course, there is no denying that this plurality of approaches does raise some signiﬁcant problems, most obviously how to choose between theories. 8 STEVE SMITH What do the theories share? Despite the very signiﬁcant differences between the theories dealt with in this book, it is important to note that they share three signiﬁcant assumptions. First, and chief among these, is their shared commitment to the importance of theory in understanding the world. In direct contrast to those who see theory as irrelevant or optional, all the authors in this book think that theory is central to explaining international relations. We need to stress the importance of this assumption, since many continue to believe that theory merely gets in the way of understanding the world, and at worst is simply a way of making things more complicated than they really are. In our view, the option of non-theoretical accounts of the world is simply not available. All observation of international relations has to be carried out in the language of some theory or other. The choice, then, is one of whether you are aware of the assumptions you are bringing to your study of the world or not. Indeed, texts that begin by saying that they are only looking at ‘the facts’ are theoretically laden: this is because what counts as ‘the facts’ is either something that is explicitly linked to a theory, or is instead the result of powerful and unstated assumptions. Second, all the theories have a history, though not always within the discipline of IR. These histories mean that comparing theories is not easy, since they emerge from very different intellectual traditions. Therefore many of the chapters use the word ‘theory’ in speciﬁc ways: we need to stress this to the reader, since the different usage results directly from the historical and intellectual heritage of each approach. Thus, the chapters on feminism, poststructural- ism, green theory, and postcolonialism are developed from work that has mainly appeared in other academic disciplines, mostly in the last ﬁfty years. By way of contrast, the chapters on classical realism, liberalism, Marxism and critical theory, and the English school are each referring to a long-standing approach that goes back much further, in most cases at least a century. The debates on social science and international political theory—discussed in the ﬁrst two chapters—also have a long history, if not explicitly within the conﬁnes of IR theory but rather within the disciplines of philosophy or political theory and ethics. Finally, the chapters on neorealism, neoliberalism, constructivism, and the effects of globalization are all focused on the main theoretical developments in IR over the last twenty years. Third, each of the chapters makes claims about the linkages between theory and practice, though, again, they do this in a variety of ways. Some of the chapters that follow treat theory as something akin to a toolkit, whereby the reader can, by understanding certain key concepts, apply them to the world and thereby understand it better. The four chapters on classical real- ism, classical liberalism, neorealism, and neoliberalism are good examples of this notion of theory. Other chapters present theory as something that critiques the existing dominant order and offers ways of emancipating individuals from that order: the chapters on green theory, Marxism, critical theory, and postcolonialism are good examples of this version of theory. Still other chapters, such as those on feminism, poststructuralism, international political theory, the English school, globalization, and constructivism, are more concerned with what gets pre- sented as the core issues represented in the discipline, and how they relate to identity. Thus, the theories we cover in this book offer a variety of ways of approaching the relationship between theory and practice: the range varies from helpful toolkit all the way through to human eman- cipation, and this, again, raises the question: what is the role of theory? INTRODUCTION 9 For most of its history as a separate discipline, IR has been dominated by one speciﬁc answer to this question, which is that theory has the role of explaining the world. That is to say that the job of theories is to report on the world—this is very much the ‘toolkit’ model of the- ory. According to this view, theories are devices to explain a world that exists apart from them. Such a belief was a very strong assumption of positivism. This view of theory is known as an ‘explanatory’ view. It means that theories explain a world that is ‘out there’, and explaining it means making sense of it. But there is another view of theory which is that theories ‘constitute’ the world that they are explaining. By this we mean only that theories can never be separate from the world, they are an intrinsic part of it. Therefore, there can never be a ‘view from nowhere’, and all theories make assumptions about the world, both ontological ones (what features need explaining) and epistemological ones (what counts as explanation). The criti- cally important point here is that whereas positivist theories claim that non-positivist theories are illegitimate because they are not neutral (i.e. they make explicit assumptions about ontol- ogy and epistemology, take for example the chapter on feminism) the problem is that positiv- ist theories fail to recognize that they do exactly the same thing but this time by maintaining a separation between observer and observed, and between theory and the world. It is this claim that needs contesting. All theories are located in space, time, culture, and history, and, simply put, there is no possibility of the separation from these that positivism requires. Therefore, this book starts with a chapter that introduces the major debates in the disci- pline of IR with regards to the philosophy of social sciences. It is followed by a chapter charting the role and scope of so-called normative theorizing in IR. As Erskine points out, normative theory can be considered by more of a subﬁeld of IR than a distinct and singular theoretical position. We then have four chapters dealing with the traditional mainstream theories: classi- cal realism, structural realism, liberalism, and neoliberalism. These are followed by three chapters dealing with approaches that share much with the mainstream, but which have been seen as developments of it, or as signiﬁcantly distinct enough to constitute separate intellec- tual traditions: the English school, Marxism, and constructivism. Finally, we have a set of ﬁve chapters which are importantly ‘critical’ of the traditional mainstream: critical theory, femi- nism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and green theory. We end the book with two chapters, each of which serves as a conclusion. The chapter on globalization looks at contem- porary international relations and discusses whether such a thing as globalization exists and whether the assorted phenomena of globalization render traditional state-centric theories of IR redundant. The ﬁnal chapter looks at the current nature of the discipline of IR and the ways in which the theories discussed in this book relate to the emerging structure of debate in the ﬁeld. As you will see, these chapters have important things to say about the linkage between how the discipline has traditionally deﬁned the subject matter of international relations and how then one might decide which theory was of most use in explaining that world. Diversity and disciplinarity The picture that emerges from this book is that the discipline of IR is, we believe, far more relevant to the world of international relations than it has been at any point in its history. We made this claim in the ﬁrst edition and we continue to make it, despite being challenged on 10 STEVE SMITH this since the last edition by a leading theorist who makes a twofold challenge: ﬁrst, questioning the extent to which IR is genuinely characterized by theoretical pluralism, and second, casting doubt on whether pluralism per se is something to be valued (Schmidt 2008). I have defended our claims in this regard elsewhere (Smith 2008) and will not rehearse these arguments here again. Sufﬁce it to say that IR theory is now far more pluralist than it was just thirty years ago, particularly outside of the North American mainstream. This diversity has generated different answers to perennial questions in IR about actors, issues, causes, and consequences. In light of the fact that we do not believe that political questions about justice, power, and rights, lend themselves to singular answers, we regard pluralism as being a positive development in the discipline. Yet, the existence of this growing body of distinctly different theories has given all students of IR two main problems. The ﬁrst is whether there can be said to be a discipline of IR at all after the proliferation of theories, many of which have their intellectual basis in different social sciences. The ﬁnal chapter of this book deals with this question in detail, but, similarly, the penultimate chapter on globalization implies that if we start our analysis of international rela- tions from an economic perspective we get a much altered view of what are the core features to be explained by any theory. In an important sense the editors of this book are relaxed about what the proliferation means for the identity of the discipline, since we believe that what mat- ters most is the ability of theories to explain the world as it is seen from a variety of different cultural, economic, gendered, political, ethnic, and social locations. One problem of an insist- ence that the boundaries of the discipline should be clear, precise, and ﬁxed, is that this absolutely determines what counts as acceptable scholarship. We prefer boundaries to a dis- cipline that can alter, as our views of the political shift according both to our identity as observers and to the agenda that we wish to explain. In this light, we note that the discipline has played a role in recreating the realist world of great power dominance, simply because that is what generations of IR academics taught as ‘reality’ or the ‘real world’ to their students. In that sense, too much concern with maintaining the boundaries of an academic discipline looks dangerously like a very conservative move to privilege the existing power distribution in the world. We feel that the current diversity in the discipline offers far more in the way of opportunity to examine a variety of policy concerns and issues than has ever been the case in the discipline’s history. Taken together, the theories in this book create space for thinking about what international relations consists of and what are its most salient features. In this important sense, if the discipline is facing an identity crisis because the old certainties are no longer quite so secure, then we think that this is a positive and empowering development. However, the second problem created by the proliferation of IR theories is much deeper. This is the question of how one chooses which theory to use. Traditionally, this has not been a problem for the discipline, since the answer was always a choice between realism and lib- eralism, with realism being dominant. This was largely the case because, if the subject was deﬁned by the presence of war, then realism seemed to be the best theory to explain war. If one’s focus was international cooperation, then liberalism was appropriate; and the debate between these two theoretical strands constituted the founding debate within IR. Today, not only is there a set of well developed and powerful alternative theories, but these theories dispute the core assumptions about the content of the ﬁeld. This situation raises the question of the grounds on which we make a choice between theories. For many new undergraduate students of IR this is a major worry, since they want INTRODUCTION 11 to be guided to the ‘right’ answer. And, of course, this is why realism has been so powerful, because it explicitly sees itself as the best account of the persistence of inter-state war and competition. We feel that there is much more at stake in answering this question. In my view, the ﬁrst criterion involved in making a choice between theories has to be the issues you wish to explain. Thus, if you are interested in the future of the environment, it is likely that green theory will be as good a place to start as any. That does not mean that only green theory can offer explanations, but it does give the reader a place to start their thinking about which is the most appropriate theory. It would be tempting to leave the issue of theory choice here, since I could imply that the theories in this book are all dealing with different, discrete, aspects of the same world of international relations, and that you could adopt a kind of ‘pick and mix’ attitude towards theory. Accordingly you might think it sensible to use, say, green theory when discussing the environment, feminism when discussing global gender inequali- ties, and structural realism when looking at great power rivalry in the Asia–Paciﬁc. But though this might seem comforting, I do not think that this move is possible. This is because the vari- ous theories are not like parts of a jigsaw that can be neatly combined together with each explaining one part of international relations. Rather I think that the theories in this book are like different coloured lenses: if you put one of them in front of your eyes, you will see things differently. Some aspects of the world will look the same in some senses, for example shapes, but many other features, such as light and shade of colour, will look very different, so differ- ent in fact that they seem to show alternative worlds. In thinking about this you might like to visualize Martin Hollis’s excellent example of a mobile hanging over a child’s bed, a metaphor he regularly used in his teaching. The view that the various theories each explain part of the world of international relations is akin to the view that someone standing looking at the child’s mobile will see the same mobile as the child lying on the bed, albeit from different angles. There is nothing incommensurable about their two perspectives; simple geometric analysis can show how their different views of the mobile can be combined together—they are just different views of the same mobile. Yet Hol- lis always argued, persuasively in my view, that the social world is not like this. The theories we use cannot simply be combined together so as to add up to different views of the same world of international relations; instead, they actually see different worlds. Thus a Marxist writer, though they will focus on power, will see a different form of power (ultimately eco- nomic) to that seen by a classical realist (ultimately political). Similarly, a classical liberal will not see cooperation over environmental issues in anything like the same way as a green theorist will see them. Finally, think of, say, a feminist writing about the global power struc- ture, and compare it to a neorealist account. It is not possible simply to add up these various accounts of international relations to get one overarching theory. Theories are part of the social world, they can never be separate from it, and thus they constitute the social world in which we live. Each deﬁnes the problems to be examined differently, and may well deﬁne how we know things about those problems in different ways. Thus the social location of the observer will inﬂuence which theory they see as most useful, simply because that location will predispose that observer to deﬁne some features of international relations as key and others as less relevant. But in putting forward this view of theory we need to be clear that we are not saying that each theory is equally good at explaining everything. It is not a case of ‘anything goes’. Our view is that a variety of theories will claim to offer explanations for the same kinds of features 12 STEVE SMITH of international relations. We believe that there are grounds for choosing between them, though we want to stress that these grounds are nothing like as restrictive as positivists claim. Thus while we do not think that theory choice is simply a matter of whatever appeals to a reader on a given day, we do think that the grounds cannot be those of one dominant view of epistemology and methodology. All of this brings us back to where we started this chapter. There are many theories that offer explanations to real world problems and dilemmas. You will ﬁnd some of them persua- sive, others less so. Our argument is not that each of these theories should be deemed equally appropriate, or helpful, or valid. Decisions over which theories are tenable and which are not should be determined, respectively, by the reader of this book or the propo- nent of the theory concerned. The judgement cannot be made by advocates of another theory that its rivals are either irrelevant or illegitimate. We also want to point out that there are epistemological difﬁculties with combining different theories, although both critical real- ism and the English school attempt to provide theories which are a synthesis of more than one position. Many treatments of IR avoid the problem of incommensurability by focusing only on those theories that share an epistemological grounding (e.g. neoliberalism and neoreal- ism). That makes ‘debates’ relatively easy. We have not chosen to deal with theories of IR in that way. Instead we have tried to offer you a wide choice of theories and leave you with the somewhat unsettling task of having to decide which theory you ﬁnd most useful in explaining and understanding international relations, and then answering the question of why that is the case. We think that this gives you a real choice, and, although at ﬁrst sight it may be a little disturbing to question whether it is possible to use theory as a toolkit to answer different issues and problems, we do think the fact of theoretical diver- sity in IR forces readers to confront questions about how to choose between theories. Such questions are unavoidable; previously they have been overlooked because of the tendency to present only compatible theories of IR. The diversity represented in this book promises a discipline that is of more relevance to people in a variety of locations than has hitherto been the case. The editors of this book strongly believe that it is better to open up space for analysis and debate, even though that will lead to difﬁcult ethical and philosophical questions about theory choice, than it is to close down debate and insist that the only theories that are ‘right’ are those which ﬁt into preconceived, and often hidden, assumptions about what international relations consists of. It is our strong view that this diversity is to be celebrated rather than disciplined (as some traditionalists would prefer). Diversity may be unsettling because it leaves the reader facing some fundamental prob- lems about how to make a choice between rival theories; but at the very least it does make it possible to confront orthodoxy, to develop theory relevant to a wider range of humanity, and, ultimately, to accept that our choice of theories to explain the world of international relations can never be a neutral act. Theory is always socially located, always has an unavoid- able relationship to power, and can never be defended by resort to one foundational account of what is ‘truth’. In this sense, our aim is not so much to provide the reader with one account of international relations but to offer a choice of IR theories that allow us to make sense of our multi-layered and cultural complex world, as well as to recognize the processes and dif- ﬁculties involved in coming to understand them. INTRODUCTION 13 Note 1. This phrase could be found, at one time, on the ofﬁce wall of Nicholas J. Wheeler, my former colleague in Aberystwyth. Visit the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book for lots of interesting additional material. www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/dunne3e/ 1 International Relations and Social Science MILJA KURKI AND COLIN WIGHT Introduction 14 The philosophy of social science in IR: a historical overview 16 Science, the fourth debate and beyond 20 Exploring the key implications of meta-theoretical differences in IR theory 26 Conclusion 32 Reader’s Guide This chapter provides an overview of the key philosophy of social science debates within International Relations (IR) theory.1 Often IR theorists do not address the phi- losophy of social science explicitly, but nevertheless philosophical issues are implicit in their claims. Since the mid-1980s, ‘meta-theoretical’ debates surrounding the phi- losophy of social science have played an important and highly visible role in the discipline. This chapter explores both the implicit and explicit roles played by meta-theoretical assumptions in IR. It begins with a brief historical overview

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