A Coxian Critical Reflexive Lens as a Methodological Tool for Analysis in Liberal Peacebuilding Research in Sri Lanka

Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe

doi:10.4038/cjmr.v3i1.26

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate between the neo-positivist researchers who insist that IR research should follow positivist methodologies and the post-positivist researchers in subfields such as feminist and critical studies in IR who insist that the very selection of a methodology is a positioning of power and a validation of a truth through the knowledge the methodology enables. The selection of methodology, the process used to create knowledge, is therefore a decision to position a particular body of knowledge over another. The selection of a particular method over another is an act of enabling a body of knowledge, a truth, and therefore an act of power that can disrupt an entrenched order or destabilize it. This paper explores Coxian critical analysis in IR research and discusses the use of Coxian analysis in exploring the Sri Lankan conflict in a setting of liberal peacebuilding critique. The paper concludes that a critical methodology such as Coxian analysis enables a researcher to question the epistemological and ontological assumptions that have been prevalent in analyzing the Sri Lankan conflict.

Highlights

Brings the historical structures and the three levels together by defining their interrelationship and dialectic co-creativity: Considered separately, social forces, forms of state and world orders can be represented in a preliminary approximation as a particular configuration of material capabilities, ideas and institutions (as indicated in figure 1)
There is an ongoing debate between the neo-positivist researchers who insist that IR research should follow positivist methodologies and the post-positivist researchers in subfields such as feminist and critical studies in IR who insist that the very selection of a methodology is a positioning of power and a validation of a truth through the knowledge the methodology enables (Aradau & Huysmans, 2013; Geller & Vasques. 2004; Gerring, 2011; Tickner, 2005)
Critical Methodology in Liberal Peacebuilding Research in Sri Lanka: Much of the existing research the conflict in Sri Lanka focuses on assessing liberal peacebuilding mechanisms, policy and intervention outcomes of the attempts at the resolution of the Sri Lankan conflict, from within ideas-problem solving frameworks5

Summary

Introduction

Brings the historical structures and the three levels together by defining their interrelationship and dialectic co-creativity: Considered separately, social forces, forms of state and world orders can be represented in a preliminary approximation as a particular configuration of material capabilities, ideas and institutions (as indicated in figure 1). Critics such as Oliver Richmond and Roger Mac Ginty have questioned the very bases of liberal peacebuilding and argued for the need for frameworks for both evaluation and practice.

Results

Conclusion