Confronting Bias in International Relations

Abstract

Those in positions of authority have a special duty to exercise their prerogatives in a neutral and unbiased manner. To do otherwise is to abuse one's position and the trust inherent in it. As teachers and scholars we exercise a fair amount of authority and recognize an endless array of potential biases that we are charged with attempting to avoid. How good are we at doing so? One of the ways we combat bias in our profession is with open interaction. We discuss issues, analytical tools, methods, sources of information, and the problem of bias itself. International Studies Perspectives would like to facilitate this discussion. A rather serious charge of bias was leveled publicly against a recently published work. The issue has been discussed at some length in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Lingua Franca. In the pieces that follow the charge is fully rendered and a defense is mounted. We take no position on merits of the charge or the defense. Our desire instead is to highlight the problem of bias and bring it to the profession in an open manner. Both authors speak to the problem. We invite you to do so as well with two kinds of responses. First, we welcome comments on the specifics of this case. We will review and publish those that deal primarily with this interaction as an issue of bias and as it implicates the profession. Second, we would especially welcome articles about other forms or instances of bias. As we see it, bias can infect us as teachers, colleagues, and public intellectuals. We briefly outline our concerns below, and invite you to submit articles that speak to any or all of the issues. In the classroom we must present to our students, both undergraduate and graduate, as neutral a set of facts and analytical tools as is possible. Our undergraduates depend upon us for information with which they might successfully confront the world. If we provide them with information that skews the nature of the debate, we practice indoctrination and not education. Our graduate students depend upon us for professional training and socialization. We do them no favors by providing faulty tools in either regard. This is not to suggest that we have the unflagging ability to be bias-free. We do not. But failure to be impossibly bias-free does not relieve us of the charge to be honest about the bias that we fear may be inherent in our methods or our sources. Our colleagues demand an honest appraisal of our research. In “science” the ability to replicate findings is important. Though rarely do we threaten or pursue replication, we are inherently held to the same standard. Our colleagues should be able to receive sound responses if they inquire as to our assumptions, our pursuit of certain kinds of questions or arguments, our sources of evidence, and our choice of methods. We fail as professionals when we fail to recognize our methodological biases, our disciplinary blinders, our over-fascination with certain times or places, with the status quo (or with change), with dominant powers (or their challengers), and with the provision of an overly favorable orientation toward any of a number of possible groups—professional, racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or national. When we forward conclusions for all to read we also become vulnerable. Might public arguments or further research or even policies based on the conclusions we present be considered sound? Or are we misleading? Do we mislead knowingly or unknowingly? Might that fault be traced to good-faith assumptions or to personal political or pecuniary interests? How have we sought to guard against this? The problem of bias is difficult to contend with and perhaps inherent in what we do. But it ought not be ignored just because we know it is pernicious. Indeed that is all the more reason to pursue open discussion, and to pursue that discussion on the pages of our own journals. Responses by: Robert A. Denemark, Social Science as Propaganda? International Relationsand the Question of Political Bias, p.417 Robert S. Synder, Farewell to “Old Thinking”: A Reply to Gibbs, p.427