Fatal attraction? German foreign policy and IR/foreign policy theory

Abstract

After unification in 1990, German foreign policy has received unprecedented attention from the most prominent journals of International Relations (IR) theory. This paper argues that this was due largely to the function which the German ‘case’ served in the discourse of IR/foreign policy theory. Realists as well as liberals and constructivists were heavily enticed by it since it seemed an excellent case for all of them to prove the worth of their theories. In doing so, however, the subsumtionist logic applied did not only foster identical exclusionist theoretical claims. It also cultivated a systematicity view of thought and action which was wholly unreceptive for potentially novel foreign policy practices to appear. The paper documents and critiques these trends as a typical phenomenon of a paradigmatic discipline. It then outlines an alternative pragmatist approach to foreign policy analysis which emphasizes the contingency and situated creativity of social action. It is argued, in particular, that this approach provides for a more adequate description of the changes which German foreign policy has undergone. Moreover, by drawing on the insights of allegedly incommensurable paradigms and by systematically integrating the inherent contingency of social action, it also shows how a logic of reconstruction can open up avenues for cross-paradigmatic dialogue.