Debates In International Relations Research Articles

TAKINGSTOCK: The Constructivist Research Program in International Relations and Comparative Politics

▪ Abstract Constructivism is an approach to social analysis that deals with the role of human consciousness in social life. It asserts that human interaction is shaped primarily by ideational factors, not simply material ones; that the most important ideational factors are widely shared or “intersubjective” beliefs, which are not reducible to individuals; and that these shared beliefs construct the interests of purposive actors. In international relations, research in a constructivist mode has exploded over the past decade, creating new and potentially fruitful connections with long-standing interest in these issues in comparative politics. In this essay, we evaluate the empirical research program of constructivism in these two fields. We first lay out the basic tenets of constructivism and examine their implications for research methodology, concluding that constructivism's distinctiveness lies in its theoretical arguments, not in its empirical research strategies. The bulk of the essay explores specific constructivist literatures and debates in international relations and comparative politics.

“Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics

This article introduces a mode of social action and interaction that has so far been largely overlooked in the U.S.-dominated international relations debate between rational choice and social constructivism that focuses mainly on the differences between instrumental rationality and norm-guided behavior. Drawing on insights from a theoretical debate within the Germanspeaking international relations community, I suggest that actors have a third mode of social action at their disposal: arguing and deliberating about the validity claims inherent in any communicative statement about identities, interests, and the state of the world. Arguing and truth-seeking behavior presuppose that actors no longer hold fixed interests during their communicative interaction but are open to persuasion, challenges, and counterchallenges geared toward reaching a reasoned consensus. The preconditions for argumentative rationality, particularly a “common lifeworld” and the mutual recognition of speakers as equals in a nonhierarchical relationship, are more common in international relations than is usually assumed. Arguing processes are more likely to occur the more actors are uncertain about their interests and even identities, the less they know about the situation in which they find themselves and the underlying “rules of the game,” and the more apparently irreconcilable differences prevent them from reaching an optimal rather than a merely satisfactory solution for a widely perceived problem (“problem solving”). Moreover, arguing is likely to increase the influence of the materially less powerful, be it small states or nonstate actors such as INGOs. I illustrate these claims empirically with two plausibility probes. The first concerns the East–West talks leading to a negotiated settlement of the Cold War in Europe and German unification within NATO. The second case focuses on the implementation of international human rights norms into domestic practices of Third World states.

Justice among nations: on the moral basis of power and peace

In the post-Cold War era, we have lost the clarity that once characterized our vision of international conflict. Foreign affairs are no longer defined solely by the ideological battles fought between capitalism and communism or by the competition between two great nuclear superpowers. That oversimplified view has been replaced by an increasing awareness of the moral and political complexity surrounding international relations. To help us deal with this new reality, Thomas Pangle and Peter Ahrensdorf provide a critical introduction to the most important conceptions of international justice, spanning 2,500 years of intellectual history from Thucydides and Plato to Morgenthau and Waltz. Their study shows how older traditions of political philosophy remain relevant to current debates in international relations, and how political thinkers through the centuries can help us deepen our understanding of today's stalemate between realism and idealism. Pangle and Ahrensdorf guide the reader through a sequence of theoretical frameworks for understanding the moral basis of international relations: the cosmopolitan vision of the classical philosophers, the just war teachings of medieval theologians, the revolutionary realism of Machiavelli, the Enlightenment idealism of Kant, and the neo-realism of twentieth-century theorists. They clarify the core of each philosopher's conceptions of international relations, examine the appeal of each position, and bring these alternatives into mutually illuminating juxtaposition. The authors clearly show that appreciating the fundamental questions pursued by these philosophers can help us avoid dogmatism, abstraction, or oversimplification when considering the moral character of international relations. Justice Among Nations restores the study of the great works of political theory to its natural place within the discipline of international relations as it retrieves the question of international justice as a major theme of political philosophy. It provides our moral compass with new points of orientation and invites serious readers to grapple with some of the most perplexing issues of our time.

Agents, Structures, Narratives

In this article I attempt to reshape the agent-structure debate in International Relations which has become increasingly confused and fruitless. I do so by first rejecting two things — (1) the agent-structure dichotomy, presupposed in the debate, in favour of the age-old classification of causative factors into mechanistic, volitional and coincidental ones; and (2) the explanation-understanding dichotomy, prevalent in the debate, in favour of the idea of `narrative intelligibilifying'. I also draw attention to narrative as a factor constitutive of agents and structures, and offer a modified version of structurationism, while rejecting a version of scientific realism sometimes associated with it. As to how one form of social structure moves towards another, I suggest that, at its most ambitious, this is a world-historical question, and that how the three causative factors are combined in addressing this question is as fascinating as it is vital for our self-understanding as human beings.

Relations Before States:

In recent years, paradigmatic debates in International Relations (IR) have focused on questions of epistemology and methodology. While important in their own right, these differences have obscured the basic divide in the discipline between substantialism, which takes entities as primitives, and relationalism, which takes processes of social transaction as the basic building blocks of theory. We argue that while both approaches can be fruitful, theories of processes and relations are better suited to address certain questions, most notably those involving change in global politics. Drawing on work in International Relations, sociology and philosophy, we examine what such theories entail and discuss areas of research for which they are especially suited.

Globalization, State, Identity/Difference

What is reality? Is reality what we see? How do we tell what is real, and how do wedifferentiate “real” from “false” or uncover the truth in an objective fashion? The searchfor reality or understanding the dynamics of human interaction in an institutionalized settinghas resulted in a vibrant debate in international relations (IR) theory over the metatheoreticalfoundations of knowledge production. Positivists and realists claim that truth andreality can be and have been uncovered by thorough and patient research. Truth is, after all,“out there” somewhere in the real world, and it is the task of social scientists to uncover it.Critical social theorists, however, argue that social science is not akin to physical or evennatural sciences, for human behavior is dynamic and varies both spatially and temporally.“Reality” or “truth” can never be discovered or known completely because of the nature ofsocial activity. Furthermore, there are no fixed foundations for judging what is “real,”“true,” or “false.” Hence, the attention of critical social inquiry has focused predominantlyon the epistemological and ontological foundations of social scientific methods.By concentrating on epistemology and ontology, critical social theorists have shownthe structural weakness of positivist and realist theories. Furthermore, the inability of positivesocial science to go beyond surface structures to explore deep structures of knowledgealso has been exposed by critical social theorists. The unequivocal outcome of critical socialtheory is that knowledge, interest, and preference matter and, therefore, cannot be assumed.The critical social theorist does not focus on the cognitive manifestations of knowledge,interests, and preferences, but rather on how they are formed, created, or constructed.However, despite its ombudsman-like value and importance, critical social theoryhas yet to emerge as an effective alternative to positive social science. Critical social theoryhas remained true to its name and has continued to play the role of a harsh but valuablecritic. Keyman seeks to buck this trend by providing a basis for using critical socialtheory not just as an epistemological critique to challenge the extant theoretical hegemony,but also to deploy it as a “first-order theorizing tool”-an ambitious goal indeed. Hisbook is an attempt to bridge the theory-metatheory gap found in IR theory and, at the sametime, elevate critical social theory to the level of such first-order theories as the muchmaligned Waltzian theory of international relations. The challenge of deploying criticalsocial theory not just as a captious force, but rather as a constructive theory, is a difficultand slippery task. Critical social theory should be able to criticize and dismantle withoutrelying on foundational support (i.e., without relying on positivistic moments). In addition,it also should resist succumbing to the temptation of assuming the discourse of thehegemon, in which the “other” becomes the subject.Keyman attempts to traverse these intellectual minefields by emphasizing the need fordialogical interaction between discourse (object) and subject. The object and subject should ...

Shifting Patterns in Japan’s Economic Cooperation in East Asia: A Growing Role for Local Actors?

Abstract: This article draws attention to the nature of the political process promoting economic interdependence among the regions surrounding the Japan Sea. At least in the case of Japan, the process is being carried forward by local authorities (prefectural and municipal governments) and other local actors. To explain this local initiative in international economic cooperation, the article refers to international systemic factors, such as the end of the cold war and globalization, as well as to national factors, i.e., the inability of Tokyo to meet the development demands of localities in the Japan Sea prefectures. At any rate, local initiative, and the gradual progress being made in this economic cooperation process, are at variance with the normal facts associated with Japan’s economic cooperation activity in the postwar period. Economic cooperation has been dominated by the agendas of the central government bureaucracies and big businesses based in Tokyo. The article raises the possibility that what we see in Japan Sea cooperation may be the leading edge of change: the emergence of a new level of cooperation activity where local governments and regional interests set cooperation agendas in dialog with their overseas counterparts. The article then explores some of the implications of such a development for current debates in international relations and comparative politics.

A question of values: Johan Galtung's peace research

Places the work of Johan Galtung in the context of past and current debates in international relations, political theory, and more generally, in the social sciences. This comprehensive and critical account scrutinises Galtung's conceptual icons, such as, positive peace and structural violence.

WHAT IF YOU HELD A DEBATE AND ONLY ONE SIDE SHOWED UP?

All too many students of international relations tend to dismiss postpositivist discourse, Richard Ashley writes, as “new wave,” “Parisian jargon,” and a “passing trend.” Yet, postpositivism is not entirely new wave, it is more than the sum parts of its jargon and its method, and it is proving to be other than a passing trend in international relations. Neither postpositivist nor assuredly modernist, this paper is an overview of the third debate in international relations and a call to engage and counter the postpositive challenge. It is an effort at mediation between the postpositivist discourse and the discipline of international relations, identifying common areas of interest and knowledge which may help to make this discourse less obscure and remote. The thesis advanced is similar to that of Pauline Rosenau who suggests that the immediate relevance of postpositivism for an understanding of international relations lies in its “substantive themes.” In fact, some postpositivist themes have parallels in both the classical and positivist discourses of international relations.

The limits of influence: foreign policy think tanks in Britain and the USA

International non–governmental organizations and their influence over policy in international relations have become subjects of scholarly attention in recent years. One sector of the international policy-cum-analytic community that has received little attention, however, is that group of nationally based non-profit independent policy research institutes—popularly known as ‘think tanks’. This is a strange omission. Foreign policy think tanks and institutes of international affairs are of interest to the wider debates in international relations for two reasons. On the one hand, they aspire to be participants—if mostly marginal ones—in the foreign policy making process. On the other hand, notwithstanding the tension between these two roles, some contribute directly to international relationsas a field of study. Yet a common theme prevails. All foreign policy institutes are founded upon a conviction thatideas are important. Researchers and executives of institutes, as well as their corporate, government and foundation supporters, often believe that their intellectual input into policy debates makes a difference. While this can be the case, we suggest that it is less so than many advocates often assume.

Falling Friends: The United States and Regime Change Abroad, by Martin Staniland

For US policymakers, the collapse of governments headed by good friends of the United States has been, over the past 30 years, a repeated cause of alarm and embarrassment. Such crises of succession have implications not only for US foreign policy but also for recent and forthcoming changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Martin Staniland draws together extended case studies illustrating regime change and shows how each crisis resembles the others in its phases of development - from the status quo to the attack phase and, ultimately, to negotiating the succession. In the process, students get to know the history, culture and personalities involved from Batista and Eisenhower to Marcos and the Reagan administration. As in every volume in the Case Studies in International Affairs series, this volume opens with an introduction that taps into current theoretical debates in international relations while giving students a framework for understanding and comparing the cases that follow. Individual introductions to each case place the study in context, and discussion questions and exercises are strategically interjected throughout to encourage students to explore the issues and to assess the choices facing policymakers.

International Relations and the Methodological Turn

Confusion has arisen in the debate between the advocates of classical and behavioural modes of analysis because epistemological and methodological issues are conflated in the debate. A distinction between logic-in-use and reconstructed logic disentangles these issues and demonstrates that the division between the classical and behavioural approaches cannot be sustained on methodological or epistemological grounds. History and social science cannot be distinguished in terms of either epistemology or methodology but only by the kind of research questions asked. This argument is reinforced by examining the methodological and epistemological posture adopted by Waltz. It is an illusion to imagine that theoretical debates in international relations will be resolved by methodological or epistemological fiat.

International Relations and the Search for Thinking Space: Another View of the Third Debate

Recent debates in International Relations have seen some of the characteristic dichotomies of the discipline under severe and sophisticated challenge. The proposition, for example, that the study of International Relations, is somehow “independent” of mainstream debates on theory and practice in the social sciences is now widely rejected. The disciplines change in attitude on this issue owes much, in the 1980s, to the influences of an as yet small group of scholars who have infused the “third debate” in International Relations with an appreciation for previously “alien” approaches to knowledge and society, drawn from interdisciplinary sources, which repudiate (meta) theoretical dualism in all its forms. Utilizing the sponge term “postpositivism” Yosef Lapid has concentrated on an important aspect of the “third debate,” one which has seen positivist based perspectives repudiated in favor of critical perspectives derived, primarily, from debates on the philosophy of science. This paper takes a broader view of the “third debate” in focusing on some of the broader patterns of dissent in social theory that are now evident in its literature. It argues that for all the differences associated with the new critical social theory approaches, theirs is critique with common purpose. Its purpose: to help us understand more about contemporary global life by opening up for questioning dimensions of inquiry which have been previously closed off and supressed; by listening closely to voices previously unheard; by examining “realities” excluded from consideration under a traditional (realist) regime of unity and singularity. Its purpose, reiterated: the search for “thinking space” within an International Relations discipline produced by and articulated through Western modernist discourse.

Paradigms of International Relations: Bringing Politics Back in

My purpose in this paper is to give renewed direction to the inter-paradigm debate in international relations. It may be argued incorrectly I think that the enterprise is, or ought to be, a non-starter. Such an argument would pursue the point that the inter-paradigm debate (the field's third 'great debate' following the Idealism-Realism and Science-Classical debates) has been a waste of creative time and has diverted energy from more fruitful endeavours. What's worse, it would be added, such navel gazing threatens the slowly cumulating work of those who have, in fact, been toiling in the vineyards for many years and whose labours seem now to be paying off.1 Of course, the relationship between academics, scientists, or theorists, on the one hand, and diplomats and other practitioners, on the other, has always been an uneasy one, and the latter may be expected to have little patience with arcane debates within the academic demi-monde. Nevertheless, the argument which underlies this paper is that the paradigm debate encourages and sustains a more broadly based interest and par-

Politics in command: foreign trade as national security policy

Many of the current theoretical debates in international relations focus on the connection between economics and security policies. Most traditional North American textbooks have considered the two policy areas as separate domains. Some scholars view the major economic trends and events of the 1970s as intertwined, whereas others argue that “state” interests properly should prevail when the two sets of values conflict. The traditional liberal, mercantilist, and neo-Marxist literatures shed some light on the nexus between politics and economics in foreign policy, but they offer very general statements that reflect only the conditions of the major powers. Two case studies of Japan and Finland in the postwar period suggest that generalizations must be applied cautiously, that some states are compelled to follow mercantilist policies to protect their political independence and autonomy, and that policies of welfare maximization often have to be subordinated to security concerns. The cases also reveal that the connection between economic and security concerns changes over time. A dynamic model of foreign policy will thus have to be sensitive both to the peculiar circumstances of a variety of states and to the sources of foreign-policy change.

The Paradigm Debate in International Relations and Its Implications for Foreign Policy Making: Toward a Redefinition of the "National Interest"

ERHAPS no concept in the international relations field has received more thorough criticism and nonetheless managed to persist than the concept of national interest. Despite its being discarded in many scholarly circles as a meaningless and useless analytical construct, even its most fervent detractors will recognize that the term has great currency not only among practitioners of international politics but also among the public at large both in the U.S. and elsewhere. One needs only to perform a cursory content analysis of speeches made by members of the foreign policy establishment and commentaries in the mass media to substantiate this observation. While it might be argued that the term national interest is utilized by decision-makers merely as a handy catch-phrase to facilitate their posthoc legitimization and rationalization of foreign policy decisions taken, and by the public merely as an equally handy catch-phrase to avoid having to come to grips with the confusing world of foreign affairs, such an argument would seem to grossly understate the extent to which the term and everything it represents actually informs both the former's calculations in the decision-making process and the latter's reactions to the decisions that are produced. Hence, the author would maintain that the concept is not passe but deserves continuing examination. This paper, then, is not meant to be still another attempt at making a critique of and discrediting the concept. Rather than a wrecking operation, the paper is intended to provide a reformulation of the concept, especially in light of changing conditions in the international system which have occasioned a large paradigm debate in the international relations field. This debate, the author would argue, has important implications for foreign policy making insofar as different definitions of the national interest tend to be arrived at depending upon which paradigm (or image of the world) one adopts. The author will attempt to relate the paradigm debate to U.S. foreign policy making and to offer some prescriptions for change in the formulation of American foreign policy based on this analysis.

The Paradigm Debate in International Relations and Its Implications for Foreign Policy Making: Toward a Redefinition of the "National Interest"

The Paradigm Debate in International Relations and Its Implications for Foreign Policy Making: Toward a Redefinition of the "National Interest"