From Realism to Postmodernism and Beyond

By Steven E. Lobell

 

Book Review: Jennifer Sterling-Folker (eds.), Making Sense of International Relations Theory, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, 2005.

 

Source: International Studies Review, Volume 09, Issue 02, Pages 319-321

 

Jennifer Sterling-Folker’s edited volume, Making Sense of International Relations Theory, contains a masterful discussion and application of the major theoretical approaches in international relations. The book contributes to our understanding of the similarities and differences in the core assumptions of eleven key perspectives in international relations and their variations. By applying varying strands of these approaches to a single case (Kosovo), the book also leaves readers with a tangible understanding of the major debates in the field of international relations. A detailed reading should leave the student not only with a thorough knowledge of the field of international relations (IR) but with a deep appreciation for its breadth and diversity.

The central question in Making Sense of International Relations Theory is “how should we study the subject matter of international relations”? For the student, the book is both familiar and unique in comparison with other textbooks. On the one hand, like a typical course reader, the volume is arranged according to the various approaches (see also Der Derian 1995; Doyle and Ikenberry 1997; Betts 2005; Art and Jervis 2007). Yet, Making Sense of International Relations Theory is broader than many existing readers, and it includes approaches that disagree sharply with each other. It includes both positivist and postpositivist approaches. Moreover, the distinction between the two is outlined in Chapter One and reinforced in the nested nature of the book; it is further discussed in Chapter Six on “Postmodern and Critical Theory Approaches.” The approaches covered are realism, liberalism, game theory, constructivism, postmodernism, critical theory, historical materialism, world systems theory, feminism, biopolitics, and the English school-which makes this volume more inclusive than recent appraisals of the field (see, for example, Carlsnaes, Risse, and Simmons 2002; Elman and Elman 2003). Sterling-Folker ably distinguishes the underlying ontological, epistemological, and methodological differences among these approaches. She is particularly clear regarding the distinction between positivist and postpositivist research agendas.

In a manner that is also reminiscent of a textbook, Sterling-Folker has penned overview chapters for each of the eleven approaches covered in the volume. These comprehensive overviews note the theoretical roots, outline the interdisciplinary nature of IR theory, and highlight the core assumptions of each approach (for example, liberalism) and their variations (in the case of liberalism, neoliberal institutionalism and public goods analysis). The reader who wants to delve deeper into the agent-structure debate or the theory of offensive realism, for example, can select texts from the annotated bibliography in the list of “further readings” at the end of each section. This format allows Sterling-Folker to highlight the similarities and differences in the core assumptions across various approaches, to sort out some of the confusion concerning a particular approach, to highlight disputes, and to clarify fallacies and misconceptions about the approaches.

Book Review: Globalization and International Relations Theory

By Hallie Jones

 

Ian Clark, Globalization and International Relations Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

 

In his book, Globalization and International Relations Theory, Ian Clark systematically juxtaposes competing lines of scholarship in International Relations against Globalization literature. He explores the rise of literature on globalization and the specific implications it has on International Relations theory. Clark’s central theme is to construct a basis from which to promote his plea; to develop a new theoretical framework for analyzing the global system and the nation-states within it. Clark calls for a holistic approach to the study of the international system, one that treats globalization and the states not as mutually exclusive, but as mutually reinforcing.

Clark presents a social constructivist approach to the study of international relations. He is essentially asking if the gap can be bridged between competing perspectives reasoning that it’s crucial to developing a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the international system and the states which create it. Specifically, it appears that Clark seeks to develop a grand theory of sorts, which encompasses all components of the system (economic, social, cultural) and all units or levels of analysis (international, state, individual). He is committed to the notion of bringing competing sides of the theoretical “divide” together under his proposed method of inquiry.

Clark addresses the “great divide” throughout his volume, marshaling concepts and lines of argument against one another in an effort to demonstrate their polarizing effects. To Clark, the debates are inherently binary and present dichotomous oppositions which stagnate and prevent our level of understanding from advancing beyond the current trap. His scathing criticism makes his position clear that the debate between state-centric and globalization theories is a futile, “narrow and unenlightened” endeavor, like a dog chasing its own tail. He is passionately dedicated to squashing the current debate, which monopolizes academic discussions, in favor of a new approach that attempts to blend both perspectives in a way that analyzes the system as a whole with many interconnected parts.

An accurate analogy of Clark’s petition could be compared with the medical examination of the human body. A physician does not study the heart alone; they also examine additional internal parts such as the vascular system, muscles, and the consistency of the blood. Yet, the physician does not stop there. They take into consideration external variables (which could possibly seem extraneous) such as stress, lifestyle and dietary patterns. The body is analyzed from numerous different perspectives, yet treated as a single unit, a human, nominally. This is the approach Clark is calling for to analyze international relations and globalization, as a full spectrum where the “globalized state” serves as the fundamental unit of analysis.

Clark vehemently denies the suggestion that the importance of the state is receding, implied by globalization literature. Globalization literature argues that international structures, such as transnational corporations and NGO’s, threaten the identity and sovereignty of the state. This line of logic runs parallel to Political theories based on territorial concepts which once defined the state. Normatively, it is argued that domestic citizenship values decrease with declining state autonomy, or simply put, citizenship is “devalued”.

Clark forcefully interjects the relevance and role of the nation-state in creating and manifesting the global structure, calling these lines of theory into question. He is defensive of his position. He attempts to head off any tendency to criticize his approach as being merely state-centric by incorporating globalization as an equally important consideration. To Clark, the state should be perceived as reconstituting itself, or dynamic in nature, which is operating within the context of globalism while simultaneously creating it. Clark sites Armstrong to make his point, “…it is instructive that we regard globalism not as a mere environment in which states find themselves but as an element within the shifting identity of the state itself.” So, the state embodies globalism as globalism embodies the state.

Additionally, Clark addresses competing “unified” theoretical apparatuses for approaching IR and globalization, including world-systems theory and IPE. He criticizes these approaches for conceiving of the political realm as secondary to or “lagging behind” other categorical areas of inquiry (capital, cultural, social).

Clark is calling for these particular theorists to move beyond presenting a critique that is purely rooted in economics. He notes the apparent disjunction between the political and economic, and calls for the transformational nature of globalism to be added as a consideration, placing it in the context of other subcategories and units of analysis. To their credit, however, Clark concedes that these theorists do at least confront the divide between internal and external by reducing both to functional properties of an integrated system.

Clark addresses constructivism and comments that the problem with most constructive theory is that it happens to be politically uninteresting. He believes constructivism and the concept of mutual constitution can be reconfigured into a sexier line of argument by interjecting an account of the “costs, sacrifice, and pain”. To Clark, if constructivism is to emerge as an intellectually intriguing perspective, it must recognize political costs and the asymmetrical balance at play in the dynamics of the relationship.

Clark questions the notions of “community”, both domestically based on a spatially defined identity, and internationally, and notes that the basis of community is dependent upon how it is understood. He positions positive and negative viewpoints of globalization against one another, asking if community is a given or if it grows. He marshals the argument that economic inequalities compromise international community by undermining the basis for a common identity against arguments predicated on normative optimism, claiming notions of a globalized community are created through international solidarity and transnational relations. Clark challenges the concept that communities even exist domestically and cites Robertson’s assertion that it’s essentially an “imagined community”.

Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)

Reviewed by Scott E. Page

Department of Economics, Pappajohn Building, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000, USA.

 

Children and adults play with dominoes differently. Children stand the dominoes adjacent to one another, paying no attention to the number of dots on any particular tile. They then push over the first domino and watch the rest topple in sequence. More advanced children create patterns of topples. A single row might split into distinct paths that later cross. In contrast, adults play a strategic game. And, although this game relies on simple rules, it supports rather sophisticated strategies. Novice players learn to leave themselves an out. Advanced players employ more subtle tactics. They may try and force opponents to take certain actions or to signal information inadvertantly about what tiles they hold. Ironically, the way that adults play with dominoes also creates dynamic patterns. These dynamics differ in two respects. First, they occur less quickly than in the children’s version of play, and second, the adult patterns rarely could have been predicted from the initial distribution of tiles.

I mention dominoes because the “domino theory” is one of the few popularised models in international relations, aside from the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The domino theory of international relations is essentially the children’s version. Tip one, and they all fall down. In this ambitious new book, Robert Jervis proposes that scholars consider the adult version of the game, that they study strategic behaviour in a systems framework. I agree. According to Jervis, a complex systems approach will help us to understand the evolution of micro-level strategies and their emergent macro-level patterns. This approach will force recognition that the whole exceeds the sum of its parts, that feedbacks can be positive or negative, and immediate or delayed, that the mapping linking incentives to outcomes need not be linear, that not only the state of the world but how we got there might matter, and finally, that when choosing one of the two equally compelling paths (in the words of Robert Frost – two roads in the yellow woods), we often alter the environment that created the paths.

And yet, lest we all trip over ourselves singing the praises of complex systems theory, we must first ask: is there any theory in complexity theory? Or, to borrow a phrase from Michael Cohen, is complexity theory just a festival of bad metaphors? If you pose these questions to an arbitrary social scientist, you will undoubtedly receive one emphatic yes and an equally emphatic no. I just cannot predict the order in which you will receive those two responses.

Unfortunately, for those of us interested in those two questions, this book does not produce any new mathematical theory, nor does it claim to do so. Nevertheless, Jervis makes a case, and a strong one, that international relations are complex, that interdependence is the rule not the exception, and that feedback can be so elaborate that only a genius or a savant could anticipate the future. In these circumstances, Alice in Wonderland might be a better guide than a book of logic. Suppose you want to maximise your power. (Ignore the fact that power is not a well defined concept like utility or probability.) Then perhaps like Cincinnatus (or Washington – the American version), you should relinquish it. Or suppose that you want to signal to the world that your relationship is on the rocks. You might do as the United States and Japan did prior to Second World War and publicly proclaim the strength of your alliance.

International Relations: American science?

By Gerard Holden

 

Books: Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis (eds), International Relations – Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought, State University of New York Press, Albany 2001, 394pp.

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The intradisciplinary debate about IR’s own history, geography, and sociology may be something of an acquired taste, but it is producing a widening stream of publications both on aspects of the history of the American or Anglo-American mainstream and on the production of knowledge in smaller, non-anglophone IR communities. Robert Crawford and Darryl Jarvis’s edited collection takes as its starting-point Stanley Hoffmann’s 1977 Daedalus article, ‘An American Social Science: International Relations’, which it also usefully reprints, and develops from there into a substantial contribution to the intradisciplinary literature. In addition to Hoffmann’s article, an Introduction by Crawford, and a Conclusion by Jarvis, there are 15 further chapters by a range of mainly Canadian, Australian, and British authors – the book has already been nicely characterized by Knud Erik Jørgensen (in his review for Millennium) as a case of ‘the Commonwealth strikes back’. Perhaps inevitably, the book is uneven and some chapters drift away from the main theme to some degree, but no contribution is less than stimulating. One criticism that can be levelled at the volume is that it tries to deal with two related but distinct issues, the pursuit of IR in different national communities and the question of whether a distinct field identifiable as ‘the international’ exists, without doing enough to clarify the relationship between them. I shall return to this point later.

Even though Hoffmann’s article has over the years been much cited and has exerted a good deal of influence, a brief recapitulation may be useful here as a way of refreshing memories and persuading sceptics that there is an issue to be addressed. Hoffmann argued that the preoccupation of US IR specialists after 1945 with power and national interests, and the seminal role Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations came to play, could be explained by three main factors: (1) Intellectual predispositions, the most important of which were a belief in scientific problem-solving and the ‘exact sciences’, plus the role of immigrant scholars who had both philosophical training and personal experience of Europe’s mid-20^th century catastrophe; (2) the political preeminence of the USA in world affairs after 1945, which led to a fascination with power on the part of social scientists and a demand from policymakers for the advice scholars had to offer; and (3) institutional arrangements and the opportunities provided by a nexus of relations between the worlds of power, academia, and research foundations. 30 years later, Hoffmann concluded, the result was a discipline that had failed in its aspiration to become a science, was preoccupied with the requirements of immediate policy advice, and had not identified a middle way between „irrelevance and absorption’. He advocated greater distance, a retreat from policy science towards history and traditional political philosophy.