Thinking Theory Thoroughly

Coherent Approaches To An Incoherent World

James Rosenau,Mary Durfee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429973871
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

Think theory is thoroughly removed from explaining international crises such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea? Think again! James Rosenau and Mary Durfee have teamed up to show how the same events take on different coloration depending on the theory used to explain them. In order to better understand world politics, the authors maintain, theory does make a difference.Thinking Theory Thoroughly is a primer for all kinds of readers who want to begin theorizing about international relations (IR). In this second edition, realism (the dominant theoretical perspective in IR), postinternationalism (Rosenau's famed turbulence paradigm), and liberalism are treated together in a chapter that compares them along various analytic dimensions, which makes the book even more useful.In this new edition, the order and content of case chapters have been changed to better reflect the ways theory can be used to organize empirical material. The chapter on crises, which is now at the beginning, shows how systemic theories might cope with problems and evidence of a more local and temporally constrained nature. A chapter on the U.N. illustrates how systemic theories can cope with institutions, and the last chapter, on Antarctica, delineates how systemic theories can be used to generate hypotheses that then demand different kinds of evidence.

1
The Need for Theory

It is sheer craziness to dare to understand world affairs. There are so many collective actors—states, international organizations, transnational associations, social movements, and subnational groups—and billions of individuals, each with different histories, capabilities, and goals, interacting to create historical patterns that are at all times susceptible to change. Put more simply, world affairs are pervaded with endless details—far more than one can hope to comprehend in their entirety.

And if these myriad details seem overwhelming during relatively stable periods, they seem that much more confounding at those times when dynamism and change become predominant. Such is the case as a new century dawns. In all parts of the world, long-established traditions, institutions, and relationships are undergoing profound and bewildering transformations. Indeed, the pace of change has been so rapid, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the war of a coalition of thirty-two nations against Iraq, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the Asian financial crisis, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) bombing of Yugoslavia following so soon after the end of the Cold War—to mention only the most dramatic of the changes that have cascaded across the global landscape—that it becomes reasonable to assert that change is the only constant in world affairs.

And we dare to think we can make sense of this complex, swift-moving world, with its welter of details, intricate relationships, mushrooming conflicts, and moments of cooperation! How nervy! How utterly absurd! What sheer craziness!

But the alternatives to seeking comprehension are too noxious to contemplate, ranging as they do from resorting to simplistic and ideological interpretations to being propelled by forces we can neither discern nor influence. So dare we must! However far-fetched and arrogant it may seem, we have no choice as concerned persons but to seek to fathom the meaning and implications of the events and stunning changes that bombard us from every corner of the world.

Happily, there are at least two handy mechanisms available for easing the task. One involves a sense of humility If we can remain in awe of the complexities and changes at work in the world, ever ready to concede confusion and always reminding ourselves that our conclusions must perforce be tentative, then it should be possible to avoid excessive simplicity and intellectual paralysis. Second, and much more important, we can self-consciously rely on the core practices of theory to assist us in bringing a measure of order out of the seeming chaos that confronts us. For it is through theorizing that we can hope to tease meaningful patterns out of the endless details and inordinate complexities that sustain world politics.

Moving Up the Ladder of Abstraction

Being self-consciously theoretical is not nearly as difficult as it may seem at first glance. For inevitably we engage in a form of theorizing whenever we observe world affairs. It is impossible to perceive and describe all that has occurred (or is occurring), and there is just too much detail to depict every aspect of any situation, much less numerous overlapping situations. Put more forcefully, asking a student of world affairs to account for all the dimensions of an event is like asking geographers to draw a life-sized map of the world, Clearly, such a map could not be drawn (where would they store it?); thus, one is compelled to make choices among all the possible details that could be described, to select some as important and dismiss others as trivial for the purposes at hand (much as geographers might select mountains and rivers as salient and treat hills and streams as irrelevant). And it is at the very point when one starts selecting the relevant details that one begins to theorize. For we do not make the selections at random, for no reason, capriciously. Rather, crude and imprecise as they may be, our observations derive from some notion of what is significant and what is not—distinctions that amount to a form of theory, a sorting mechanism that enables us to move on to the next observation.

To acknowledge that the selection process always accompanies effort to develop understanding is not, however, to ensure a self-consciousness about theory. It is all too tempting to lapse into thinking that the aspects of a situation selected form an objective reality that any observer would perceive. From the perspective of our unrecognized theories, everything can seem so self-evident that we may be inclined to equate our understanding of events with the "truth" about them, a practice that can lead to all kinds of problems once we try to share Our understandings with others. Even worse, we may be inclined to see the "facts" of a situation as telling us what the "truth" is. But the facts do not—and never—speak for themselves. To repeat, they only take on meaning as We select some of them as important and dismiss others as trivial.

To avoid or overcome these difficulties, and thereby heighten our theoretical sensitivities, it is useful to conceive of raw observations— the endless details noted above—as located at the lowest rung on a huge ladder of abstraction. One then ascends the ladder each time one clusters details at a given level into a more encompassing pattern. The broader the generalizations one makes, of course, the higher one goes on the ladder, stopping the ascent at that rung where one is satisfied that the kind of understanding one seeks has been achieved. In a like manner, one descends the ladder when one perceives that more detail is needed to clarify the understanding developed at higher rungs.

The notion of understanding arrayed at different levels of abstraction promotes theoretical self-consciousness because it constantly reminds us that we are inescapably involved in a process of selecting some details as important and dismissing others as trivial. Aware that, perforce, we must teeter precariously on a rung of delicately balanced interpretations whenever we move beyond raw facts, we are continuously impelled to treat any observation we make as partly a product of our premises about the way things work in world politics.

Another way of developing a keen sensitivity to the imperatives of theorizing is to evolve a habit of always asking about any phenomenon we observe, "Of what is this an instance?" Though brief, the question is powerful because it forces us to move up the ladder of abstraction in order to identify a more encompassing class of phenomena of which the observed event is an instance. Suppose, for example, one is investigating the former Soviet Union and observes that in 1991 it underwent a coup d'état that failed, and further suppose that one then asks of what is this failure an instance. Immediately one comes upon a number of possible answers at different rungs on the ladder. At the next highest rung the coup attempt may loom as a botched power grab by a small clique of politicians frustrated by their progressive loss of influence. At a higher rung it can be seen as an instance of factional and ideological tension among an elite accustomed to unquestioned leadership. At a still higher rung it might be interpreted as an instance of the kind of political tensions that follow when an economy enters a period of steep decline. Near the top rung the failed coup can readily be viewed as an instance of profound change in a long-stagnant society. At the very top it might be seen as the final stage in a long process of systemic collapse.

In the sense that they are broadly explanatory, each of these interpretations is profoundly theoretical. None of them is more correct than any other—since they offer explanations at different levels of aggregation—but all of them select certain aspects of the failed coup as relevant and impute meaning to them. And, in so doing, they nicely demonstrate how the of-what-is-this-an-instance question impels us to use theory as a means of enlarging our understanding. More than that, the several interpretations of the coup highlight the satisfactions inherent in the theoretical enterprise. For there is little to get excited about at the lowest rungs on the ladder of abstraction. To be sure, the raw facts and historical details are important—one could hardly theorize without them—but it is only as one moves up the ladder that the interesting questions begin to arise and allow one's mind to come alive, to probe and ponder, to delve and discard, to roam and revise. Taken by itself, the failed coup in August 1991 was no more than nine men imprisoning a president and issuing orders; but as an instance of more encompassing processes, it was one of the most dynamic moments of recent history.

The Refinements of Theory

It follows that at least crude forms of theorizing are at work whenever we undertake observation. The facts of history or current events do not speak to us. They do not cry out for attention and impose themselves upon us. Rather, it is we who make the facts speak, accord them salience, give them meaning, and in so doing endlessly engage in the theoretical enterprise. Since this is the case irrespective of whether we are aware of ourselves as theoreticians, it is obviously preferable to move consciously up and. down the ladder of abstraction. Indeed, since theorizing is the surest and most expeditious route to understanding, there is much to be said for making a habit out of the of-what-is-this-an-instance question, of training oneself to ask it constantly in order to ensure that one proceeds explicitly from observation to inference to explanation. By being habitual about the question, that is, one assures always seeing larger meanings even as one focuses on particular events. And by being explicit, one can identify where one may have erred if it turns out that an interpretation proves unwarranted in the light of subsequent developments.

Explicitness, in other words, is a crucial refinement of the theoretical enterprise. It is what allows us to test and revise our theories. By being explicit we can not only check our reasoning against further observations but also submit our theories to the scrutiny of those who doubt the soundness of our theorizing. In this way knowledge cumulates and both specific events and broad trends come into focus and pave the way for ever more enriched understanding. Thus is a task that may seem like sheer craziness transformed by the theorist into a challenging and rewarding endeavor.

There are, of course, many other rules and procedures that underlie the theoretical enterprise. Theory is not a means of giving vent to one's intuitions, of randomly asserting whatever pops to mind as a response to the of-what-is-this-an-instance question. A hunch or impression may serve as an initial stimulus to theory building, but no observation acquires a theoretical context until such time as it is integrated into a coherent and more encompassing framework and then subjected to the rigors of systematic analysis. Like any other intellectual enterprise, in other words, theorizing is founded on rules—in this case, rules for transforming raw observations into refined hypotheses and meaningful understandings. In themselves, the rules are neutral; they allow for weak theory as well as powerful theory, for narrow theory that explains a limited set of observations as well as broad theory that purports to account for a wide array of phenomena. Whatever the strength and scope of any theory, however, it is unlikely to advance understanding if it strays far from the core rules that underlie the enterprise.

Toward the Higher Rungs

Although this is not the place to elaborate the rules to which theoreticians adhere, it is useful to note that the higher one moves up the ladder of abstraction, the less one worries about anomalous situations and the more one focuses on patterns that reflect central tendencies. Located at the top of the ladder are comprehensive perspectives that organize our overall understanding of cause and effect. We all have such theories, even if we are not consciously aware of them. Pluralists, for example, understand social life to be moved by a variety of groups with differing agendas that may nevertheless intersect. Any such broad perspective is consistent with several more specific theories; pluralism implies interest-group liberalism or "world society" approaches. Even though such theories require somewhat different testable hypotheses, they are fundamentally related in that they share basic axioms about social and political life.

Consequently, as one approaches the rungs at the top of the ladder, one's theories subsume di verse details and become all-encompassing, ranging across the full gamut of human affairs. At the highest rung, a theory may also be called a paradigm or a model, terms that refer to an integrated set of propositions that account for any development within the purview of the theory.¹ Virtually by definition, therefore, paradigmatic formulations rest on simple propositions that subsume many diverse forms of activity and thus cannot be readily overturned or embarrassed by exceptions to the central tendencies they depict. Put differently, paradigms tend to be closed systems of thought that cannot be broken by the recitation of specific examples that run counter to their premises. A thoroughgoing paradigm closes off the anomalies by resort to deeper explanations that bring the exceptions within the scope of its central tendencies. Marxists, for example, were long able to preserve their paradigm by treating any challenge to their theoretical perspective as conditioned by class consciousness and thus as explicable within the context of their core premises. It follows that the only way one can break free of an entrapping paradigm is by rejecting its core premises and framing new ones that account in a different way for both the central tendencies and the anomalies. Once one develops a new formulation out of the new premises, of course, one acquires a new paradigm that, in turn, is both all-encompassing and all-entrapping.

In short, we inevitably bring to world politics a broad paradigmatic perspective that enables us to infuse meaning into the latest development. And inescapably, too, we are bound to feel quarrelsome with respect to those who rely on different paradigms to explain the same events.

Notwithstanding the combative impulses induced by paradigmatic commitments and the occasional moments of insecurity over being entrapped in a conceptual jail of one's own making, the higher rungs of the ladder serve the valuable purpose of infusing coherence into all that we observe in global politics. The paradigm of our choice may be excessively simple and it may be closed to all challenges, but it does guide us through the complexities of an ever more interdependent world. Our perch high on the ladder of abstraction enables us to identify key questions and develop a perspective on how to answer them. Without a self-conscious paradigmatic commitment, one is destined for endless confusion, for seeing everything as relevant and thus being unable to tease meaning out of the welter of events, situations, trends, and circumstances that make up international affairs at any and every moment in time. Without a readiness to rely on the interlocking premises of a particular paradigm, our efforts at understanding would be, at best, transitory, and at worst they would be arbitrary, filled with gaping holes and glaring contradictions.

To demonstrate the virtues of climbing to the highest rungs on the ladder of abstraction, as well as to show how thoroughly the substance of the field is a product of the broad theories we employ in the following chapters we present three very different paradigms and then contrast them through a series of case studies. There are, of course, more than three well-developed theories available for use by students of the subject. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive, however, we have chosen to be intensive, to show how a theory founded on the continuity and stability of the anarchic state system (the realism paradigm) yields a very different picture of global politics than one organized around transformations initiated by open markets, individual freedoms, or international cooperation (the liberalism paradigm) or one based on changes generated by an expansion of individual skills and a greater readiness of individuals and groups to challenge authority (the turbulence or postinternational paradigm). In the next three chapters we present, respectively, these three paradigmatic perspectives in broad outline, and in Chapter 5 we compare the points at which they overlap and diverge. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 carry the comparisons into the empirical realm with several very different case studies—one on major crises that mark recent history, a second on the United Nations, and a third on the Antarctic Treaty. The final chapter offers some suggestions for readers who would like to improve their capacities as theorists.

It will be rioted that we have identified more than one central dimension of each paradigm. As will be seen in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, in some instances these dimensions are reflective of paradigmatic contradictions, of paradoxes indicative of the fact that all three paradigms are undergoing alteration in response to the growing complexity of world affairs. This is especially the case for the liberal paradigm. Although the "liberal" label once referred almost exclusively to the virtues of open markets and free economic competition, subsequently it also came to be applied to individual freedoms in a domestic context and to international cooperation in a worldwide context. Thus, some liberals—Franklin D. Roosevelt comes to mind—believed that markets were capable of excesses and imbalances that governments should seek to prevent on behalf of individual well-being, even as others— say, the economist Milton Friedman—argued that people would be better off in the long run if governments stayed out of the economy. To cope with this problem, in each of the case studies presented in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 we do not undertake to contrast all the dimensions of each paradigm; rather, we confine the analysis to the most relevant dimension. In applying the liberal paradigm to the Asian financial crisis, for example, we focus mainly on economic liberalism and only at the end suggest how liberals who stress the cooperation-enhancing virtues of international institutions have offered solutions that might prevent recurrence of such crises.

To elaborate these paradigms and their several dimensions, which may on occasion be contradictory, is to raise the important question of whether one can shift back and forth among paradigms or their dimensions depending on the issue one seeks to comprehend. The answer is complex: No, ordinarily one is locked into the paradigm comprising those underlying presumptions with which one is most comfortable; but, yes, one may have to shift out of one's preferred paradigm on those rare occasions when an issue that seems salient lies outside its scope. Such occasions are rare because as already indicated, paradigms are so thoroughly integrated that they tend to define the saliency of issues on the global agenda and to dismiss as unimportant those that fall outside its scope. Yet, some observers have a sufficiently wide-ranging curiosity to be engaged on occasion by an issue that they regard as important even as they acknowledge that their preferred paradigm cannot handle it, with the result that they may either revise and extend their own paradigm, or turn to another for guidance. For example, if postinternationalists ascribe salience to the formation of an alliance, they may turn to realist premises about when and why states sign treaties with each other, whereas realists might turn to postinternationalism in the unlikely event they become interested in when and why nongovernmental groups press for greater attention to environmental issues. Why? Because the premises of postinternationalism are short on values pertaining to territorial security, whereas realism tends not to focus on environmental issues.

This is in no way to imply that facts speak for themselves, that what develops in the world arena precedes and points to the paradigm we should employ to interpret developments. To repeat, our preferred paradigm normally serves to define the saliency of what transpires on the global stage. But there may be occasions when an unfami...