Theories of International Relations

Contending Approaches to World Politics

Stephanie Lawson

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780745695136
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since the field of International Relations was established almost a century ago, many different theoretical approaches have been developed, each offering distinctive accounts of the world, why it has come to be the way it is, and how it might be made a better place.

In this illuminating textbook, leading IR scholar, Stephanie Lawson, examines each of these theories in turn, from political realism in its various forms to liberalism, Marxism, critical theory and more recent contributions from social theory, feminism, postcolonialism and green theory. Taking as her focus the major practical issues facing scholars of international relations today, Lawson ably shows how each theory relates to situations?on the ground?. Each chapter features case studies, questions for discussion to encourage reflection and classroom debate, guides to further reading and web resources.

The study of IR is a profoundly normative enterprise, and each theoretical school has its strengths and weaknesses. Theories of International Relations encourages a critical, reflective approach to the study of IR theory, while emphasising the many important and interesting things it has to teach us about the complexities and challenges of international politics today.

1
Introduction: Theorizing International Relations

All academic disciplines are dedicated to the task of understanding or explaining some aspect of the world, although they do so in very different ways. And they are all underpinned by bodies of theory formulated in response to particular problems or questions emerging from their particular subject matter. So the study of literature is underpinned by literary theory, sociology by social theory, physics by physical theory, politics by political theory, and so on. The study of international relations (IR), and its theorization, is a species of political studies or political science but has developed its own distinctive profile since it emerged as a specialized field almost a century ago. IR also draws on other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, especially history, philosophy, law and economics, with social theory having a particular influence in recent years.

As an intellectual enterprise, theory is often contrasted with action or practice, sometimes in a negative sense, as reflected in the rather clichéd stock phrase ‘It’s all very well in theory but it doesn’t work in practice’. Actually, if it doesn’t work in practice, then it may not be much of a theory (whatever ‘it’ is) and must therefore be re-examined for errors or abandoned altogether. This suggests that theories stand to be tested in light of practice, or in competition with other theories, and succeed, fail or undergo modification on that basis. Even when theory does fail in some sense, the value of theoretical speculation should never be underestimated. Nor should ‘the abstract’ be set up in opposition to ‘the real’, as if they were completely unrelated. While theorizing is indeed a mental process rather than a physical action or event, it is intimately related to practice. It aims to make sense of actions, events or phenomena in the physical or natural world as well as the social world, of which politics is a significant part. Some go so far as to propose that theories actually create realities. At the very least, thinking generally precedes action – and, indeed, we are usually enjoined to think before we act. Whether those thinking processes always result in what we might consider desirable outcomes is another matter.

As is evident from the title and contents of this book, there is no one theory of IR but rather a number of theories. Some of these are addressed very generally to questions of power, interests, conflict, cooperation, order and justice. Others have particular starting points which are more issue-oriented but which nonetheless address the same general questions in one way or another. Some have developed at least partly as critiques, either of other theoretical approaches or as a response to particular problems, or both. And, within each of them, there are different, competing strands. This introductory chapter provides some essential background to how these different approaches theorize the field of international politics, looking first at the importance of theory itself and at issues of knowledge and truth, objectivity and subjectivity, the nature of existence and reality, and the dynamics of power and interests in politics. We then consider the purpose and scope of IR as a discipline and some of the factors driving its initial theorization, as well as key historical developments, including the phenomenon of modernity and what has become the central institution of politics – the sovereign state.

Theory, Norms and Methods

‘Theory’ – derived from the Greek theoria, meaning contemplation or speculation – may be defined as an organized system of ideas devised to explain a certain set of phenomena. The phenomena about which we theorize may range from fairly simple or narrow ones to very wide-ranging, complex and controversial ones, such as those involved in theories of climate change or the evolution of species. These bodies of theory are essentially scientific, but the former in particular has generated much political controversy in the contemporary period, giving a slightly different nuance to the term ‘political science’.

Because IR is a form of political or, more broadly, social science, it is important to consider the concept of science itself. It has been said that what makes science ‘scientific’ is not the nature of the phenomena under observation or study but how they are studied. Thus the term ‘scientific’ is often applied to a particular type of process or method (Kosso, 2011, p. 1). Scientific method in the natural sciences is typically described as beginning with the observation and description of phenomena followed by the formulation of a hypothesis, which is a tentative explanation of the phenomena in question, and then the testing of the hypothesis, ideally through repeated experimentation under the same conditions to confirm its capacity to make reliable, universally applicable predictions, thus constituting a ‘reality’ that is independent of time and place. If it stands up to such testing, it may turn from a mere hypothesis into a theory or even a law. Thus the hallmarks of scientific enquiry are the use of evidence and reason in an objective process following recognized procedures, free from the intrusion of human values, and resulting in the production of reliable, objective knowledge (Gower, 1997, p. 5; Kosso, 2011, pp. 1–2).

This is a rather idealized view of how science proceeds. In practice neither scientists nor the hypotheses or theories they produce are as objective as some might like to think. Scientists are, after all, human, and there will always be subjective elements at work in the production of scientific knowledge. This highlights the fact that, because it is a human activity, research in science is therefore by definition a social activity attended by all the dynamics characterizing social interaction, including cooperation, competition and conflict. Furthermore, the way in which science proceeds is often much more creative and contingent than the formal description of scientific method implies. Chance observations, unexpected reactions, accidental findings or unanticipated experimental results are as important as the more strictly methodical activities.

There has been much controversy about whether the basic methods applicable to the natural sciences can or should be adopted in the social sciences. This begs the question of whether the production of knowledge in the social sciences is amenable to the same kinds of methods as apply in the natural sciences. We can certainly generate hypotheses about a wide variety of social phenomena, and we can amass empirical data about them, but we cannot often run experiments in the social world, let alone run repeated tests over time under exactly the same conditions. Studying self-aware, sometimes rational, sometimes irrational humans in diverse social and political contexts in which a myriad of factors or variables come into play is simply not amenable to the scientific method described above. So what other methods are available?

Some social scientists make extensive use of statistical data which, on the face of it, may seem more or less objective and preclude the intrusion of the researcher’s own values. However, even if the data is largely objective (which depends very much on what is counted or measured and how it is counted or measured), its interpretation is another matter. At virtually all stages of a project, subjective elements will intrude. There are also serious limits to what we can gain knowledge of through methods restricted to quantifiable data.

The use of quantitative methodology in social science research is often taken as the hallmark of positivism, a term coined by the French intellectual August Comte (1798–1857), who is also credited with popularizing the term ‘sociology’. Comte envisaged the latter as a positive science capable of formulating invariant laws in the social sphere. Positivism is sometimes used synonymously with ‘empiricism’, a doctrine that holds that real knowledge – as opposed to mere belief – can only be gained through more or less direct observation and experience. Empiricism, however, is not engaged with theory-building as such, only with the accumulation of verifiable facts. Positivism goes beyond empiricism in that its aim is to produce and test theories while relying on empirical data that can be aggregated, usually in statistical form. The results are believed to be objective, value-free conclusions about the phenomena under investigation and ultimately to be relied on to produce valid theory and even laws of human and social behaviour.

Positivism thus conceived is opposed to theological and metaphysical modes of discovering ‘truth’ which had dominated in an earlier era. But Comte’s stipulation that real knowledge of the social and political world could only be produced via positivism came to be regarded as far too narrow. Even the nature of empirical evidence itself is now recognized as very diverse and not always amenable to strict positivist treatment. Qualitative methods based on interpretive techniques are now recognized as more appropriate to the study of politics and society. Ethnography in anthropology, the collection and interpretation of artefacts in archaeology, the piecing together of archival information and other sources to produce narrative history, and participant observation in sociology, as well as case study analysis, focus group analysis, various forms of interviewing, and so on, common to a range of social science disciplines – all these are highly methodical in a qualitative sense and appropriate to the tasks they are designed to serve, but none would fit the narrower definitions of scientific method described above. Some have argued for the value of combining both quantitative and qualitative methods, thus producing an eclectic methodological framework – also known as mixed methods research – which is better suited to the task of studying complex social and political phenomena (see Teddie and Tashakkori, 2011, pp. 285–90).

The attempt to constrain the social sciences within a strict positivist framework would also seem to preclude moral or ethical issues, and yet these lie at the heart of most political questions, whether domestic or international. By definition, the very idea of an objective body of science requires that all such considerations be put aside, for science – at least in a narrow sense – is the study of what is, not what ought to be. A statement of what is constitutes a positive statement and is therefore held to be value free, while a statement of what ought to be is described as a normative statement and is value-laden by definition.

I suggest that, in the study of politics at any level, from the domestic through to the international, we need both. In other words, we need to be able to identify and describe with a fair degree of accuracy the political world as it is, and this is certainly where reliable methods, either quantitative or qualitative, or both, have their place in the production of knowledge. We then need to engage with normative theory to make considered judgements about whether or not this is the most desirable of possible worlds from some ethical point of view. This involves ‘value judgements’, but perfectly legitimate ones. For both social scientists and those trained in the humanities, it is not a matter of avoiding making value judgements but, rather, a matter of making well-informed judgements based on an assessment of general principles as well as the particularities of any given case.

Normative issues in politics are not so different from the ultimate concerns of many scientific endeavours, which are often (although certainly not always) directed to improving some aspect of the world. Indeed, normative judgements often go hand in hand with scientific projects, which are then implemented through social and political institutions. The eradication of diseases, which cause massive human suffering, through a fruitful combination of scientific research and international political action is a prime example, as case study 1.1 shows.

Another important question in normative theory concerns the sources of human subjectivity and therefore of values, norms and moral sensibilities. One answer that may seem obvious is ‘culture’. We tend to learn or absorb our norms and values from our immediate social environment. Initially, this means the family, but families are embedded in wider social groups – communities. And communities are frequently defined in terms of cultural factors – language, religion, socio-political organization, artistic expression and material culture. At a national level, states are often assumed to possess something called ‘political culture’ – a term used in comparative politics to denote the normative orientation of citizens to their political system. In IR theory, the idea of culture has played an important role, at least since the end of the Cold War, and has generated much debate over whether norms and values – especially those concerning democracy and human rights – can ever be truly universal, or whether they are irredeemably products of particular cultures, and therefore always relative to that culture.

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Case Study 1.1 Normative Theory and the Eradication of Smallpox

The smallpox virus is thought to have emerged up to 10,000 years ago, possibly in northeastern Africa, and spread as far as China by about 1100 BC. It arrived in Europe much later, but by the eighteenth century it was killing around 400,000 a year. It devastated indigenous populations in the Americas when introduced by Spanish, Portuguese and other intruders. Depending on the variant, death rates were around 30 per cent in adults and much higher in infants. Disfigurement and blindness was common among survivors. Various methods were used in attempts to control the disease, including early forms of inoculation practised in ancient China as well as in the Ottoman Empire and parts of Africa.

The best-known pioneer of s...