Tactical Constructivism, Method, and International Relations

Expression and Reflection

Brent Steele, Harry Gould, Oliver Kessler, Brent J. Steele, Harry D. Gould, Oliver Kessler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351611831
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

This is a book on methods, how scholars embody them and how working within, from or against Constructivism has shaped that use and embodiment.

A vibrant cross-section of contributors write of interdisciplinary encounters, first interactions with the 'discipline' of International Relations, discuss engagements in different techniques and tactics, and of pursuing different methods ranging from ethnographic to computer simulations, from sociology to philosophy and history. Presenting a range of voices, many constructivist, some outside and even critical of Constructivism, the volume shows methods as useful tools for approaching research and political positions in International Relations, while also containing contingent, inexact, unexpected, and even surprising qualities for opening further research. It gives a rich account of how the discipline was transformed in the 1990s and early 2000s, and how this shaped careers, positions and interactions.

It will be of interest to both students and scholars of methods and theory in International Relations and global politics.

Part I

Interpreting Constructivism

1 Third generation Constructivism

Between tactics and strategy

Piki Ish-Shalom

It is almost always a joy to find an unfamiliar relative. It is even more enjoyable and comforting to find a‎ family, a warm and intimate circle that shelters you from the stormy world outside, nourishes you, and helps you find meaning in your life and realize your potential. The discovery of third generation Constructivism was, for me, something like the enjoyable and comforting experience of finding one’s own unknown family. Even though Constructivism has enjoyed a relative flourishing in recent years (especially in Europe) its status in IR is still unsecured. Thus, to be a constructivist in the world of International Relations might be the experience of daunting loneliness. Hence my joy in finding this lost family should not come as a surprise. A Solitary Walker comes to rest at long last in the warmth of familial shelter.

But a second discovery immediately followed the first: my found/ed family is a very diverse one. Third generation constructivists are spread all over in terms of issues and even perspectives. While all are sociologically oriented, some are more related to political psychology, others to history, and yet others to political theory and/or critical theory. Some look for refuge in modernism, others found their destiny in poststructuralism while more are in the in-between gray area inspired by the likes of Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu. Many study norms, some identities, but many more adopted newer perspectives such as fields, habits, practices, emotions, narratives and networks. They employ these perspectives to study many issues like security, immigration and power. Yet others prefer to remain in the meta-theoretical and epistemological levels arguing for self-reflexivity and responsibility, or debating causation and scientific realism. Nevertheless, there is a set of understandings and commitments that is shared among them all, enabling us to think of them as belonging to a group, a generation. As suggested by David McCourt and Brent Steele third generation constructivists (or post second generation, as they term it) are characterized by a return movement to first generation constructivists like Onuf and Kratochwil, whom second generation constructivists quite abandoned. Second generation constructivists tactically attempted to ground themselves in a methodology that could help their theories to be tested and falsified; to position themselves as equals in the same playing field with neorealism and neoliberalism (or rationalist perspectives) (see also Subotic, this volume). As such, though focusing on constructivist issues like norms and identities, second generation constructivists took a more positivist route. They almost ignored the multifaceted ways by which social reality and social knowledge are intertwined together to such an extent as to undermine neopositivist methodology, based as it is on the distinction between the researching mind and the researched reality. Third generation constructivists reacted against this move and returned to post-positivism all the way down (though many-faced post-positivism), affirming a commitment to the study of discourse and the importance of interpretation of meanings. It is this commitment, which is at once ontological, epistemological, methodological and ethical, which makes a group out of these diverse scholars and renders them, as third generation constructivists, particularly appropriate, even hospitable, to the kind of analysis and Buberian proposal promoted here. Martin’s Buber philosophy of dialogue can and should be a tactic to sustain third generation Constructivism, enabling them to maneuver within their group and outside it.

Embracing Buberian dialogue is a tactic for sustaining TGC as a family, and it also bears strategic implications in the form of normative engagements with social reality. My use of strategy and tactics steers a little from that of Steele and other contributors to this volume, but not too far. Amy Skonieczny summarizes succinctly the common conceptualizations in this volume: “tactics appear minimal and in the moment as opposed to more certain and planned out strategies.” Tactics, that is, are the means and methods of using one’s own resources to achieve immediate goals. Strategy, on the other hand, is the broader plans and approaches that connect together the means, resources and the immediate goals in the services of one’s own purposes and ends. In this volume we see the discussions of methods as tactics serving to position Constructivism and constructivists within (mostly American) academia (McCourt). Strategies are often seen as too ambitious and vulnerable to the contingencies of the world (Steele), so much so that those trying to employ strategies may end up being servants to forces more powerful than us. While this may be true and the world is fragmented and full of contingencies, I still see no point in having tactics if there is no strategy, no point in having goals that serve no visionary purpose and ends (however ironic and cautious one wishes to be about those purpose and ends). Accordingly, I will argue here for a Buberian dialogical philosophy. My take on the Buberian dialogical philosophy comprises two tactical measures and one strategic end. The two tactical measures are directed for the goal of positioning Constructivism within academia. The overall strategic end is realizing truth as a living entity constructed in an engaged and dynamic process involving the wider public.

The core theme of Buber’s philosophy is dialogue as that authentic human phenomenon that is a meeting between persons, fostered by the mutually and intentionally opening of hearts. Buber maintained that although living in social alienation man can heal society by entering into interpersonal dialogue that is conditioned on presence, true intention and mutual opening of hearts. Those three traits can lead to the genuine dialogue that constitutes relation of I-Thou as that relation of unmediated listening and unity of existence. Constituting I-Thou relation establishes the interpersonal sphere that Buber called the Between and it enables constructing a community as We, the same We I am looking for in third generation constructivists. Community is characterized by the quality of the I-Thou relation, and is gravitated by a common Center that functions as that which binds the several I’s into We, envisioned by Buber as the ethical human and social existence. The Center is the shared facet of human society that its existence enables overcoming alienation and entering into dialogue. The obverse kind of relation is the I-It which is based on instrumentalization of the members of society and on distancing each other. I-It maintains the alienated conditions of human society, preventing the constitution of the dialogical community as We. The quality of the I-Thou and I-It relations exists, according to Buber, not only between persons, but also between persons and nature, as well as with intellectual essences such as theory. As I will argue later, it is here, in the relation between persons and nature, or with theory, that Buber’s dialogical philosophy can turn from tactic to strategy, of making third generation constructivists active agents in the society beyond academia.

The chapter will be divided into three sections, the first two dealing with the tactical measures of self-reflexivity and community building, and the third turning our gaze to the strategic end of engaged academia, dialoguing with and for the wider society and truth.

Self-reflexivity

A core constructivist contention is that social construction is entwined with social knowledge. To socially know is to be involved in social construction and to socially construct is to gain, develop and distribute social knowledge. Hence, and following Buber, the first tactical measure to gain a functioning community is self-reflexivity. Buber argued that there can be no true knowledge of the world and of human society and community, without self-knowledge, “philosophical knowledge of man is essentially man’s self-reflection, and man can reflect about himself only when the cognizing person, that is, the philosopher pursuing anthropology, first of all reflects about himself as a person” (Buber 1947, 154–5). To know reality one has to know one’s own assumptions that act as filters which distort a true encounter with reality. Buber conceived theoretical knowledge in a very similar way to feminist standpoint epistemology, the claim that all knowledge – theoretical knowledge included – is situated both socially and politically; all knowledge, that is, is determined by the position of the knower in the social hierarchy and his ensuing social and political commitments. As Lawrence Silberstein made clear, for Buber, “the sociologist lacks an Olympian perch from which to look down and see things independent of his or her own perspective” (Silberstein 1989, 170). The same understanding drives feminist epistemologists to call for self-reflexivity. One has to be critically aware of those idealist assumptions and social and cultural commitments that shape one’s research and theoretical framework. Being aware of them will allow, in phenomenological terminology,¹ bracketing: putting on hold, in encountering social reality, theory and any other unintended biases and filters, so as to enable direct and unfiltered encounter with social reality. There can be no theory without those assumptions and commitments which “affect the process of determining which data are relevant, which are less so, and which have no relevance at all” (Ish-Shalom 2006b, 441). One has to identify those idealist assumptions and social and cultural commitments operating in his or her theory to be able to understand their functioning as filters and biases that distort a genuine encounter with reality.

It should be noted that Buber does not undermine the importance of science (including social science) and theory. He considers them as a crucial sphere of human activity. Science enables coping with the complexity of the world in which we live. As such it is essential for progress, especially when conceptualized materially (Silberstein 1989, 120). Science allows sorting out different phenomena, measuring, and comparing them, thus it allows humans to have a degree of control over their environment, such that they can produce the artifacts that enable material progress. Hence science is evaluated positively and Buber also holds in high esteem science’s output (ibid.). However, the essence of relations that are characterized by controlling nature and producing out of it those artifacts that are necessary for material progress is the essence of instrumentalization and alienation. As such the scientific approach creates detached I-It relations with reality and social reality. Accordingly, while holding science in high regard and certainly not rejecting its utility Buber wishes to allocate it its proper place. Science is crucial to material progress but this should not be mistaken with human progress, and we should not let the I-It scientific approach imperialize our relations with nature, reality, and social reality (Silberstein 1989, 174). Side by side with the I-It instrumentalized scientific approach we should cultivate also a direct relation with nature, reality and social reality; direct relations unhindered by theory and any other systematic assumptions with which we engage our surroundings. It is this phenomenological understanding that we gain once we engage in self-reflexivity.

Self-reflexivity allows a modest (even ironic) attitude toward one’s own theory. It reminds us that reality is complex and theory is but a heuristic and competent tool of organizing this complexity. Theory can help us in shaping plans and policies to navigate the complexity and produce what Buber calls material progress. But complexity is also richness, and richness is not something to cope with but something to enjoy. And to enjoy the richness of reality and social reality we should be willing to bracket theory that stands in the way to direct and phenomenological relation with reality and social reality. In Buber’s words, “each of us is encased in an armour whose task is to ward off signs” (Buber 1947, 27). Bracketing theory will enable cultivating human progress, which is progress not limited solely to the material. It is human progress comprising the ideal, intellectual and cultural aspects of our humanity; human progress which Buber encouraged us to seek out, and believed will help free modernity from alienation. Bracketing will also enable the theorist to identify and understand the weaknesses and limits of her/his theory, and consequently will permit community to devise better policies, and execute those policies flexibly and successfully.

This perspective assigns theory a very important, yet confined and constricted, social role. Drawing from Richard Rorty’s terminology of the ironic liberal (see also Steele 2010) we can characterize Buber as an ironic theorist. Rorty attempted to reconcile his relativist undercurrents with a political commitment to liberalism by a perspective he called ironic liberalism. Similarly, Buber attempted to reconcile his commitment to science with an equally forceful understanding of its narrowness; hence, ironic theorist. Joining Buber’s perspective I maintain that this should be the nature of our commitment to the role of theory and theorist alike.² Heuristically speaking theory is indispensable in confronting reality’s complexity, yet this complexity is irreducible and so we should be aware that by heuristically theorizing complex reality we lose some of its richness. Additionally, by theorizing we reduce the complexity, hence we are engaged inescapably in distorting reality. Without self-reflexivity and being aware of the distortions, they might overcome our encounter with reality and impede policies derived from those theories. The awareness and ironic theorization must be complemented by a sense of pragmatism, modesty, and flexibility in constructing theory and executing its derived policies.

The attitude of ironic theorist does not exhaust itself with theory as a general category. It is not enough to be aware of the limits and weaknesses of theory in general, we should also be ironically committed to the specific theory we hold, e.g., realism, liberalism, Constructivism, third generation Constructivism, and what have you. It is here where self-reflexivity, conceptualized along Buberian lines, turns into a tactical measure. It is too common to find theorists who ignore the heuristic nature of theory and cling to it as a dogmatic creed. Too often theorists shut their ears to other theoretical frameworks. The theoretical debates turn, at times, into all-out inter-paradigmatic wars with gate keepers who do whatever is in their powers to prevent publications of theorists who do not adhere strictly enough to their own theoretical creeds.³ Some journals turn into theoretical bastions closed to other theoretical persp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Series editor introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: Interpreting Constructivism
• 1. Third generation Constructivism: between tactics and strategy
• 2. A tactical guide to conceptual analysis
• 3. Social Constructivism and actor-network theory: bridging the divide
• 4. Tactics of a constructivist pedagogy
• PART II: Discourse, Interpretation and Method
• 5. Narrative analysis as a tactical bridge
• 6.Identities as tactics: exposing relational foreign policy as story
• 7.Constructivism, computational social-relational methods, and multiple correspondence analysis
• PART III: Constructivism and the Interpretive Methods of the Self
• 8. When home is part of the field: experiencing uncanniness of home in field conversations
• 9. A reflexivity that works for us: ethics beyond norms
• 10. Feminist curiosity as method: on (limits to) tactical uses of Constructivism
• 11. Researching within the instability of meaning: decolonial voices and practices
• 12. Constructing a scholar on the road less traveled
• 13. Tactics all the way down: the politics of exteriority in Constructivism
• PART IV.: Construction and the Interpretation of History and Texts
• 14. How to do (differing) things with words: world-making and (or) meaning-making
• 15. Stubbornly stumbling into making history: Constructivism and historical international relations
• Conclusions
• Index