Quantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists

Quantizing Critique

Michael P. A. Murphy

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030601119
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the crossroads of quantum and critical approaches to International Relations and argues that these approaches share a common project of uncovering complexity and uncertainty. The "quantum turn" in International Relations theory has produced a number of interesting insights into the complex ways in which our assumptions about the physics of the world around us can limit our understanding of social life. While critique is possible within a Newtonian social science, core assumptions of separability and determinism of classical physics impose limits on what is imaginable. The author argues that by adopting a quantum imaginary, social theory can move beyond its Newtonian limits, and explore two methods for quantizing conceptual models—translation and application. This book is the first introductory book to quantum social theory ideas specifically intended for an audience of critical International Relations.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

M. P. A. MurphyQuantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists Palgrave Studies in International Relationshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60111-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Uncertainty, Paradoxes, and Critical Intuition

Michael P. A. Murphy¹

(1)

University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Michael P. A. Murphy

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, I make the case for an alliance between quantum social theory and critical approaches to International Relations. I outline key concepts for the remainder of the book, including the notion of critique, the importance of a physical imaginary in social science, and outline the structure of the book. I suggest how the book can be used as a guidebook, toolbox, and reference work and introduce the “Further Reading” sections appearing in all subsequent chapters.

Keywords

Quantum social theoryCritical International RelationsCritique

End Abstract

Introduction

The research community of quantum social theory has grown rapidly in the last decade and a half with the publication of books by Karen Barad (2007), Emmanuel Haven and Andrei Khrennikov (2013, 2017), Alexander Wendt (2015), and Laura Zanotti (2019). While the two earliest interventions noted here come from the disciplines of philosophy of science and finance, respectively, the latter two projects emerge from the growing “quantum community” within the discipline of International Relations (IR). Recent regional and annual conventions of the International Studies Association have seen a plethora of panel discussions and roundtables, alongside the Project Q symposia series at the University of Sydney and other events at the Ohio State University’s Mershon Centre and OP Jindal Global University’s Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality, and Public Policy (CEASP). While much of the early attention in International Relations has been paid particularly to Wendt’s Quantum Mind and Social Science, the quantum IR community in fact includes a diverse set of approaches to the quantum question.¹ Wendt’s pitch is grounded in what I will later call “quantum realism,” and he argues that there is a quantum reality to the social world, scaling quantum coherence from the smallest (panpsychist) subatomic particles in our brain neurons to the largest social phenomena. From this point, Wendt’s quantum social theory proceeds as a positivist enterprise that reports the world as it is actually constructed through quantum processes and interactions. Wendt’s compelling book and the sustained attention it has received in the half-decade since its release means that when people hear about quantum IR, there is sometimes an assumption that one is speaking of a Wendtian quantum realism—but as Wendt himself acknowledges, there are multiple approaches to quantum thinking.

The strong association of “quantum IR” with Wendt’s hard pitch for quantum realism has led many critical IR scholars to view the whole project with scepticism. Frequently, panels are questioned if the quantum project is but mere fetishism of science, a positivist project lacking in laboratory evidence, or an unnecessary import of complicated terminology to describe mechanisms and relations that can be adequately described in more established social-scientific or -theoretic language. While scepticism is encouraged and concerns about scientific fetishism and other issues are valid, it is my hope that the simultaneous recognition of the pluralism of quantum IR (on the part of new readers) and clearer articulation of the value of quantum social theory for existing research communities (on the part of quantum social theorists) would serve to assuage many concerns that critical IR scholars may have about quantum approaches. There is no one way to bring quantum thinking into International Relations, and just because one pathway appears problematic does not mean that any kind of quantum journey is similarly fraught. Just as critical scholars of International Relations do not assess the critical utility of IR theory writ large through an evaluation of political realism alone, the reluctance to accept a hard pitch of quantum realism should not dissuade engagement with similarly critical approaches to quantum social theory.² This is not to say that a hearty dose of scepticism is unwarranted, but that dialogue with friendly interlocutors will prove most welcoming for critical IR scholars. I will focus in this book on how quantum social theory presents an intuitive vocabulary for scholars of critical IR.

This introductory discussion will briefly explore how quantum mechanics and critical IR remain open to uncertainty and paradox and introduce the concept of the “Newtonian imaginary” before explaining the structure of the main text. Identifying the common ground between quantum mechanics (or quantum social theory) and critical IR serves to foreground why “quantizing critique” through translation and application of core concepts in quantum social theory will in fact present an intuitive vocabulary for many critical IR scholars. Both quantum mechanics and critical IR interrogate rather than gloss uncertain and paradoxical elements of reality. The preliminary exploration of the common ground shared by what we might call the quantum and critical dispositions offers encouragement for future engagement with the topic. The discussion turns to a consideration of a core idea that appears throughout the book—the physical imaginary. Given the importance of language and thinking in structuring our range of experience with the world as researchers,³ I argue that an important part of quantizing critique consists of interrogating how Newtonian assumptions are embedded in social science. As will be discussed below, moving from a Newtonian to a quantum physical imaginary is a key step on the journey to realizing the new questions that open up when we quantize our modes of critique.

Critical IR and Quantum Theory: In Search of Common Ground

The history of “critical IR” is as complex and contingent upon significant but arbitrary delineations as the subject matter it interrogates. One common narrative claims an origin in the work of R.W. Cox, especially in his oft-cited division between critical theory and problem-solving theory (1981), similarly expressed as “dissident thought” in a formative special issue of International Studies Quarterly (Ashley and Walker 1990). The critical project in IR grew through pluralizing, opening up space for new objects of study, theoretical frameworks, and methodological designs, all motivated to ask a new set of questions about the world—the mission was not to solve problems of efficiency for policy-makers, but to “stan[d] apart from the prevailing order of the world and as[k] how the order came about” (Cox 1981, 129). While Cox’s formulation calls both for the questioning of the prevailing order and the pursuit of transformational politics—in a move similar to but distinct from Horkheimer’s separation of critical and traditional theory (Brincat 2016)—the trajectory of critical IR often now focuses more on the former mission than the latter (see Hynek and Chandler 2013).

The moniker of “critical IR,” then, is at its most valuable as a separation of approaches seeking to question prevailing wisdom from other approaches which are then cast as precisely that prevailing wisdom to be questioned. For the purposes of this book, I will bracket the gatekeeping debates internal to various communities of research, including the necessity of forwarding emancipatory political aims. I take a big-tent perspective on critical scholarship that includes all communities following Cox’s call to question the prevailing order rather than to solve its problems or tinker around the edges. Holding this definition follows Cox’s strategic move⁴ rather than his substantive concern with emancipation. The effectiveness of this strategic move is not lost on proponents of “critical” subfields, demonstrated clearly in the editorial launches of recent journals, including Critical Studies on Terrorism (Breen Smyth et al. 2008), Critical Studies on Security (Mutimer et al. 2013), and Critical Military Studies (Basham et al. 2015). While the subjects covered and methodologies employed in these and other self-identified “critical” research communities vary widely, membership in the big-tent definition of critical IR entails a shared desire to question in new ways and favour precise details over predictability.

The rise of quantum mechanics can be seen as a moment similar to the rise of critical IR. As many commentators from the philosophy of science have noted (e.g. Kuhn 2012), everyday activity in scientific research aims for marginal progress that solves minor problems of the day before, and grand revolutions can only come about when the dominant paradigm collapses under the weight of contradictions. The development of quantum mechanics out of classical mechanics did not happen immediately, but was possible only because of paradoxical elements of Newtonian science which sojourned in the liminal space of the “Old Quantum Theory.” Here, the central mission of people like Planck, Einstein, and Bohr was to find new ways of accounting for the number of conceptual problems evident in Newtonian physics’ explanations of microscopic phenomena that grew steadily as experimental technologies and mathematical models became more sophisticated. Einstein’s 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect is notable to this end precisely because he is explicit about finding a new way to look at the problem from the very title: “On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light” (Einstein 2005). It was clear that, to progress, physicists would have to change course and develop a new imaginary that permitted new kinds of questions to be asked about the microworld than were possible within the conceptual apparatus of Newtonian science.

Much like the parallel sometimes posited between Newton and Einstein within physics circles, the parallel here posited ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Uncertainty, Paradoxes, and Critical Intuition
• Part I. From the Laboratory to the Social World
• Part II. Quantizing Critique through Translation and Application
• Back Matter