ID :
95830
Sat, 12/19/2009 - 15:37
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http://m.oananews.org//node/95830
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No debate between ‘isms’ any longer: professor
TEHRAN, Dec. 17 (MNA) - Georgetown University professor Andrew Bennett says there is no longer such a simple and literal debate between the "isms."
However, Bennett says there remains much debate on how best to get beyond the limitations of the isms debate.
Bennett made the remarks in an e-mail interview with the Mehr News Agency conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heiran-Nia last week.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: There are four major intellectual discussions in international relations theories: realism versus liberalism; behaviorism versus traditionalism; neo-realism versus neo-liberalism; and rationalism versus constructivism. What is the main debate?
A: A recent set of surveys of international relations scholars in the U.S. by researchers at William and Mary suggests two main lines of debate (you can find the surveys online by googling "William and Mary TRIP Survey). The first is among the grand schools of thought or "isms" (realism, liberalism, constructivism, etc), or more accurately, it is about how to get beyond the limitations of thinking in terms of isms without losing a common discourse in the field and maintaining at least some parsimony in our theorizing. Peter Katzenstein's work on "analytic eclecticism" is one such move beyond the isms. A second great debate is over methodological approaches to the study of international relations. Here too there is agreement between different groups - - mainly statistical versus qualitative case study researchers - - but there is also a move that many of us are making to transcend this debate and integrate multiple methods into our research.
Q: We went through a global economic crisis. Why were most of the major international relations theories not able to predict it?
A: Some of our theories can explain without predicting very well, and others can predict without explaining very well. The global economic crisis had to do with a lot of private information on complex markets (hedge funds, credit-default swaps, bundled mortgages) that were poorly understood even by very smart people with a lot of money at stake. By definition, if people understood how a crisis could happen, they would invest in ways that would prevent the crisis from happening. If anyone can predict economic crises, they should already be famous because they would be very rich.
Q: Professor Christian Reus-Smit argues that there is no longer a great debate over international relations theories. Do you accept this view? If that is the case, which international relations theories can explain the current issues in the area of international relations?
A: He is right in that there is no longer such a simple and literal debate between the "isms." But there remains much debate on how best to get beyond the limitations of the isms debate. Peter Katzenstein's "analytic eclecticism" is one such attempt, but the term "eclecticism" sounds too ad hoc and messy to win over many converts. I think there are more structured ways to integrate the isms into an overarching framework that allows a common discourse and some theoretical parsimony but is not too confining, but I have only just begun to write about this myself.
Q: Constructivism is one of the renowned theories in the field of international relations. What are the main advantages of this theory in comparison to other world-class international relations theories?
A: The TRIP survey shows that constructivism has attracted increasing interest among international relations scholars. It broadens the conversation beyond neorealism and neoliberalism, both of which focus on the "logic of consequences" and the notion of individualistic self-interested actors, and extends to the "logic of appropriateness" and social behavior among actors who are at times driven by norms that call for self-sacrifice. Constructivism also devotes renewed attention to non-state actors. Perhaps most importantly, by including both material structure and ideas, and by paying attention to both the intended and unintended consequences of institutions, constructivism provides a bridge to move beyond the "isms" debates.
Q: Some scholars assert that international relations is an Anglo–American discipline, but others claim that international relations has some roots in continental countries. What is your viewpoint about this division? To what extent do developing countries contribute to the discipline of international relations?
A: The U.S., Britain, and the European continent have gone through cycles in which we borrow from one another in our understanding of international relations theory. After World War II, many European refugees, like Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, had an important influence on scholars in the U.S. Currently, much of Europe is more constructivist theoretically and more qualitative methodologically than many scholars in the U.S., and Britain is more historically and qualitatively oriented than the U.S. American scholars, for better or for worse, put much more emphasis on methods and have higher hopes for deductive forms of theorizing. We all still have a lot of room to learn from one another, and we all have a chance to both teach and learn from the growing number of students coming from the developing world and Asia. As IR scholars have belatedly turned to the subject of Asian history, for example, they have had to confront the fact that balance of power theories developed in the European context do not apply very well to the long period of Chinese hegemony in Asia. Students and scholars from the developing world may also have much to teach us about ethnic and civil conflicts, politics and religion, and puzzles of international political economy and economic development.
Professor Bennett teaches courses on the American foreign policy process, international relations theory, and qualitative research methods. Professor Bennett has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and he has been a fellow at international relations research centers at Stanford and Harvard Universities. He has written on the U.S. foreign policy process, research methods, alliance burden-sharing, and regional conflicts and peacekeeping.
However, Bennett says there remains much debate on how best to get beyond the limitations of the isms debate.
Bennett made the remarks in an e-mail interview with the Mehr News Agency conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heiran-Nia last week.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: There are four major intellectual discussions in international relations theories: realism versus liberalism; behaviorism versus traditionalism; neo-realism versus neo-liberalism; and rationalism versus constructivism. What is the main debate?
A: A recent set of surveys of international relations scholars in the U.S. by researchers at William and Mary suggests two main lines of debate (you can find the surveys online by googling "William and Mary TRIP Survey). The first is among the grand schools of thought or "isms" (realism, liberalism, constructivism, etc), or more accurately, it is about how to get beyond the limitations of thinking in terms of isms without losing a common discourse in the field and maintaining at least some parsimony in our theorizing. Peter Katzenstein's work on "analytic eclecticism" is one such move beyond the isms. A second great debate is over methodological approaches to the study of international relations. Here too there is agreement between different groups - - mainly statistical versus qualitative case study researchers - - but there is also a move that many of us are making to transcend this debate and integrate multiple methods into our research.
Q: We went through a global economic crisis. Why were most of the major international relations theories not able to predict it?
A: Some of our theories can explain without predicting very well, and others can predict without explaining very well. The global economic crisis had to do with a lot of private information on complex markets (hedge funds, credit-default swaps, bundled mortgages) that were poorly understood even by very smart people with a lot of money at stake. By definition, if people understood how a crisis could happen, they would invest in ways that would prevent the crisis from happening. If anyone can predict economic crises, they should already be famous because they would be very rich.
Q: Professor Christian Reus-Smit argues that there is no longer a great debate over international relations theories. Do you accept this view? If that is the case, which international relations theories can explain the current issues in the area of international relations?
A: He is right in that there is no longer such a simple and literal debate between the "isms." But there remains much debate on how best to get beyond the limitations of the isms debate. Peter Katzenstein's "analytic eclecticism" is one such attempt, but the term "eclecticism" sounds too ad hoc and messy to win over many converts. I think there are more structured ways to integrate the isms into an overarching framework that allows a common discourse and some theoretical parsimony but is not too confining, but I have only just begun to write about this myself.
Q: Constructivism is one of the renowned theories in the field of international relations. What are the main advantages of this theory in comparison to other world-class international relations theories?
A: The TRIP survey shows that constructivism has attracted increasing interest among international relations scholars. It broadens the conversation beyond neorealism and neoliberalism, both of which focus on the "logic of consequences" and the notion of individualistic self-interested actors, and extends to the "logic of appropriateness" and social behavior among actors who are at times driven by norms that call for self-sacrifice. Constructivism also devotes renewed attention to non-state actors. Perhaps most importantly, by including both material structure and ideas, and by paying attention to both the intended and unintended consequences of institutions, constructivism provides a bridge to move beyond the "isms" debates.
Q: Some scholars assert that international relations is an Anglo–American discipline, but others claim that international relations has some roots in continental countries. What is your viewpoint about this division? To what extent do developing countries contribute to the discipline of international relations?
A: The U.S., Britain, and the European continent have gone through cycles in which we borrow from one another in our understanding of international relations theory. After World War II, many European refugees, like Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, had an important influence on scholars in the U.S. Currently, much of Europe is more constructivist theoretically and more qualitative methodologically than many scholars in the U.S., and Britain is more historically and qualitatively oriented than the U.S. American scholars, for better or for worse, put much more emphasis on methods and have higher hopes for deductive forms of theorizing. We all still have a lot of room to learn from one another, and we all have a chance to both teach and learn from the growing number of students coming from the developing world and Asia. As IR scholars have belatedly turned to the subject of Asian history, for example, they have had to confront the fact that balance of power theories developed in the European context do not apply very well to the long period of Chinese hegemony in Asia. Students and scholars from the developing world may also have much to teach us about ethnic and civil conflicts, politics and religion, and puzzles of international political economy and economic development.
Professor Bennett teaches courses on the American foreign policy process, international relations theory, and qualitative research methods. Professor Bennett has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and he has been a fellow at international relations research centers at Stanford and Harvard Universities. He has written on the U.S. foreign policy process, research methods, alliance burden-sharing, and regional conflicts and peacekeeping.
