Daniel R . McCarthy | University of Melbourne (original) (raw)

Papers by Daniel R . McCarthy

An Introduction to International Relations, 2024

In the course of summarizing this volume this chapter will suggest paths along which the futures ... more In the course of summarizing this volume this chapter will suggest paths along which the futures of international relations as subject matter and International Relations (IR) as academic discipline may develop, accepting that this is creating hostages to fortune in the process. First, it will stress that the division between the ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ or ‘non-traditional’ agenda as presented above is intended as a device to facilitate learning for new students of international relations. We see the intersection of traditional and new issues across each of the contributions to this volume. Second, it will outline how novel intellectual developments in the field are shaping its future trajectory, with a specific focus on the continued development of a ‘Global IR’; IR’s increasing intellectual engagement with the sociology of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects as sources of conceptual innovation; and recent attempts to define the International as a condition of interactive multiplicity in an effort to clarify its distinctive contribution to the wider social sciences. Finally, the chapter will note that thinking about the future itself is ever more central to the discipline, with methods of counterfactual analysis, social imaginaries of future histories, and utopian idealizations emerging as important theoretical and political projects across multiple theoretical perspectives and empirical issue areas.

Review of International Studies Forthcoming

Infrastructures are central to processes of state formation. The revival of materialism in Intern... more Infrastructures are central to processes of state formation. The revival of materialism in International Relations has made an important contribution to our understanding of states through careful analysis of the politics of infrastructure and state building. Yet, to date, engagement with the statetheoretical tradition associated with the work of Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Bob Jessop has been absent. Through comparison with the external-relational ontology of Bruno Latour and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this article argues that state-theory and its internal relational ontology avoids reifying the state while providing an analysis of infrastructure and state formation sensitive to the historical reproduction of social orders over time. Developing Gramsci's concept of the 'integral state', it emphasizes the necessary interpenetration between civil society, the state apparatus, and the creation of infrastructure. These conceptual arguments are illustrated through an analysis of the United States development of nuclear infrastructures during the early Cold War period, in the internal relations between infrastructure and the integral state are explored through Civil Defense Education programs. Clarifying the internal relations between past, present, and potential future forms of socio-technical order is an important task for rethinking the politics of technological design in International Relations.

International Politics

Andrew Feenberg is a pioneer in the development of the philosophy of technology. Before his retir... more Andrew Feenberg is a pioneer in the development of the philosophy of technology. Before his retirement, he was the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he also directed the Applied Communication and Technology Laboratory (ACTL). He is the author or editor of thirteen books on Critical Theory, Western Marxism, and the philosophy of technology, including Lukács, Marx, and the Sources of Critical Theory (1981), Critical Theory of Technology (1991), Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (ed with Alastair Hannay) (1995), Questioning Technology (1999), (Re)Inventing the Internet: Critical Case Studies (ed with Norm Friesen) (2012) and Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason (2017).

Review of International Studies, 2010

European Journal of International Relations, 2016

Technology and World Politics: An Introduction, 2018

Critical Theory approaches to International Relations (IR) are well established in the field, for... more Critical Theory approaches to International Relations (IR) are well established in the field, forming a rich strand of theoretically sophisticated and politically engaged scholarship. 1 They highlight the often problematic nature of core theoretical assumptions in IR, asking that we enquire into the constitution of the key concepts that underpin the discipline. As a project, Critical Theory is both sociological and normative. Rather than take the world as it is and attempt to smooth its functioning, Critical Theory seeks to de-naturalize commonly held theoretical assumptions about the world and our knowledge of it in order to outline possibilities for progressive social change. Its empirical accounts investigate how the features of global politics, such anarchy or nationalism, came into being historically. Historical sensitivity allows Critical Theory to draw out features of international politics that can change, and empirically identifies the resources within world politics that will allow for change in an emancipatory direction. This approach has been fruitful across a range of issue areas, from security studies and international political economy to global environmental politics and the normative and ethical theorizing (Booth 2004; Morton 2007; Eckersley 2012; Linklater 1998). Curiously, however, for an approach with roots in Marxist historical materialism, Critical Theory in International Relations has, in general, tended not to pay sustained attention to the place of technology or the non-human in global politics. It has, of course, elaborated on the material social and historical conditions that generate specific political processes under analysis, such as the conditions that enabled the rise of American hegemony after World War Two (Rupert 1995; Van der Pijl 1984). But, beyond a few examples, it has not really sought to outline how materiality matters or how technology is designed, developed, and disseminated globally within structures of social power and domination (Wyn Jones 1999; Peoples 2009; McCarthy 2015). Despite this lack of attention, Critical Theory presents a promising way to grapple with the complex global politics of technology. In contrast to other approaches to the politics of technology in International Relations, Critical IR Theory combines sustained attention to the political economy of global capitalism with a focus on the complex dynamics of cultural power that derive from enduring structural inequalities. It links normative critique and sociological analysis in order to realize deeper forms of democracy and equality in international politics. While this project is incipient in IR it has wider roots and contemporary resonances. In keeping with the general flowering of Critical Theory since the turn of the 21 st century, a diverse range of scholarship taking its cues from Marxism and Critical Theory has emerged in the humanities and social sciences beyond IR to theorize and analyse the politics of non-human objects. The conceptualization of 'prosumerism' and modern digital capitalism (

Critical Studies on Security

In US national security policy the protection of technological innovation is of signal importance... more In US national security policy the protection of technological innovation is of signal importance. US policy stresses, on the one hand, the need to protect technological innovation to ensure its global economic and military predominance. This reflects the classic view of innovation articulated in security studies: technological innovation is the foundation of economic and military power. Yet this account captures only one aspect of technological innovation in US national security thinking. Drawing on a combination of socio-technical imaginaries frameworks and critical theories of technology, this article argues that technological innovation is not merely a means to the end of American national security. Rather, a series of sociological and normative ideas disclosed by US policy frame market-led innovation as necessary, just, and central to the reproduction of American national identity. A specific way of creating technological systems and artefacts is the object of security in American national security policy. The security of technological innovation is central to securing the American way of life.

Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2021

The Socio-Technical Imaginaries (STI) approach in Science and Technology Studies (STS) has illumi... more The Socio-Technical Imaginaries (STI) approach in Science and Technology Studies (STS) has illuminated the central role of social imaginaries in shaping the politics of technology. Its emphasis on the multilinear forms of socio-technical development is a useful corrective to universalist explanations of technological change. However, STI lacks a clear account of how inter-societal interaction shapes the imaginaries of any given political community. Synthesising STI with the theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) can correct this shortcoming. UCD offers an ontology of universals and accompanying methodology of incorporated comparison, enabling STI to integrate inter-societal causality into its theoretical framework. A combined UCD and STI framework is examined in this paper through a focus on imaginaries of technological innovation in contemporary American foreign policy. Responding to the 'whip of external necessity', US foreign policy seeks to upend technological diffusion and impose global regulatory evenness on national forms of technological innovation.

Globalizations, 2018

International actors, state and non-state, have embraced transparency as a solution to all manner... more International actors, state and non-state, have embraced transparency as a solution to all manner of political problems. Theoretical analyses of these processes present transparency in a fetishtic manner, in which the social relations that generate transparency are misrecognized as the product of information itself. This paper will outline the theoretical problems that arise when transparency promotion is fetishized in International Relations theory. Examining the fetishism of transparency, we will note problematic conception of politics, the public sphere, and rationality they articulate. Confusing the relationship between data, information and knowledge, fetishized treatments of transparency muddy the historical dynamics responsible for the emergence of transparency as a political practice. This alters our understanding of the relationship between global governance institutions, their constituents, and the nature of knowledge production itself. Realizing the normative promise of transparency requires a reorientation of theoretical practice towards sociologically and historically sensitive approaches to the politics of knowledge.

Politics and Governance, 2018

Cybersecurity sits at the intersection of public security concerns about critical infrastructure ... more Cybersecurity sits at the intersection of public security concerns about critical infrastructure protection and private security concerns around the protection of property rights and civil liberties. Public-private partnerships have been embraced as the best way to meet the challenge of cybersecurity, enabling cooperation between private and public sectors to meet shared challenges. While the cybersecurity literature has focused on the practical dilemmas of providing a public good, it has been less effective in reflecting on the role of cybersecurity in the broader constitution of political order. Unpacking three accepted conceptual divisions between public and private, state and market, and the political and economic, it is possible to locate how this set of theoretical assumptions shortcut reflection on these larger issues. While public-private partnerships overstep boundaries between public authority and private right, in doing so they reconstitute these divisions at another level in the organization of political economy of liberal democratic societies.

Technology and World Politics: An Introduction, 2017

Contemporary world politics seems mired in a series of complex governance challenges for which no... more Contemporary world politics seems mired in a series of complex governance challenges for which no simple answers are present. Whether the problem is climate change, nuclear proliferation, migration, terrorism or economic instability, we increasingly seem to lack the intellectual or political resources to deal with these problems. Divisions of academic labour established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which different disciplines focused on their specific sphere of social lifepolitics, economics, culture, geographyare increasingly struggling to provide adequate explanations for these crises within their own disciplinary terms. As the chapters in this volume have demonstrated, if we want an adequate explanation of the central dynamics in international politics it is necessary to engage in sustained interdisciplinary scholarship; this is a problem-driven rather than a theory-driven endeavour. By integrating Science and Technology Studies (STS) and International Relations (IR) into a productive synthesis we can begin to think through the compound socio-technical character of governance challenges facing our contemporary world.

European Journal of International Relations, 2017

Transparency is an important concept in International Relations. The possibility of realizing tra... more Transparency is an important concept in International Relations. The possibility of realizing transparency in practice operates as a central analytical axis defining distinct positions on core theoretical problems within the field, from the security dilemma to the function of international institutions and beyond. As a political practice the pursuit of transparent governance is a dominant feature of global politics, promoted by a wide range of actors across a vast range of issue areas, from nuclear proliferation to Internet governance to the politics of foreign aid. Yet, despite its importance, precisely what transparency means or how the concept is understood is frequently ill-defined by academics and policy-makers alike. As a result, the epistemological and ontological underpinnings of approaches to transparency in IR often sit in tension with their wider theoretical commitments. This article will examine the three primary understandings of transparency used in IR in order to unpack these commitments. It finds that while transparency is often explicitly conceptualized as a property of information, particularly within rationalist scholarship, this understanding rests upon an unarticulated set of sociological assumptions. This analysis suggests that conceptualizing ‘transparency-as-information’ without a wider sociology of knowledge production is highly problematic, potentially obscuring our ability to recognize transparent practices in global governance. Understanding transparency as dialogue, as a social practice rooted in shared cognitive capacities and epistemic frameworks, provides a firmer analytical ground from which to examine transparency in International Relations.

This article discusses the ongoing development of a Marxist theory of international relations. Ex... more This article discusses the ongoing development of a Marxist theory of international relations. Examining the work of Hannes Lacher and that of the contributors to Marxism and World Politics reveals an overarching concern amongst this group of scholars to engage with the central concerns of the discipline of International Relations – the nature of the state, anarchy, and war. Their analysis provides an excellent starting point for the development of a Marxist approach to international relations.

Technological determinism as a theory of social change has been thoroughly tarnished in social th... more Technological determinism as a theory of social change has been thoroughly tarnished in
social theory, science and technology studies, and the discipline of International Relations. If
once claims to an ahistorical development of technology (e.g. Cohen, 1978) were treated with
significant respect, this is no longer the case. Indeed, it is by now a ritual to disclaim any notion
of technological determinism in theories of international relations and the non-human world
(Peoples, 2010; Herrera, 2006; McCarthy, 2011). Yet we must be careful of not throwing out the
power of technological determinations with the teleological bathwater. This article attempts to
develop a sociological account of technological determinism as dependent upon ‘the International’.
I will argue that technological determinism operates due to the presence of multiple political
communities. Technological determinism is thereby reconceptualised as a distinct form of power
in international politics.

Gramsican approaches in International Relations (IR) have sought to outline the relationship betw... more Gramsican approaches in International Relations (IR) have sought to outline the relationship between ideas and material forces in the construction of world order. Scholars working within this broad school have sought to emphasise that ideas are material forces, and must be considered as concrete historical structures (Cox, 1987) central to the establishment of particular historical and hegemonic blocs. This literature has primarily focused on the discursive construction of hegemony by international elites and the impact this has on political practices. While these insights are important in understanding the construction of world order, it is necessary to extend them to include the creation of actual physical structures – that is, it is vital to link the ideational aspects of hegemony with actual material processes. I will argue that a consideration of the role of technology provides an ideal vehicle for this process, building on the preliminary work of Bieler and Morton in this regard (2008). Technological structures are the product of particular cultural values and embed these cultural values within their very structure. Physical material factors thereby express ideational values constructed by specific social forces. Social practices are thus not only a function of the dominance of certain ideological formations, but also the product of the material environment itself and the manner in which the human metabolism with nature must function through these physical constructions. Daniel McCarthy is currently completing a PhD at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, funded by the ESRC. His research, linking together science and technology studies, historical materialism, and sociological theories of power, explores the nature of information technology as a form of institutional power in international politics, through an examination of the Internet in American foreign policy. Daniel can be contacted at: {ddm05@aber.ac.uk}. The question of the ontological primacy of ideas or materiality has occupied a central role in theoretical debates in International Relations (IR) for the past 30 years. Whether in disputes over the status of ideas within research paradigms, 1 the nature of the structure-agency problem, 2 or any number of other controversies, * This article was first presented at the British International Studies Association (BISA) Conference, 17 December 2008. I would like to thank Ian Bruff, Lisa Denney, Matthew Fluck, Lene Hansen, Columba Peoples and James Perry for their helpful comments.

Foreign Policy Analysis, 2011

This article explains the US foreign policy discourse surrounding human rights, democracy and the... more This article explains the US foreign policy discourse surrounding human rights, democracy and the Internet as the pursuit of ''technological closure'' for the network. US policymakers draw upon international norms and values to construct a symbolically powerful argument regarding the valid material composition of the Internet. Through these arguments, the US creates a narrative that casts its vision for the Internet as moral, just and progressive. In contrast, opponents of the American vision of the Internet are cast as backward states impeding the flow of history. In the process, the contested nature of the technology and its contingent nature are sidelined, naturalizing and reifying its historically and culturally specific evolution, to the benefit of American foreign policy aims. I will outline the politics of identity construction, and the meaning attached to the technological structure of the Internet, as central to the ongoing contestation over its form. Finally, I will note how the narrative created by US foreign policymakers legitimizes their material practice of supporting anticensorship technologies.

Books by Daniel R . McCarthy

This edited volume provides a convenient entry point to the cutting-edge field of the internation... more This edited volume provides a convenient entry point to the cutting-edge field of the international politics of technology, in an interesting and informative manner. Technology and World Politics introduces its readers to different approaches to technology in global politics through a survey of emerging fusions of Science and Technology Studies and International Relations. The theoretical approaches to the subject include the Social Construction of Technology, Actor-Network Theory, the Critical Theory of Technology, and New Materialist and Posthumanist approaches.

Considering how such theoretical approaches can be used to analyse concrete political issues such as the politics of nuclear weapons, Internet governance, shipping containers, the revolution in military affairs, space technologies, and the geopolitics of the Anthropocene, the volume stresses the socially constructed and inherently political nature of technological objects.

Providing the theoretical background to approach the politics of technology in a sophisticated manner alongside a glossary and guide to further reading for newcomers, this volume is a vital resource for both students and scholars focusing on politics and international relations.

This book examines the internet as a form of power in global politics. Developing a synthesis of... more This book examines the internet as a form of power in global politics. Developing a synthesis of Science and Technology Studiesa and International Relations theory, McCarthy argues that the Internet functions as a form of institutional power in global politics, materially expressing the norms of an 'Open Door' approach in American foreign policy. McCarthy combines analyses of global material culture and international relation theory, to reconsider how technology is understood as a form of social power constituted by the uneven and combined development that constitutes 'the International'.

Drafts by Daniel R . McCarthy

Materialism, defined by the core claim that ‘everything that exists is material, or is the produc... more Materialism, defined by the core claim that ‘everything that exists is material, or is the product of material entities’, is now flourishing across the discipline. IR is now populated by a range of materialist influenced perspectives, including older materialisms, such as republican-security materialism or Marxist historical materialism, and newer variants of materialist thought, such as Actor-Network Theory, New Materialism, and Posthumanism. Now the core task for students of international politics is not to simply emphasize the importance of materiality; this much is accepted as an obligation for any serious account of world affairs. It is, rather, to examine the different concepts of materiality that exist in IR and understand how the claim that ‘everything that exists is material’ plays out in substantive analytical and normative claims. This requires a detailed investigation of the meaning of materiality in International Relations.