Explaining the Development of International Relations: The Geo-Epistemic, Historiographical, Sociological Perspectives in Reflexive Studies on IR (original) (raw)

‘Advancing a Reflexive International Relations', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39 (2011), 3, 805-823.

Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2011

This article advances a call for greater reflexivity in International Relations (IR) to uncover various intellectual and political biases that may obscure the research process. Inspired by existing reflexive practices in IR and, in particular, Pierre Bourdieu’s use of such a method, it argues that reflexivity matters for enhancing ethically grounded research, in terms of not only the choice of subjects to study, but also how specific problems are treated, and hence what kind of results can be expected. However, the argument also goes beyond the appeal to autobiographical reflexivity to embrace other dimensions. This includes attention to institutional forces that shape the agency of the scholar and, in turn, the complex relationship between the academy and the wider political world. In the most ambitious sense, the potential for reflexivity can also be conceived collectively in terms of activist intellectuals who seek to reward reflexive practices through dialogue and political intervention. The social space of international trade politics is taken as an empirical example.

Reflectivity, Reflexivity, Reflexivism: IR's "Reflexive Turn" - and Beyond [European Journal of International Relations 19(4):669-694, 2013]

The notion of "reflexivity" has been so intimately tied to the critique of Positivism and Empiricism in IR that the emergence of post-Positivism has naturally produced the anticipation of a "reflexive turn" in IR theory. Three decades after the launch of the post-positivist critique, however, reflexive IR has failed to impose itself as either a clear or serious contender to mainstream scholarship. Reasons for this failure include the proliferation of different understandings of "reflexivity" in IR theory that entail significantly different projects and concerns for IR scholarship; the equation of "reflexive theory" with "critical" and "emancipatory theory" and the consequent confusion of ethical/normative issues with strictly epistemic/theoretical ones; and the refusal to consider reflexive IR as a "research programme" concerned with empirical knowledge, not just meta-explanation. The development of reflexivity in IR theory as a sustainable cognitive and praxeological effort is nonetheless possible - and still needed. This paper suggest what taking the "reflexive turn" would really entail for IR.

Crafting the reflexive gaze: Knowledge of knowledge in the social worlds of International Relations [Chapter 2 in The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations, eds. Andreas Gofas, Inanna Hamati-Ataya and Nicholas Onuf, 2018, 13-30].

The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations, 2018

This chapter examines the constitution and evolution of reflexivity in International Relations (IR) in the wider socio-epistemic context of the history of reflexive thought. This dual reading of the genealogy of reflexivity aims to (re)construct and productively exploit a different narrative on reflexivity that opens up IR’s frame of reference beyond the predominant, self-limiting and distortive perspective, which anchors reflexivity exclusively and inherently in IR’s ‘post-positivist turn’ and ‘third debate’. In doing so I argue that far from being a distinctive feature of the ‘post-positivist’ and ‘critical’ scholarship of the last few decades, reflexivity is rather co-constitutive of the emergence of modern positive thought, as illustrated in the now-forgotten positivism of Auguste Comte. An engagement with Comtean ‘historical positivism’, and its early critique of objectivist-foundationalist epistemology and philosophy of science, delineates a coherent conception of reflexivity that can help IR scholars address some fundamental failures of the ‘post-positivist turn’. Grounded in the acknowledgment of the historicity and social-situatedness of scientific knowledge but committed to the emancipatory role of science against metaphysical and theological thought, Comte’s project illuminates the way out of our current incoherencies and dilemmas while providing us with a unity of consciousness, purpose, and praxis.

From Epistemology to Practice: A Sociology of Science for International Relations

A nascent number of studies have re-told the early history of the discipline, providing different readings of its birth and evolution. Scholars have become concerned with how the structure, mechanisms and practices of the discipline have shaped the way the international is thought. Moreover, researchers have increasingly seen the discipline not only as a cognitively isolated one, but as a project shaped by institutions and structural and environmental factors. Taken together, these studies present a new, more advanced and broader project of social reflexivity. Disciplinary sociology as a significant field of inquiry and as supplement and alternative to epistemological reflections has emerged. It would be, however, an exaggeration to claim that disciplinary sociology has reached adolescence or even the core of the discipline’s curricula. One of the reasons is that the majority of studies fall short in demonstrating the need for and potential of sociological reflexivity. Instead, a sub-disciplinary niche has been created. To contribute to the debate of the purposes and usefulness of sociological reflexivity, I shall draw in the following on the work of contemporary social theorists, and firstly reconstruct the main objectives of a sociology of science for IR. Secondly, I shall outline some of the options for pursuing such a project in future research. I argue for the promises of a “cultural studies of science” perspective and suggest focusing on practice, organizations and concepts.

An Autoethnography of Hybrid IR Scholars: De-Territorializing the Global IR Debate

Article, 2023

Who can speak from the perspective of the Global South? In answering this question, Global International Relations (IR) finds itself in a cul de sac: rather than globalize IR, Global IR essentializes non-Western categories by associating difference and knowledge to place (countries, regions, and civilizations) which occludes de-territorialized forms of knowledge production. To reach out for these forms of knowledge, we develop the concept of “hybrid subjectivity,” and propose a shift from the macro to the micro. We propose autoethnography as a method to proceed with this move and present two case studies based on our experiences as hybrid IR scholars to illustrate it. In doing so, we demonstrate the relevance of our self-reflexive exercise in deconstructing reified categories and rendering visible new forms of knowledge in the Global IR debate. This article’s conceptualization of hybrid subjectivity enables the recasting of Global IR in a relational, hybrid, and truly global framework for analysis. The argument goes beyond the confines of Global IR and adds essential analytical value to critical, decolonial, and pluriversal critiques of wester-centrism in IR; in the sense of opening new theoretical and empirical possibilities, as an alternative to current intellectual efforts to recover non-colonial or pre-colonial forms of non-Western authenticity.

Sites of knowledge (re-)production: Towards an institutional sociology of International Relations scholarship (International Studies Review)

In his 1998 article The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline, Ole Wæver suggested to assess the development and organization of the International Relations (IR) discipline through a three-tier comparative sociological research framework. It is by looking at the intellectual, institutional and political layer of IR, so he argued, that one can fully understand the specificities of IR as a complex social field of work, as well as the particular forms of knowledge that are developed in this field. In the years following its publication, Wæver’s article was joined and followed-up by a growing and increasingly sophisticated body of literature studying IR scholarship. Yet, a thorough reading of this literature shows that the emerging sociology of IR has come to focus strongly on only two of Wæver’s three analytical layers: It is the intellectual and political layers of IR that garnered significant attention thus far, whereas work about the field’s institutional layer remains surprisingly scarce. This forum addresses this gap by means of promoting a dedicated engagement with the field’s institutional determinants: How is the institutional layer of IR organised in different places? How is the discipline embedded in distinct sites? And how is it governed by material and immaterial institutional constraints? To answer these questions, the forum’s six individual contributions focus on conventional university departments and hybrid sites of international relations alike. In doing so, the forum’s ambitions are both to highlight the empirical diversity of sites and settings where specialised knowledge about international relations is produced, shaped and re-instantiated, and to illustrate how a focus on the institutional layer of IR can become an important vector

Reassembling and Dissecting: International Relations Practice from a Science Studies Perspective

International Studies Perspectives, 2007

What does it take to be an international relations (IR) scholar? IR discourses have tackled this question with focus on very different problems: the role and function of IR scholars for policy; the (ir)relevance and impact of IR knowledge and expertise in world politics; disciplinary history; or in studying IR's institutions. We argue that all these “disciplinary sociology” debates struggle with the relation between an internal scientific IR world and an external social context (policy, society). We reject this distinction and argue that science studies can help us to address these problems more adequately by treating IR as a scientific practice that is closely tied to its social environment. The article sets out to explore science studies' possible contributions. Based on science studies key assumptions, we develop a heuristic by which the relations between IR and its environment can be grasped systematically. From this perspective, IR is pivotally a culture constituted by different domains of practice. Hence, understanding IR scholars in “doing IR” requires taking into account their daily and sometimes trivial practices. For instance, writing an article in IR means much more than only thinking theoretically at a desk. We systematize the different domains of practices as the articulation of knowledge claims, mobilizing the world, autonomy seeking, alliance building, and public representation. “Being an IR scholar” and “producing IR knowledge” depends inevitably on these sets of practices and IR is intrinsically interwoven with its environment through these.

Beyond Geography and Social Structure: Disciplinary Sociologies of Power in International Relations

ABSTRACT (does not appear in published version): Much has been written in the past two decades about the sociological and geographic dimensions of knowledge and power in the IR discipline — research funding patterns, social networks, national academic communities, institutions, academe-policy connections, leading journals and patterns of publication and citation. Such elements have been the dominant focus of efforts to describe and explain the “hegemony” of American/Western scholarship within the global IR discipline. While recognising the great value of this work, this essay argues that its success in identifying, characterising and explaining the phenomenon of disciplinary “hegemony” in academic IR has been partial at best. Geographical and social-structural accounts have largely ignored the epistemic aspects of disciplinary hegemony; as a result, we lack precise, rigorous, in-depth and up-to-date analyses of the type, content and style of scholarship that constitutes hegemonic IR theory. Moreover, the powerful allure of measurable and seemingly comparable data about large-scale, structural features of the discipline has led to a lack of detailed and discriminating attention to its practices — to the variety of specific, concrete things that hegemonic scholars actually, and regularly, do. The result is that we still lack a very precise idea of what the hegemony in IR theory actually is, who it involves, where it extends and, particularly, how it functions. This essay briefly suggests an alternative way of characterising disciplinary hegemony and of identifying and analysing the socio-epistemic (and other) practices which compose it, and outlines certain benefits we might be able to expect from such an approach.

The ends of International Relations theory: stages of reflexivity and modes of theorizing

European Journal of International Relations, 2013

International Relations theory is being squeezed between two sides. On the one hand, the world of practitioners and attached experts often perceive International Relations theory as misleading if it does not correspond to practical knowledge, and redundant when it does. The academic study of international relations can and should not be anything beyond the capacity to provide political judgement which comes through reflection on the historical experience of practitioners. On the other hand, and within its disciplinary confines, International Relations theory is reduced to a particular type of empirical theory with increasing resistance to further self-reflection. Instead, this article argues that neither reduction is viable. Reducing theory to practical knowledge runs into self-contradictions; reducing theorizing to its empirical mode underestimates the constitutive function of theories, the role of concepts, and hence the variety of necessary modes of theorizing. I present this twofold claim in steps of increasing reflexivity in International Relations theory and propose four modes of theorizing: normative, metatheoretical, ontological/constitutive and empirical.