nothing comes from nothing

On the eve of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, prominent IR scholar Steve Smith gave a Presidential Address to the International Studies Association in Portland, Oregon.  Smith (2004) focused on the relation between International Relations Theory and ethics—and more specifically, on the complicity of the IR discipline in the events of September 11, 2001.  Given the critical inclination of this blog, it seems quite fitting to kick things off with a post on the relation between academic study and ethics, with a particular focus on the discipline of IR.

Reflecting on the relationship between social science and ethics is especially important for several reasons. First, for anyone working in the world of ideas, it is crucially important to reflect on the sorts of realities that are constructed and (often unknowingly) enacted through the accounts they provide.  Reflecting on the sorts of realities that dominant (and sometimes even “alternative”) epistemologies and methodologies enact unfortunately reveals a number of uneasy implications in the field of IR.  As a young scholar taking on the perspectives of this field, it is important to get these things straight early on.

First, the discipline of IR privileges a narrow conception of reality that affirms interests of the powerful.   The  concepts that are used to explain that reality are historically specific and contextual.  As a result, they work to privilege particular representations, political processes, forms of legitimacy, and expressions of authority (often as a universal) over other ways of seeing the world (ontologies/epistemologies).

Second, I want to recall one of Marx’s most popular statements, found in the Theses on Feuerbach.  Marx famously said, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. Recognizing my own intellectual labour in similar terms, I have maintained a concerted effort in upholding a “philosophy of praxis approach” in my work.  Although, I would agree that it hasn’t always been the most popular one.  Reflecting on the ethical implications of IR theorizing further underscores my commitment to the deconstruction of oppressive forms of thinking and subsequently working toward their reconstruction through a praxis-based approach.

Finally, and crucially, is the need to ideologically demystify and deconstruct the limits of discourses of IR that work to naturalize and reproduce taken for granted assumptions informing a vast array of social, political, economic and environmental problems.

A crude distillation of how IR is smuggling in a set of “political assumptions masquerading as technical ones”, according to Smith, are offered in ten parts.  The ethical implications of the points on this list reveal an IR discipline that presents itself as ‘value-neutral’, all the while avoiding the ‘dirty hands problem’ in the teaching, writing and researching of international relations.  I have re-presented Smith’s (2004) points below:

1)   Over-focus on the State as the unit of analysis – By taking the State as the primary unit of analysis, IR thinkers have forced social movements, “humanity as a whole”, groups and/or individuals to the background.  This results in a restricted spatial analysis of “politics” as being something that either happens at the level of the “international system” or at the level of “states”.  As a result, all moral engagements in politics are reduced to “the black box of the state”—there is no space for other agents, actors or collectives.

2)   Distinction between “Inside” and “Outside” – Just as the state is attributed legitimate moral and political status (which is almost completely naturalized in IR discourses of sovereignty), the territorial borders of the state demarcate differential limits between “domestic” and “international” politics.  This assumption privileges the state and its boundaries and provides the conceptual justification for specific social forces and forms of power, both culturally symbolic and material.

3)   Distinction between Economics and Politics – The predisposition of IR scholars has been to privilege explanations of international political relations, at the expense of explanations of economic relations.  Except for IPE scholars operating at the margins of the field of IR, mainstream theories of IR have excluded economics from their ontology of politics.  The result? The exclusion of a myriad of issues that deal with power, violence, death and the distribution of resources.  Smith takes the example that, while death as a result of state-to-state relations is within the purview of International Relations, death by economics or the market is not.

4)   Universal Progression of Humanity (Universal Historicism/Universal Temporality) – In IR theory (particularly discourses of globalization), it is very familiar to come across the notion of a common progression of humanity toward one end-state (‘kitsch Kantianism’ as R.B.J. Walker (1993: 181) has deftly named it).  Under this assumption, human nature (identity, difference, culture more generally) is merged into a universal sameness.  Forms of historicism often reproduce what Dipesh Chakrabarty has called the “waiting room version of history”.  That is, groups, nations and individuals from the “third-world” are often (sometimes implicitly) considered to be moving toward (and favouring) a move on a direct temporal line toward “Western” progress.  Until ‘they’ get their mess sorted, they won’t be joining ‘us’ at the dinner table.

5)   Absence of Gender and Ethnicity from mainstream theories – Dominant forms of IR theorizing privilege white, male accounts of social reality, and thereby function to affirm existing forms of power.  The problem here is that many accounts of IR theorizing have completely disregarded the gendered and racialized implications of certain practices.  While Smith is quite certain that consideration of the gendered and racialized conditions of world politics ought to be considered in mainstream IR theorizing, it is difficult to imagine this without a deep restructuring of the dominant horizon of mainstream (positivist) IR theorizing itself.

6)   Definition of Violence – Since the emergence of the study of IR in the wake of World War I, the discipline has continued to rely on a definition of violence that is reduced solely to the war-making between states.  By privileging war as the dominant site for violence, IR scholars have absented from recognizing other forms of violence (economic or social and political exclusion, for example) not precipitated by military actions.

7)   Structure over Agency – The most popular theories in IR (rational choice, structural realism, and so on) have privileged accounts of structure over agency.  The story told by these thinkers (Walz, Gilpin, Mearshimer) is that in an international system of states, the behaviour of states (primary units!) is to be deduced from the structure of the international system.  Whatever the structural theories cannot explain, agency then enters as a variable for analysis.  Accounts of agency are continuously downplayed (or are just set on rational choice auto-pilot), and as a result, mainstream IR theory is generally predisposed toward explaining constancies rather than social and political transformations. In simple terms, many IR theories, without complex accounts of agency, subjectivity and difference, are unable to adequately articulate “who does what to whom”.

8)   Universal Rationality – IR is characterized by the insistence on the idea of a universal rationality that is intended to serve as the common rationality for all explanations.  Tying this back into the dominant assumption of rational choice theories that rely on structural accounts of international relations, IR theorists have relied on a very narrow capitalist conception of man that sublates difference and assumes magical transhistorical characteristics.

9)   Absence of accounts of Identity and Difference – Related to the reasons above, IR theorists have tended to produce accounts through large-scale generalizations and inferences at the expense of difference and contingency.  Relying on assumptions of sameness legitimates the policy agendas of dominant powers (and by extension, dominant identities) as a universal.  Lack of focus on questions of identity relegate any serious inquiry into the role and function of identity in constituting practices associated with “world politics”.  David Campbell, R.B.J. Walker and other thinkers falling under the contested rubric ‘postmodernism’ serve as the exception to the rule.

10)  Search for Explanation over Understanding – Finally(!), for the last 50 years, the field of IR has provided very narrow “anglo-american-centric” or “Eurocentric” social science accounts of International Relations.  Here, the intentions and values of others are taken for granted, resulting in the relegation of normative questions and consideration of difference.  The problem here, is that introducing normative concerns as illegitimate allows the values implicit in “non-normative”, “evidence based” accounts to dominate the disciplinary landscape.

Many of the ethical principles presented in this list will no doubt appear in later posts with greater detail.  The purpose of this list was to highlight, in a preliminary sense, points of ethical contestation that necessitate deeper analytical critique as I move through the literature. For my friends and allies dealing with some of the same literature, I hope this list might inform their own approach to their intellectual pursuits.  While I didn’t talk much about Pierre Bourdieu in this post, his analysis of cultural power and domination scores big when considering the implications social and political power and IR theorizing.  And that’s exactly why PB gets the final remark….

“The theory of knowledge is a dimension of political theory because the specifically symbolic power to impose the principles of the construction of reality—in particular, social reality—is a major dimension of political power.”  – Pierre Bourdieu

(Sources)

Smith, S. (2004) ‘Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and September 11′, International Studies Quarterly, 48: 499-515.

Walker, R.B.J. (1993) Inside/outside: International Relations as Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pierre Bourdieu

The inaugural post of nothing comes from nothing comes from an admittedly surreal reality.  I am buried deep in the hills of Los Angeles (okay, it’s a gated house), surrounded only by the sound of jacuzzi run-off into a pool, breeze bristling through surrounding palms and shrubs, and the odd jet passing overhead. It is in this strange environment that I am spending my next two weeks, the place where I will begin charting the preliminary points of the nothing comes from nothing constellation.

I ought to come clean on what you can be expecting in the next couple of weeks (and likely months).  In large part, this blog is designed to address two main concerns. First, it feeds my interest in having an accessible platform for continuous written expression and dissemination of critical thought.  Second, the blog serves as a platform for a much more crude interest of mine.  One that necessitates the summoning of all resources that will help me come October, when I tackle a PhD comprehensive exam in the field of International Relations (IR).  So don’t get too excited if you aren’t already aroused by meta-theoretical discussions, the intersection of critical theory and world politics, and generally speaking, the poverty of mainstream approaches to IR.

Just to keep things friendly (and perhaps even to wash sawdust from the eyes of readers who unexpectedly step into the fray), I’ll be sure to splice the theoretical re-readings, criticisms and commentaries with only the most nothing comes from nothing-worthiest of links.  There might even be some posts from one of the other quarters from which I’m intellectually indebted to, but you’ll find out more about that when the time comes.  For now, I have to start celebrating International Beer Day with one of Oregon’s tastiest India Pale Ales and get some real work done before it strikes “all-you-can-eat-sushi-o’clock”.  Sure as hell beats my days painfully waiting for the end of shift buzzer in the ‘ol box factory. Surreality, indeed.