The Great Debates
The Second Debate
Traditionalism vs. Behaviouralism
This debate in IR took place in the 1960s and focused
mostly on methodological issues.
The debate was reflective of the wider behavioural
revolution that was occurring in the social sciences.
This debate was happened between traditionalists and
behavioralists.
Hedley Bull and Morton Kaplan
Stanley Hoffmann characterized it as ‘the battle of the
literates versus the numerates’.
Behaviouralism is a school of thought that, drawing on
empiricist theory of knowledge and positivist
philosophy of science, seeks to study human behavior
in reference to observable and measurable behavior
patterns.
Behaviouralist focus was on the observation of systems
and that those analyses, and any subsequent hypotheses
and/or implying of causality, should be subject to
empirical testing, mainly via falsification.
The battle lines were drawn between the likes of
Hedley Bull on the Traditionalist side, and Morton
Kaplan on the Behaviouralist.
Traditionalists maintained that the ebbs and flows of
global politics were necessarily interpretive, as one
could not impose a neat system on a field with so many
variables.
For Behaviouralists, a theory that was not falsifiable
was not a theory at all, more a subjective notion to be
believed or disbelieved as suited .
Behaviouralism had roots in positivism and so strict
application would mean rejecting factors that could not
be measured, such as human perception and
motivation and would also prevent the development of
normative theories since they focused on empirically
non-testable ‘what ought to be’.
Behaviouralists countered these criticisms by largely
recognizing the potential value of knowledge produced
by other methods of research, but they reserved the
right to test their own assumptions empirically.
Behaviouralism never sought to be a replacement
theory, but a means of discovering one and facilitating
Thomas Kuhn’s idea that ‘‘a new area of research spins
off from an established one on the basis of a new
exemplar’’.
Whether its proponents intended it or not however,
Behaviouralism became orthodoxy and Debate victor,
its key strength over Traditionalism being the ability of
researchers to replicate and analyze their colleagues’
processes and findings, with impacts including the
encouragement of diligent and detailed work by IR
theorists, and that positivist America came to be seen
as a greater engine of political theory discourse.
Curtis & Koivisto observe that ‘behaviouralists like
Kaplan celebrated the merits of statistical modelling
and other quantitative methods to study what were
taken to be causal laws (or regularities) of international
relations’. Other famous behaviouralists that shared
this point of view included J. David Singer, famous for
his work on the Correlates of War and Thomas
Schelling, famous for his work on game theory.
Bull even went as far to say behaviouralists ‘have done a
great disservice to theory in this field by conceiving of it as
the construction of and manipulation of so called models’.
Finally, Bull concluded that practitioners of the scientific
approach, by cutting themselves off from history and
philosophy, ‘have deprived themselves of the means of self
criticism and in consequence have a view of their subject
and its possibilities that is callow and brash’.
Despite Bull’s attacks, behaviouralism went on to be quite
successful.
Neo-Neo Debate
Neorealism/Neoliberalism
The inter-paradigm debate, also known as the neorealism versus neo-liberalism debate, took place in the
1980s.
This debate owes its origins to the difficult times
experienced by realism in the 1970s when events in the
realm of international politics appeared to contradict
some key realist assumptions. Critics began to attack
the state centric nature of realism.
Kenneth Waltz’s 1979 Theory of International Politics
aimed to recover Realism, moving it on from a
foundation in human nature towards a Structural
Realism more associated with the international system,
where Waltz recognized that units, i.e. nation states,
could indeed co-act in such an anarchical environment,
but that their functional similarities or differences
would still determine the extent of such relations.
Realism also took on a more scientific quality
compared to past groundings in philosophy, history
and human nature.
It moved away from the kinds of generalized reflections
Kaplan had criticized and towards precise statements
and a vision of theory as advocated by Behaviouralists,
earning it the label of Neorealism.
Behaviouralism’s impact also developed Liberalism’s precision and
focus in what it sought to analyze, principally on how institutions
could influence state behavior through complex interdependence.
Such integration scholarship emerged through the 1940’s and
1950’s, taking on a more regional tone in the 1960’s before a third
transnational stage was advocated by Neoliberal institutional
theorists .
Chief among them were Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, who
wished to emphasize the effects transnational relations had on the
interstate system, especially in areas of national sovereignty,
foreign policies, the challenges posed to international
organizations and the impacts such a paradigm would have on
equality balance between states and indeed the very study of IR.
Neoliberalism became closer to Neorealism with this
acceptance of an anarchical system and state egoism,
just as the latter came to accept interrelated entities
supported by the former.
Neo-realism and neo-liberalism share a similar
scientific, methodological and epistemological
approach to IR so the debate qualifies as one of being
an intra-paradigm debate as opposed to an interparadigm debate.
The ‘Inter-Paradigm’ term in the debate arises because of the
two positions not so much being rivaling theories as they are
paradigm positions, but as indicated above aspects of
Neorealism and Neoliberalism still share common ground.
While Neorealism viewed IR through a prism of
competitive relations, Neoliberalism acknowledged this but
also advocated the mutual benefits for states through greater
cooperative relations.
Ultimately both positions see reality as they want to, and so
conclusions from empirical testing are inevitably influenced
by the theory behind those observations.
It can be said the Neorealism still focused on high
politics and Neoliberalism on the low, but in accepting
certain views and their methodologies, both positions
were similar enough to give rise to a ‘Neo-Neo
Synthesis’ and are incommensurable enough to coexist, with each paradigm holding its own truth.
The Third Debate
Rationalism vs. Reflectivism
This Debate, emerging in the mid-Eighties, is arguably one
of the most serious.
This debate once again focuses on the issue of science in IR.
According to Yosef Lapid this debate consisted of a
‘disciplinary effort to reassess theoretical options in a post
positivist era’.
When looking at this debate we have to look at the
explaining/understanding divide in IR.
On one side Rationalists, inclusive of Realist and
Liberalist positions, are positivistic in methodology,
and while accepting the complexities of the social
world, prefer to measure and analyze what can be
observed.
Positivism, in Smith’s summation, ‘is a methodological
position reliant on an empiricist epistemology of the
world in justification by (ultimately brute) experience
and thereby licensing methodology and ontology
insofar as they are empirically warranted’.
Delimiting its ontological and epistemological
dimensions thus, ‘mainstream’ international theory has
remained preoccupied with explaining the structural
interactions of states-as-rational-actors in a realm
exclusive of domestic politics or economics, let alone
questions of subjectivity and identity.
That this enterprise has presented but one particular
picture of the world, produced by a powerful academic
community itself situated in the dominant world
power, is masked by the depoliticizing technical
assumptions which ‘naturally’ preoccupy international
theory as a legitimate scientific enterprise.
Consequently, the multiple, profound violence effected
beyond this narrow purview – from disease or poverty,
or race or gender – have been ‘simply marginal if not
irrelevant’ to ‘international theory’ so defined.
Positivism has a number of assumptions such as science
must be focused on systematic observation. However,
positivists avoid talking about realities they cannot
observe.
Postpositivists have adapted positivism to take such
criticisms into account. Postpositivism seeks to build a
unified logic of inference for both quantitative and
qualitative inquiry and foreground the role of
observation and measurement in the hope of rescuing
social science from speculative and unsystematic social
inquiry.
Reflectivists reject these positivist methods of
knowledge generation, preferring interpretive and
subjective study and a belief that values cannot be
separate from observation.
Reflectivism includes such alternative approaches to IR
theory as post-modernism, feminism, constructivism
and critical theory.
Post-Modernism defies the self-fulfilling link between the
status quo and the knowledge it generates, asking how ‘real
truth’ can be discovered inside such a weighted system,
while feminism views issues in IR through the lens of
women, their place in world politics and gender issues.
Critical theory is a Marxian spin-off that attempts to analyze,
identify and assist emancipatory social changes.
Constructivism is a social theory and has diverse facets itself,
but is generally of the view that social ideas define the world
and impact on material reality.
These are very basic presentations of positions that are
far deeper and more complex, but the range of views is
clear. Most agree on their opposition to the
establishment but each has a distinct identity and
priorities, and each theory can be diverse within itself.
Given their differing group positions, internal
discourses and inability to challenge Rationalists on
their own terms, it has been difficult for Reflectivists to
truly undermine the former; a difficult enough task
without these issues, given the unlikelihood that
Rationalists would ever willingly deconstruct their
fundamental assumptions of IR.
Problems With the Great Debates
There are many problems associated with the way IR views itself.
Schmidt states ‘there are so many problems with and difficulties
involved in understanding the history of the field within the
framework of the great debates that we might be better off simply
to reject discussing this account of how the field has developed’.
The first problem is that not everyone accepts that debates even
occurred in the first place. This is especially the case with the first
debate as demonstrated by Ashworth and Wilson.
The second problem of the debates was that they did not do
justice to the nature of the controversies taking place in the
world. The focusing of so much attention on a limited
number of debates by IR scholars perhaps detracted from a
number of other controversies worthy of study in IR.
The third problem of the debates was that the scholars that
contributed to the debates were largely British or American.
This geographical divide also spilled over into their work
and their failure to reach a consensus on issues did not help
with the coherency issues of the debates.
Fourthly, as previously stated, the debates are used by IR
practitioners and scholars to define their positions on the
way they view the world.
However, boundaries between debates are somewhat blurred
at times and a number of important works do not fit neatly
into any one debate.
The dominant themes of the great debates did indeed reveal
the strengths and weaknesses of their rivals and one can see
refinements in the debates being made. Despite this, IR is
still developing as a field and further refinements are
necessary.
CRITICAL THEORY
In mid-80s IR discipline came under serious challenge from
different critical theories.
The Critical Theory of Frankfurt School, Habermas’ critical
theory, and post modernism form the milestones of this
critical point of view, challenging the primary concerns and
assumptions of international theory.
These approaches have been skeptical towards traditional
theory and critical of the positivistic and empirically-based
knowledge developed by social sciences and towards
modernity which emphasized technical and scientific forms
of rationality.
They questioned the epistemological foundations, the
enlightenment heritage of the idea of progress and
rationality and modern science which aims to
generalization and the determination of the truth to be
imposed on the entire society.
There are two different generations that focused on
critical theory. Critical theory was a view of society and
social theory that was initiated by the Frankfurt School
and Marxism was the starting point.
In the beginning, the Critical Theory is associated with
the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. As the
ideas of the philosophers associated with this
institution were articulated and they formed a
distinctive theory, the theorists of this Institution came
to be known as “the Frankfurt School”. The institution
was formed to further and explore the Marxian
thinking.
The main thinkers: Marcuse, Adorno and Horheimer
The Frankfurt School had a view of a post-Marxist
social and political theory.
The main conceptions of the Critical Theory as it is
developed by these three thinkers is enhanced by
Jurgen Habermas.
Habermas focuses on the critique of ideology rather
than the Marxist criticism of capitalism.
He argues that science and technology take on an
ideological function reinforcing the image of society
based on a technical model, depriving the individual of
political consciousness.
Central to Habermas’s argument are the concepts of
“ideal speech situation” and the “knowledgeconstitutive interests”.
Habermas argued that communication has its own
particular rationality because most of the human
activities are based on language and on
communications.
Human speech is not meaningless, therefore there
must be the possibility of truth, but the only way truth
could be established is via rational consensus.
Discourses which questions claims, when distorted by
various power relations create an irrationalism which
do not make truth claims.
For Habermas, consensus must be a rational consensus
and this can be achieved purely on the basis of
argument completely free from the distortions of
power.
Habermas believes that emancipation of human society
through the critical theory will be possible with the
nature of human speech.
Another development of Critical Theory came with
Robert Cox.
He uses the Habermasian ideas of knowledge and
interests.
Cox divides international theory into two categories:
Problem solving and critical theory.
Problem-solving theories can be viewed as all the
theories that are initiated before critical theory with
the purpose of continuity of existing system rather
than attempting to change it.
Problem-solving theories only describe, explain and
understand problems within the existing system.
Critical theory is the criticism of all the theories before
it. It criticizes not only the problems within the system
but the system itself.
It rejects the acceptance of the general trend that
systems of capitalism and nation-state will continue to
exist forever.
Cox uses the Gramscian explanation of the system and
takes the world hegemony as “a social structure, an
economic structure, and a political structure; and it
cannot be simply be one of these things but must be all
three”.
International organizations, in this sense, are given a
specific role for maintaining this hegemony.
Critical theory has a historical, a normative and selfreflective critical component and is related to the real
world as a practical guide to action.