1
IR Textbooks and Dialogue: Using Fairy Tales to Invite New Conversations
Instead of looking for a particular silence (of which there are many), I
want to look at a silencer. It is easier to look at how silencing happens, in this
case, than to find the long list of silenced possibilities that our imaginations
have been unable to reach. How we come to know IR, and know about IR,
and most especially, how we come to know about knowing about IR is the
silencer that I want to explore. Our experiences of knowing about IR are
certainly varied, but most of us probably connected (or were supposed to
connect with) introductory texts as a part of this experience. Whether it was
legitimising the questions we wanted to ask about the world, suggesting
which questions we should ask, or giving us a vocabulary with which to pose
those questions, or and most likely, it was telling us what information
counted when trying to pass an IR exam, IR introductory textbooks play a
role in defining, delimiting and giving an account of the discipline.
Simultaneously, those textbooks also act as silencers. I am concerned with the
political question of what gets to count as IR in textbooks and the
depoliticising movement in which that political decision is forgotten.
More specifically, I will look at how textbooks, while defining,
delimiting and giving an account of the discipline simultaneously play a role
in silencing the spirit of the third debate. Critical to my argument is the idea
that the third debate is not a single instance, but a series of irresolvable
2
questions that the discipline should strive to continuously engage. In this
sense, the third debate is central to my argument in two ways. First, the third
debate is about the story of what the discipline is about, or should be about.
Second, the third debate is also about stories of forgetting. I see the third
debate as an attempt to open the discipline up to self-reflection and
marginalized voices, particularly those voices marginalized by a tradition of
positivism. At the heart of my argument, is the notion that textbooks succeed
in depoliticising particular issues of the third debate, both through their
structure and content. Two aspects of textbooks are of interest here; their
reliance on chronological accounts of the development of the discipline, and
an obsession with Archimedean Points (or origins). In a direct response to the
question posed: ‘Are there any silences left to be critically exposed?’, I will
argue that fairy tales, used as a methodological tool, are an excellent medium
to unlock notions of chronology and Archimedean Points that enable
textbooks to depoliticise the third debate. In this sense, I am concerned not
with silenced margins, but with one of the ways in which silences are, more
generally, still being perpetuated in IR.
Depoliticizing the Political
Critical to this reading of textbooks is Jenny Edkins’ notion of the
political, and the companion understanding of what it means to depoliticize.
Edkins distinguishes the political from politics, which she uses to denote such
3
things as “elections, political parties, the doings of government and
parliaments” and a whole list of other, similar activities. Instead, “the
political” has to do with the establishment of that very social order which sets
out a particular, historically specific account of what counts as politics and
defines other areas of social life as not politics1.” Initially, the connection
between the political and IR textbooks is relatively clear. Textbooks, charged
with delimiting and introducing IR, are very clearly engaged in what Edkins
defines as the political. However, apart from their role as a delimiting
introduction, textbooks are also concerned with the political in ways that are
less obvious. Not only is the content of the textbook both concerned with
politics in the traditional sense, and concerned with the political in the sense
of defining what counts, but the structure and approach the textbook takes is
also an example of the political. Edkins goes on to use Claude Lefort to
explain “the political is . . . revealed, not in what we call political activity, but
in the double movement whereby the mode of institution of society appears
and is obscured2.” In this sense, textbooks are comprised of the political in
the more insidious ways in which they can silence voices, constrain
conversations or dampen imaginings about what it means to do IR. Therefore,
it is not what textbooks say that is important here, but what they prevent
1
Edkins, J. (1999). Poststructuralism & International Relations: Bringing the Political Back In.
London, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
2.
2
Ibid.
2.
4
from being said, and what they prevent from being noticed through their
chronological structure and focus on Archimedean points.
The initial process of silencing voices through these three mechanisms
is only half of the story. The second, and perhaps most interesting half, is
how this silencing becomes so systematic that it is no longer noticeable. It is
this systematic erasing of the political that Edkins refers to as depoliticization
or technologization3. In Edkins’ view, “International relations as a discipline
dissipates the concern with the political and substitutes, instead, a fascination
with the manifold globalised and globalising technologies of order that have
emerged to administer human being.” An understanding of “the political” is
not taught or researched but rather replaced by a study of “the technology of
calculative order4.” While textbooks give an account of the third debate,
suggesting that its concern with silenced voices and margins has been taken
seriously, the way that they give this account actually serves to obscure the
very things the third debate seeks to emphasize. It is primarily the process by
which depoliticization happens to the third debate in textbooks that makes
the two features: chronology and Archimedean points so interesting.
What was The Third Debate?
3
I prefer the term depoliticization as it retains the linguistic reference to the political.
Edkins, J. (1999). Poststructuralism & International Relations: Bringing the Political Back In.
London, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
9.
4
5
I will not attempt a full account of the many representations of the
third debate here, but instead focus on why chronology and Archimedean
points are so central to taking the spirit of that debate seriously. Although
there are a number of reasons to eschew the term ‘third debate’, it is a
convenient way to reference a body of literature concerning positivism and its
challenge(r) s in IR5. There are, however, two parts of this moniker that I will
take issue with. First, that the third debate is a singular debate, and second
that the third debate has either been dealt with, either through resolution,
dismissal or forgetting. Weaver explains that “In the third debate, one
increasingly (mostly implicitly) got the self-conception that the discipline was
the debate. ‘International Relations’ was this disagreement, not a truth held
by one of the positions6.” In this sense, as long as the discipline continues, so
do the debates about what comprises the discipline. These debates are about
what the discipline is, what the discipline might begin to think about, and
how the discipline might think about whatever its concerns are. Part of what
it means, therefore, to take the third debate(s) seriously, is to take seriously
how we tell the story of the discipline. Not only that, but to engage questions
about how telling the story of the third debate in a certain way might
depoliticize the debate.
5
Some refer to this debate as the fourth debate, while others prefer to eschew the chronological
number of debates altogether. For simplicity’s sake I use the term third debate throughout, although I
hope it becomes clear that I think this moniker fails to take into account the concern with time, progress
and the damage that depoliticising and cursory resolution of debates highlighted in the third debate.
6
Waever, O. (1996). The rise and fall of the inter-paradigm debate. International Theory:
Positivism and Beyond. S. Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
155.
6
Bernstein describes the debate as “a growing sense that something is
wrong with the way in which the relevant issues and options are posed7.”
While this is generally more formally described as a call to “re-examine the
ontological, epistemological and axiological foundations of . . . social
endeavours8” the third debate is fundamentally about the possibility of
conversing about or pursuing alternatives to the positivist tradition of the last
forty years9. A significant concern emerging from the third debate is not only
what conversations might need encouragement, but how to go about
fostering conversations and voices silenced by this tradition as significant and
legitimate parts of the discipline. Or, put differently, how some conversations
get to count and others do not.
Textbooks
Indeed, voices from the third debate suggest that a significant part of
taking the third debate seriously (and its concern for critical reflection) lies in
the stories told about it. In the introduction to Positivism and Beyond, Smith,
Booth and Zalewski assert that “What we think about these events and
possibilities, and what we think we can do about them, depends in a
7
Bernstein, R. (1983). Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis.
Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
2.
8
Lapid, Y. (1989). "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a PostPositivist Era." International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 235-254.
236.
9
Smith, S. (1996). Positivism and Beyond. International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. S.
Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
11.
7
fundamental sense on how we think about them10.” While there have been
numerous projects to think about thinking about, little has been done to
consider the impact that textbooks have on this process.
That is not to say that there is not concern about the role of textbooks.
Waever, in a chapter detailing both the inter-paradigm debate and the postpositivist debate asserts that “we need to construct new, more up-to-date
stories and invent new images and metaphors11” Biersteker is even more
specific in his reflection on post-positivism and explains “Since theoretical
diversity has to be created every time an international relations syllabus is
designed, I begin to have doubts about how widespread post-positivist
tendencies really are in the emerging discipline of international relations12.”
As both authors indicate, the creation of stories about the discipline plays an
integral role in enabling critical reflection, and both see a reassessment of
these stories as an integral part of the third debate. It seems only reasonable
that a debate set to question the axiological assumptions of a discipline would
be concerned with how those assumptions get reinforced.
10
Smith, S., K. Booth, et al. Ibid.Introduction.
1.
11
Waever, O. Ibid.The rise and fall of the inter-paradigm debate.
149.
12
Biersteker, T. J. (1989). "Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations."
International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 263-267.
264.
8
Biersteker, however, does not stop in his assessment of the failure of
the literature to fully embrace theoretical diversity as a project. He continues
saying that
too often, consideration of these core issues is reserved for (and largely
forgotten after) the introductory weeks of required concepts and
methods courses as we socialize students into the profession. Real
critical self-reflections and post-positivist critiques will not take root
until they are taught as part of the methodological sequence we require
of all our graduate students and until they are reflected in the hiring
practices of major research departments13.
This is not to say that meaningful conversations are not taking place within
the discipline, and at its boundaries, but rather, how we approach introducing
what it means to do IR has a direct impact on the conversations that are likely
to be engaged by the discipline’s mainstream, and more critically by its future
students.
As guardians of the boundaries of the discipline, textbooks hold an
almost unrivalled position. Not only do they impart the traditions of the
discipline, but they help to reiterate and codify the habits of their writers, thus
serving as a conservative litmus test for what it means to theorise/practice IR.
That is not to say, however, that textbooks do not serve a purpose or should
13
Ibid.
265.
9
be eschewed in light of the post-positivist project. Cox articulates nicely that
“academic conventions divide up the seamless web of the real social world in
separate spheres, each with its own theorising; this is a necessary and
practical way of gaining understanding14.” It is not without a purpose that
the limits of the discipline have been enshrined for undergraduates. But, the
process of bounding and dividing the discipline, however useful, should still
be subjected to critical reflection.
The Role of Time
Within accounts of the third debate, chronology has several names. It
is referred to by Lapid as paradigmatism15, and by Smith16 as a chronological
image of the development of the discipline. While Smith’s work and Lapid’s
work are very different in a number of ways, there is a specific element to
their conversation that applies directly to representations of the discipline in
introductory textbooks. Lapid defines paradigmatism as the concept that
“meta-scientific constructs come and go in complete packages17” meaning that
epistemology, methodology, ontology and other axiological concerns are
14
Cox, R. W. (1981). "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations
Theory." Millennium-Journal of International Studies 10(2): 126-155.
126.
15
Lapid, Y. (1989). "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a PostPositivist Era." International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 235-254.
239.
16
Smith, S. (1995). The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations
Theory. International Relations Theory Today. K. Booth and S. Smith. Cambridge, Polity Press.
13-17.
17
Lapid, Y. (1989). "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a PostPositivist Era." International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 235-254.
239.
10
bundled together and that these bundles cannot be mixed. For Lapid, this
enables critical reflection on theories and a way to avoid comparison and
evaluation between incommensurable positions. Not only does this foster
critical reflection, but it encourages an acknowledgement of the metascientific domains in which theories are embedded18. Although Lapid’s
instincts are very much in line with conversations surrounding the third
debate, I see his approach as problematic.
Smith places Lapid’s use of paradigmatism in a tradition of
chronological stories of the discipline. Although paradigmatism was
certainly not lurking in early accounts of the great debates, Smith’s criticisms
of both paradigmatism and chronological depictions show that there are a
number of commonalities between the two. Smith explains that “Such a
perspective has tended to divide up the history of the discipline into phases
when a specific theoretical position dominated over rival views, with the
periods of transition between hegemonic voices being marked by ‘great
debates’19.” What this means, in practical terms, is particular periods of
transition and their specific resolutions become the focal point of accounts of
the discipline. This reinforces the great debates (whether identified by name
18
Ibid.
240.
19
Smith, S. (1995). The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations
Theory. International Relations Theory Today. K. Booth and S. Smith. Cambridge, Polity Press.
14.
11
or not) as defining what it means to do IR. At the same time, alternative
stories of IR are marginalised.
While textbooks may not formally explain that they are using a
chronological view of development, or attempting to recount the discipline in
terms of incommensurable paradigms, a specific and limited focus on periods
of transition is one of the most popular ways to introduce IR. The repeated
issuing of what is essentially the same account of the discipline means that
this account becomes The story of the discipline. This point is significant, both
to the survival of the third debate as it seeks to question the traditional,
positivist story of the discipline, and because of the third debate. As Smith
points out about the debate (which he refers to as the epistemology debate)
“Defining common sense is therefore the ultimate act of political
power. In this sense what is at stake in debates about epistemology is
very significant for political practice. Theories do not simply explain
or predict, they tell us what possibilities exist for human action and
intervention; they define not merely our explanatory possibilities but
also our ethical and practical horizons20.”
Defining common sense is exactly how textbooks are able to engage in the
double movement of defining and simultaneously forgetting this privilege.
20
Smith, S. (1996). Positivism and Beyond. International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. S.
Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
13.
12
Lapid attempted to safeguard against the identification of
paradigmatism with chronology. Instead, he suggested that paradigms could
peacefully co-exist in a pluralist world21. However, as Biersteker points out,
“pluralism and tolerance are not ends in themselves. . . it is not pluralism
without purpose, but a critical pluralism, designed to reveal embedded power
and authority structures, provoke critical scrutiny of dominant discourses,
empower marginalized populations and perspectives, and provide a basis for
alternative conceptualizations22.” Instead of revealing embedded power
structures, paradigmatism reinforces them. Holsti explains of those focusing
on paradigmatism in the third debate that “their philosophical and
methodological strategies are those of replacement, substituting one vision,
explanation system, or methodology with another. This conforms to the
Kuhnian version of progress23.” Coupled with the task of explaining the third
debate, paradigmatism renders textbooks mainly impotent messengers. Not
only does this approach architecturally predispose the textbook account to a
version of events focused on resolution, (and thus foreclosing debates) but it
also means that the content of the third debate, the call for marginalized
voices, is also silenced. In Smith’s words, “such a version of events silences
21
Lapid, Y. (1989). "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a PostPositivist Era." International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 235-254.
244.
22
Biersteker, T. J. Ibid."Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations." 263267.
264.
23
Holsti, K. J. Ibid."Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Which Are the Fairest Theories of All." 255261.
257.
13
all the debates and conflict between rival interpretations and in effect awards
a winners medal to the dominant voice24.”
Rather than serving as a simple presentation of the history of the
discipline, chronological or Kuhnian informed accounts actually serve to delegitimise not only the “wrong” sides of debates, but those questions that
were marginalized by debates. For example, a debate between realists and
liberals presumes a particular understanding of power even while purporting
to discuss the best ways to study power in the international. Returning to
Smith’s words, “Theories do not simply explain or predict, they tell us what
possibilities exist for human action and intervention; they define not merely
our explanatory possibilities but also our ethical and practical horizons25”
Instead of encouraging the sort of self-reflection and call to marginalized
voices advocated by the third debate, this account helps to further reinforce
the common sense conclusions of the past.
While not all textbooks use a chronological account of the discipline as
an introductory device26, the practice is widespread. Smith describes the
chronological view of development as a wider characterization than other
24
Smith, S. (1995). The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations
Theory. International Relations Theory Today. K. Booth and S. Smith. Cambridge, Polity Press.
16.
25
Smith, S. (1996). Positivism and Beyond. International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. S.
Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
13.
26
Indeed, Zehfuss and Edkins’ Global Politics: A New Introduction is a notable example
Edkins, J. and M. Zehfuss, Eds. (2009). Global Politics: A New Introduction. London,
Routledge.
14
self-images of the discipline27, and indeed many popular textbooks focus on
an account that begins in 1919 and was first marked by conflict between
realist and idealists shortly after28. Even textbooks as critical as Cynthia
Weber’s International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction29 follow a
chronological format. A look at the contents of the widely used The
Globalization of World Politics30 instantly reveals a fascination with chronology,
the first section goes through International History chronologically, the
second through Theories of World Politics in much the same fashion, other
stories come later when the foundation has been adequately established.
International Relations Theory31 has a similar layout, as do many others32. In the
interest of space, I will leave that part of the argument with these few
examples, as my focus is not to criticise all textbooks, but to emphasise the
role that textbooks can play in silencing marginalized voices.
27
Smith, S. (1995). The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations
Theory. International Relations Theory Today. K. Booth and S. Smith. Cambridge, Polity Press.
13.
28
Ibid.
14.
29
Weber, C. (2001). International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction. London,
Routledge.
30
Baylis, J., S. Smith, et al., Eds. (2008). The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction
to International Relations. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
31
Viotti, P. R. and M. V. Kauppi (1999). International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism,
Globalism and Beyond. London, Allyn and Bacon.
32
See also Dougherty, J. E. and R. L. J. Phaltzgraff (1990). Contending Theories of
International Relations: A Comprehensive Survey. New York, Harper Collins.
, Olson, W. C. and A. J. R. Groom (1991). International Relations Then & Now. London,
Harper Collins Academic.
, Griffiths, M., Ed. (2007). International Relations Theory for the Twenty-First Century: An
Introduction. London, Routledge.
15
In the Beginning
Repeatedly, the question of where the discipline might seem to
originate, and the shortcomings of that position, are articulated in the
discipline’s ability to establish itself as legitimate. In some ways, this is a kind
of search for an Archimedean Point, a place outside the discipline in which
standards are clear and where our view of the correct path, both in theory and
practice will be obvious. However, George and Campbell explain that the
search for this independent foundation or starting point for the discipline is,
in part, what the third debate seeks to question. They explain that the third
debate is concerned with
The actual process of knowledge construction in repudiating external
sources of understanding. This involves a rejection of all attempts to
secure an independent foundation, or Archimedean Point, from which
to orient and judge social action. It stressed instead the need to ground
all knowledge of social life in human history, culture, and power
relations33.
By reinforcing the need to have a starting point or original text from which to
begin the story of the discipline, textbooks reinforce the idea that the
discipline is both evolving, towards a more refined theory, and that there is a
33
George, J. and D. Campbell (1990). "Patterns of Dissent and the Celebration of Difference:
Critical Social Theory and International Relations." International Studies Quarterly 34(3): 269-293.
270.
16
final, accurate destination that the theory might reach. Not only does this,
again, presume an external reality which can then be mined for facts and
information, but it also rejects the type of critical pluralism and attempts to
engage with the margins that result from the messy intrusions and incursions
of dissenting voices. Rather than engaging marginalized voices, homogeneity
(or at least peaceful co-existence style pluralism) becomes the goal and the
norm.
Coupled with the chronological presentation of the discipline, the
focus on Archimedean Points means that textbooks essentially write out
many of the possibilities for critique that the third debate is meant to
introduce, or rediscover, before students even get to the third debate. As Rob
Walker explains of his goals in Inside/outside, “I am primarily concerned to
show how moments of critique that are already present in modern theories of
international relations have been lost or forgotten through textual strategies
that conflate, polarise, and reify specifically modern accounts of
spatiotemporal relations34.” When combining the temporal aspects of the
chronology, with those apparent in the search for founding fathers, or
Archimedean Points, textbooks further reinforce an understanding of the
discipline as fitting with “an evolutionary teleology and progressive
34
Walker, R. B. J. (1993). Inside/outside: International Relations as Political Theory.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
8.
17
history35.” Not only, then, does this serve in the capacity of the political, as
textbooks determine openly which founding fathers are important, but it also
serves to depoliticize a host of other decisions, about the nature of reality,
how the discipline views time, and crucially, what epistemological standards
are to be used.
In spite of a fairly consistent and similar structure for recounting the
development of the discipline, a number of textbooks struggle to find an
origin or original text from which to begin their story. In each of these
instances, the textbook seems to apologize for the fact that it can find no
Archimedean Point by which all progress might be measured. In doing this,
however, the textbooks further reinforce the view that a clear, simple tradition
is a valuable asset to the discipline. Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff use Martin
Wight to explain to their undergraduate readers that
most writing on interstate relations before this century was contained
in the political literature of the peace writers cited above, buried in the
works of historians, closeted in the peripheral reflections of
philosophers, or harboured in speeches, dispatches, and memoirs of
statesmen and diplomats. Wight concludes that in the classical
political tradition, “international theory, or what there is of it, is
35
Ibid.
10.
18
scattered, unsystematic, and mostly inaccessible to the layman, “as
well as being largely repellent and intractable in form36
IR seems almost ashamed that it cannot provide a clear account of where and
from whom it comes, perhaps at the expense of perceiving itself as legitimate.
A clear set of criteria for what makes a good study of international relations
thus becomes clear. The discipline should be centralized, systematic and
accessible if it is to avoid the mistakes of its antecedents. Without pause, the
authors here have already set up their readers to measure the rest of the story
of the discipline by these characteristics.
In another book, Olsen and Groom start with Thucydides, who may
have been valuable for his “description of the negotiations, the policy
alternatives, the strategic concepts, the diplomatic skills (or lack of them)
exhibited by plenipotentiaries as Athens tried first to avoid the war and then
to win it” but he “developed no systematic theory of interstate relations37.”
Although Thucydides is given recognition and credit for pieces of practical
IR, he has no claim to a legitimate theory, especially because he was not
systematic, and thus cannot be said to offer the discipline a starting point. It
is very telling when the authors say that “[e]ven though international law
may be considered the “root discipline” of IR, none of these savants of the law
36
Dougherty, J. E. and R. L. J. Phaltzgraff (1990). Contending Theories of International
Relations: A Comprehensive Survey. New York, Harper Collins.
2.
37
Olson, W. C. and A. J. R. Groom (1991). International Relations Then & Now. London,
Harper Collins Academic.
1.
19
gave much time to concocting peace plans38.” Again, by identifying
international law as an inadequate root discipline, the authors have
emphasized the need for a focus on peace plans to truly constitute the
discipline. Neither is Westphalia a satisfactory origin, despite the “diplomatic
and political phenomena that took place there39.” In fact, the closest this
textbook chapter comes to identifying a satisfactory heritage is when it points
to Machiavelli as “the father of realism in the study of international affairs40”
although Machiavelli is still not as Machiavellian as is often thought41 and
realism is certainly not the discipline.
As if the struggle to find clear and certain origins were not trying
enough, the alternative, a discipline springing from a miscellany of efforts,
thoughts, attempts, problems and views is partly to blame for a displace that
is in an apparently outrageous state. Martin Griffiths warns readers that “IR
is a notorious importer of gurus, ideas, concepts, and theories from beyond its
poorly regulated borders. These factors mutually reinforce meta-theoretical
diversity, pushing worldviews into self-contained ghettos42.” While the
authors are not trying to disparage the use of diverse worldviews within IR
38
Ibid.
6.
39
Ibid.
6.
40
Ibid.
7.
41
Ibid.
7.
42
Griffiths, M., Ed. (2007). International Relations Theory for the Twenty-First Century: An
Introduction. London, Routledge.
7.
20
theory, they do caution that this makes IR theory difficult to grasp as it has
“the remarkable capacity to reinvent itself43 rather than exposing diverse
worldviews, and looking for the marginalized or self-contained ghettos,
Griffiths apologizes to students and implies that the margins (or ghettos) are
not the sorts of places that students might like to visit. Before the textbooks
even get around to discussing the third debate, the implications for it are
clear: reflection and engagement with marginalized voices is risky and
unpleasant business. Not only that, but IR should note that only a properly
systematized discipline can correct for the mistakes of its shaky origins.
Why Fairy Tales: Chronology
While there are undoubtedly numerous ways to read textbooks that
reflect on the ways in which their structure and content have been affected (or
not) by the third debate, fairy tales are particularly useful. My definition of
fairy tales is somewhat different from that of literary criticism. Fairy tales, in
this paper, are stories that meet four particular criteria, only two of which will
be covered in this paper. The first is the presence of multiple iterations.
Iterations, in this context, refer to a loose repetition which may feature wide
ranging variations with no apparent goal or end point. That is to say, that
while like textbooks, a particular fairy tale will largely give an account of the
43
Ibid.
7.
21
same story with some variations, fairy tales do not struggle to reference an
origin or foundational text from which to derive legitimacy, nor do they
continuously aspire to perfect their representation of a fixed external reality.
“No fairy-tale text is sacred. Every printed version is just another variation
on a theme—the rewriting of a cultural story in a certain time and place for a
specific audience44.” Literary fairy tales, as a category, have a long evolution
although sources disagree on the exact progression of the genre45 More
important, is that stories exist in a multitude of forms, created in different
places and by different people, while still retaining more than a cursory
similarity46.
Iteration provides the opening that allows a tale to transcend the
context in which it is born, but iteration is not intended to diversify tales.
Rather, iteration is a way of understanding relationships between tales
despite their difference. Homi Bhabha’s distinction between diversity as a
collection of deviations from a particular universal type, as opposed to
44
Tatar, M. (1992). Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton,
Princeton University Press.
229.
While there can be a case made for distinguishing between folk tales and fairy tales, and
that distinction is important to their history, the argument is irrelevant to why iterative stories are
interesting to IR. Zipes, J. and L. Paul, Eds. (2005). The Norton Anthology of Children's
Literature: The Traditions in English. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. inc.
, Zipes, J. (2006). Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. New York, Routledge.
, Bottigheimer, R. B. (2009). Fairy Tales: A New History. Albany, State University of
New York Press.
45
46
Space does not allow elaboration.
22
“unequal, uneven, multiple and potentially antagonistic47” members of a type
that form difference, is useful for understanding the space that lies between
various tales. Not only do iterations differ, but they may contradict each
other. Nonetheless, related tales can still be recognized for analysis, new
publication, and criticism.
In the context of textbooks, iteration, as it applies to fairy tales,
becomes incredibly useful. If the great debates structure within a textbook
can be read, not as paradigm shifts or as peacefully co-existing
incommensurable paradigms, but instead as valid but repeated, similar
versions of international relations that simultaneously constitute the world
they describe, then the precariousness of each iteration is brought to the fore.
That is to say, that we can begin to understand the story of international
relations constituted by the great debates as a set of historically contingent
iterations, and the companion emphasis on positivist values as a result of
historical conditions. Furthermore, the emphasis on creating the most
accurate representation of real international relations is replaced by a
contextualization of each version in terms of its own authors and audience.
The sacredness of the textbook as a boundary drawing, legitimising device is
no longer necessary for the textbook to give a meaningful account of the
Bhabha is using the distinction between diversity and difference in discussing identity
where he attempts to illuminate the unacknowledged universalist roots in identity conversations.
The distinction is particularly useful in avoiding an understanding of iterative that suggests there is
a n extant version of a fairy tale which may then be revised. Rutherford, J., Ed. (1998). Identity:
Community, Culture, Difference. London, Lawrence and Wishart.
208.
47
23
discipline. The contradictions and similarities of various textbook accounts of
the evolution of the discipline are a testament to the obscured presence of true
incommensurability. Rather than focusing on resolution, the student48 is
asked to focus on the context and conditions surrounding that iteration which
led to a specific construction of what it means to do IR. In turn, this invites
the student to converse about what IR means in other contexts.
The effect of seeing textbooks as iterative is two-fold. First, the student
can see the depoliticizing effect of telling the story chronologically. Seeing
stories as iterative encourages us to look at the similarities and compare them
to other possible ways of telling the story, in effect bringing to the fore the fact
that telling the story of the discipline in a chronological way is a choice.
Because chronology is now one narrative structure, the effect it has on
potential plots is no longer inevitable, but simply popular. In other words,
the value laden act of describing IR can no longer parade as a factual activity
if we point out that we are, indeed, telling stories. The effect, is to emphasize
that how we tell individual iterations of the story of IR is a choice and to
repoliticize that choice.
Why Fairy Tales: Archimedean Points
48
When I use student, here, I am referring to the reads of textbooks who I see as students and
simultaneously practitioners and creators of IR.
24
A second criterion for identifying fairy tales is that they do not
rely on an original text to gain their legitimacy. I use the example of
Cinderella, here, to make this clear. While popular account suggests that
many tales, including Cinderella originate in Europe, Marina Warner traces
the wanderings of Cinderella over a thousand years and through a series of
cultures. She points out that “The earliest extant version of ‘Cinderella’ to
feature a lost slipper was written down around AD 850-60 in China; the story
was taken down from a family servant by an official, and the way it is told
reveals that the audience already knows it; this is by no means the Ur-text49.”
In fact, it is the notion of the missing or non-existent “Ur-text” or original text,
that undermines any notion that Cinderella can be understood as qualifying
as a tale that is originally European, or as having a central origin at all.
Warner goes on to show that shoe motifs show up in a number of places
including the Brother’s Grimm tale where mutilation of the feet involving
hacking off the heel and the toe50. Additionally, the late second century tale of
Rhodope’s sandal as it is carried off and dropped at the feet of the Pharaoh in
Memphis who then proceeds to search for its owner to make her his wife 51.
Already, the geographic reach of the tale is large, and we are hard pressed
49
Warner, M. (1994). From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. London,
Chatto & Windus.
202.
50
Ibid.
203.
51
Ibid.
203.
25
when asked to prove an official history52. However, Maria Tatar contributes
even further, citing “The Princess in the Suit of Leather” an Egyptian
version53; Ashliman lists 39 versions with wide ranging geographical origins
under the Cinderella tale type54 having acknowledged that this is a far from
comprehensive listing55. What is important, is not to establish that a
multitude of origins or revisions play into the creation of a tale, but that
individual iterations appear in a number of places. Since, as was discussed
earlier, iteration is not an indication of evolution, any region can claim
ownership of a particular iteration without citing a chronologically prior
version. The reason Warner’s history of Cinderella is so compelling, is the
potential it offers for iterations by so many groups, and its refusal to be
daunted by a lack of origin.
The fairy tale escapes the constraints of distinct linear progression
because there is no official text to which it is indebted, nor is there a perfect
end text to which the iterative tale type must aspire. Instead, the progression
Bottigheimer asserts that “The current understanding of the history of fairy tales is not only
built on a flimsy foundation; its very basis requires an absence of evidence.” Bottigheimer, R. B.
(2009). Fairy Tales: A New History. Albany, State University of New York Press.
2.
53
Tatar, M. (1992). Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton,
Princeton University Press.
131.
54
Ashliman, D. L. (1987). A Guide to Folktales in the English Language. London, Greenwood
Press.
108.
55
Ibid.
x.
52
26
away from truth and towards accurate representation56 is exchanged for a
collection of related texts that are useful in their own contexts. As such, each
authoring of a fairy tale creates an opportunity where, “they could ‘remake
the world in the image of desire57.” The reason this possibility is so significant
is that it precludes the need for us to remake the world in a way that satisfies
everyone’s needs. Rather than seeking the perfect (and historically accurate)
fairy tale, we are allowed to seek an iteration that words in our context, even
if it is incommensurable with previous, future or simultaneous other
iterations. The effect of this is to de-emphasize historical origins as bestowing
legitimacy.
Reading textbooks as fairy tales, once again, helps to interrupt the
process of depoliticization that happens in between the multiple iterations. In
this case, it is the content that is affected as stories about “the origins of the
discipline” make about as much sense as stories about the first or “real”
Cinderella. Students can see that which stories we choose as our founding
fathers are as contingent upon what we have access to and which version of
the discipline we want to talk about. It also becomes possible to understand
Doty’s use of the word representation to discuss the way in which “the South has been
discursively represented” is particularly useful here. She specifies that this representations “does not
refer to the “truth” and “knowledge” that the North has discovered and accumulated about the South,
but rather the ways in which regimes of “truth” and “knowledge” have been produced. The contexts
within which specific encounters have taken place and the issues relevant to these contexts have been
occasions for the proliferation and circulation of various representations.” Doty, R. (1996). Imperial
Encounters. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
2.
57
Warner, M. (1994). From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. London,
Chatto & Windus.
xii.
56
27
that we can derive meaning from the story of the discipline and see
contextualised versions of its origins as starting particular conversations
rather than as warnings. Cinderella is not less of a story because we do not
know where it came from.
I Don’t Want to Get Over You58
As a methodology, fairy tales have particular insights into both how
textbooks are written, and their content as far as the third debate is concerned.
While I am certainly not advocating that we always read IR textbooks as fairy
tales, I think that fairy tales can enable us to consider that how we tell the story
of the third debate has a direct impact on the possibility of continuing to have
the third debate. Indeed, part of what it means to take the third debate
seriously is to continue to grapple with the difficult political questions of
what gets to count as doing IR and what does not. While the discipline may
have become very good at remembering these questions in other contexts (so
good that the conference organizers asked if there were any spaces left to be
explored to which my answer is a resounding yes!), we have primarily
ignored textbooks as a site of silencing. In some ways, this is the most
crippling place in which to allow silences to continue. While we may
continue to write journal articles and hold conferences regarding questions
58
Merritt, S. (1999). 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields.
28
that started in the first conversations of the third debate, omitting textbooks is
a serious exclusion. Not only does forgetting the conversations in textbooks
mean that we fail to invite our students, but it also means that the way that
we formally define the discipline still does not take the third debate seriously.
Not only do textbooks play a crucial role in articulating and reinforcing
the political decisions of what IR is, who does IR and how, but they also start
and stop conversations. In the case of textbooks, it is fundamentally
depoliticizing to articulate the discipline in a way that forecloses the questions
that we use to continuously (re)define the discipline. To tell a story in which
the third debate is expected to have a resolution, and a nice tidy basket of
questions that can be resolved is akin to self-harm. The discipline curtails
itself by writing the third debate into a habitual silence before it even gets
started. In this sense, I do not want textbooks to “get over” the third debate,
but to continue to struggle, and to suggest to their readers that the struggle is
the important part.
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