Article
A fetish for measurement? Karl Deutsch in the
second debate
Jan Ruzicka
Aberystwyth University
Abstract
This article begins by asking why Karl Deutsch never directly intervened in what has come to
be known in the field as the second debate. This point of departure is used to outline Deutsch’s
views on the purpose of knowledge. It is apparent that Deutsch was unwilling to make the
distinction between the traditional and scientific approaches, which stood at the heart of the
debate started by Hedley Bull. Deutsch’s position tried to embrace both approaches, because
they were necessary in order to answer the big and important questions he asked. Deutsch also
rejected the notion that the scientific approach could be devoid of normative concerns. Finally,
the article argues that Deutsch keenly adopted methods connected with the scientific approach
because he believed they made it possible to spot new patterns which might hold novel answers
to the profoundly normative question of humankind’s survival.
Keywords
Hedley Bull, international relations, Karl Deutsch, knowledge, second debate
Hedley Bull was wrong. His judgement about the contribution, or rather the lack
thereof, of what he termed as the scientific approach to the study of international
politics was reckless.1 But as is often the case, stating one’s own beliefs and prejudices
in stark terms spurred a lively and spirited, as well as sometimes mean-spirited, debate
among the adherents of the two main camps – traditionalist and scientific – outlined by
Bull. The accused felt the need to defend their position and, while doing so, to launch
their own counter-attack. The process of exchanges tracing its roots to Bull’s article
published in World Politics in 1966 has come to be known in the field of International
Relations as the ‘second debate’.2 Contentious though it may be, the designation allows
for one way of telling the history of the field and conveying the sense of its
development. Hence, we should be grateful to Bull, irrespective of any shortcomings
that his contribution might have suffered from. This was, of course, not the only time
when he performed such a valuable service to the discipline. 3 Indeed, much like any
Corresponding author:
Jan Ruzicka, Aberystwyth University, Penglais, Aberystwyth, SY23 3FE, UK.
Email: jlr@aber.ac.uk
story involving accusers and accused needs, in order to both entertain and elucidate, a
Dr Watson to its Sherlock Holmes, a Captain Hastings to its Hercule Poirot, or an
uncomprehending male detective to its Miss Marple, so any debate in International
Relations requires its Bull – passionate, thought-provoking and misguided. The
difference is that in the discipline there never is and cannot be the far-sighted, logically
impeccable and unerring mind to establish the clear links. We appear, therefore, to
have no short supply of entertainment, but not that much in terms of elucidation. It is
easy to spot where Bull commits a blunder in a Watson-like manner, but impossible to
set him on the correct path.
The work of Karl Deutsch represented one of the main objects of criticisms
expressed by Hedley Bull. In a well-known depiction, Bull repeatedly disparaged
Deutsch’s research for its ‘fetish for measurement’. Whereas the original article in
World Politics made this connection only indirectly – Deutsch’s work, along with that
of his former student Bruce Russett, was offered as an example of such fetish – Bull’s
overview of the disciplinary history in The Aberystwyth Papers, published several
years later, referred directly to ‘his [i.e. Deutsch’s] fetish for measurement’.4
Subsequently, a somewhat less combative and more forward-looking article about
International Relations theory reverted to the indirect indictment, but nevertheless still
contained the phrase.5 Bull’s writing noted some contributions made by Deutsch, but
these were said to come despite, not thanks to, the approach which he adopted. 6 In
short, the critique was severe and persistent. And yet, Deutsch, a writer of breathtaking
and monumental productivity, never once over this period took up the pen to defend his
scholarship against Bull’s charges.7
Deutsch’s silence and unwillingness to join the debate, which it suggests, provide
the initial puzzle for this article. In the absence of any direct material that would make
it possible to ascertain Deutsch’s position, any answer must necessarily be of a
speculative character. Unless additional sources, be they personal recollections of those
who were acquainted with him, unpublished manuscripts, private correspondence or
some other materials appear, there is simply no way to tell what Deutsch thought about
the second debate and why he never intervened in it. But rather than being a source of
frustration, the article treats this situation as an invitation to probe in greater depth the
scholarly position adopted by Karl Deutsch.
It should be possible to construct an argument that would enable us to understand
Deutsch’s position in relation to the claims raised by Hedley Bull which constituted the
second debate as well as to appreciate Deutsch’s position on its own terms. The article
is therefore neither an exercise in assessing the relative merits of Bull’s critique of the
scientific approach, nor a defence of that approach derived from Deutsch’s writings.
Bull was wrong, and here, I owe a clarification of the opening sentence, precisely
because he got too fixated on the quantification and the alleged fetish for measurement.
In doing so, and in contravention of the virtues he claimed for the traditional approach,
he failed to offer a sound judgement based on a good understanding of what he was
criticizing in Deutsch’s work. The article aims to offer such an understanding of
Deutsch’s position. That is why the article carries the subtitle ‘Karl Deutsch in the
Second Debate’, because by thinking about Deutsch’s position in connection with that
debate, we should be able to gain a better grasp of it.
With regard to Deutsch’s position between the traditional and scientific approaches
to International Relations, the article makes the following three arguments. First,
Deutsch did not take part in the second debate, because the notion of two distinctive
approaches – traditional and scientific – ran directly contrary to his views about what
was needed in the proper study of International Relations. Such a study required
elements contained both in the traditional and scientific approaches, hence artificially
dividing them made little sense. Second, Deutsch rejected the distinction between the
traditional and scientific approaches because it implied that the scientific approach was
devoid of normative concerns. The distinction was thus not merely wrong, but it was
also fundamentally unhelpful when trying to gain answers to burning questions facing
the humanity. Third, Deutsch adopted predominantly the methods connected with the
scientific approach because they offered as yet untried possibilities when tackling those
enormously important questions. He did not deem them superior to the traditional
methods in some absolute terms. Instead, he viewed them as potentially holding
answers that could not have been previously spotted and noticed.
To formulate the three core arguments about Deutsch’s scholarly position, the article
makes use of a number of his lesser known writings. Chief among these are his articles
and book chapters on science and its relationship to other forms of generating
knowledge about the world. They articulate what might best be described as a
humanistic view of science. Similarly important are several of Deutsch’s writings about
the discipline, typically, though not exclusively, conceived broadly as political science
rather than just as International Relations. Here, the relationship between various
components of political theory takes on particular significance. Finally, the article
draws on some materials which are located in the Harvard University Archives, and do
not appear to have been previously explored in published form. They concern both the
possibilities contained in scientific methods as well as the need for their use towards
addressing profoundly normative questions.
The article hopes to make several contributions. First, it aims to provide a better
understanding of Karl Deutsch’s scholarly position when it comes to the relationship
between the traditional and scientific approaches and how this position reflects his
views about the field as well as about the world. Second, the article offers a
contribution towards some important aspects of the second debate in particular and the
disciplinary history of International Relations in general. Finally, by articulating
Deutsch’s position, the article offers an insight about the possibilities of conducting
inquiry into International Relations which is sensitive to both traditional and scientific
approaches and thus holds significant promise for present and future research.
The second debate
Some years ago, providing a critical overview of the disciplinary history and
historiography of International Relations, Brian Schmidt stated the obvious about the
second debate. He noted how the problem in trying to gain a better comprehension of it
was the fact that in comparison to ‘the recent research on the interwar period of the
field’s history, the details generally associated with the “second great debate” or the
“traditionalism versus scientism debate” have not been carefully and systematically
investigated’.8 Since Schmidt wrote these words more than a decade ago, not much has
changed. Largely as a result of the significant revival of interest in classical realism,
and especially in the figure of Hans Morgenthau, the field does have an even better
understanding of the first debate and of the disciplinary history in the 1940s and the
1950s.9 But the knowledge of the second debate has not increased. Indeed, in a revised
version of his chapter, Schmidt was able to repeat his earlier statement.10 There has
been no careful or systematic investigation of the second debate.
This article cannot, by definition, provide a systematic investigation of the second
debate. But by trying to construct and comprehend the position of Karl Deutsch in this
debate, it aims to contribute towards a more careful analysis. In particular, it attempts
to move beyond the narrow understanding of the second debate as involving a
fundamental choice between the traditional and scientific approaches, reducing it to a
methodological disagreement. That is a fairly contentious objective, because most of
those involved in the controversy did clearly see it as a dispute ‘over what constitutes
valid knowledge’.11 To quote once more from Klaus Knorr and James Rosenau, ‘the
controversy is not over the substance of international politics. It is the mode of
analysis, not its subject matter, that is the central issue’.12 This view has also been
endorsed by subsequent observers, such as John Vasquez, who dismissed the
possibilities that the debate was over the focus on behaviour or a contestation about the
relative place of empirical and normative concerns. Instead, Vasquez claimed that ‘the
debate is over scientific methodology’.13
The problem with the argument that the second debate merely boiled down to a
dispute about proper methodology is the following. Why would one of the chief
representatives of the scientific approach, indeed its indisputably main agent when it
came to quantification and statistical treatment of the carefully collected empirical data,
not defend in any way the methodological position that he clearly adopted and with
which he was unanimously identified? This is puzzling, since especially in the case of
Hedley Bull’s critique, Deutsch was thoroughly condemned for this methodological
choice. Were it only the adoption of correct methodology that was at stake, why
exactly would Deutsch choose to remain silent? There would be little trouble in stating,
or more precisely restating, the grounds for his predominant preference for quantitative
methods. We may, given his continued use of these methods, safely dismiss the option
that he was convinced by Bull’s argument. Perhaps he might have considered the
critique so far beside the point and as so outlandish that it was not worth his reply. That
is certainly a possibility and must not be discounted as a plausible answer. This article
argues, however, that from Deutsch’s perspective, more than a methodological choice
was at stake.
The basic dichotomy between the traditional and scientific approaches outlined by
Bull set the parameters of the debate. Its acceptance, as the numerous contributions
show, constituted a condition of joining in the dispute. Authors argued against or in
favour of one of the approaches that Bull delineated. In this sense, Bull provided the
rules of the game, in which, as J. David Singer, following the categorization devised by
Anatol Rapoport, reminded the readers, the objective was to outwit the opponent. 14 A
refusal to adopt the traditional/scientific dichotomy, as I claim was the case with Karl
Deutsch, manifested not only the unwillingness to accept the rules of the game, but,
crucially, the game itself. The rejection of the game stemmed from a set of Deutsch’s
beliefs that tried to accommodate aspects associated with both the traditional and
scientific approaches. In so far as scholarship is defined as the quest to formulate
important questions and the search for possible answers, one approach could not have
been repudiated at the expense of the other.
In order to construct Deutsch’s position and understand its relationship to Bull’s
critique, it is necessary to briefly restate the latter’s main arguments. In doing so, it will
be possible to begin to see why Deutsch would not be drawn into the second debate.
This will then be further developed in the exposition of the three main arguments
underpinning Deutsch’s position – namely, his humanistic notion of science, normative
concerns and the preference for quantitative methods.
Hedley Bull’s characteristics of the two approaches competing within the discipline
of International Relations were straightforward. The classical approach ‘derives from
philosophy, history, and law’, relies explicitly ‘upon the exercise of judgment’ and
assumes that ‘general propositions cannot be accorded anything more than the tentative
and inconclusive status appropriate to their doubtful origin’. 15 In contrast, the scientific
approach was notable for its aspiration to formulate ‘a theory of international relations
whose propositions are based either upon logical or mathematical proof, or upon strict,
empirical procedures of verification’.16 Bull listed Karl Deutsch as one among the chief
proponents of the scientific approach, along with such personalities as Morton Kaplan,
John Von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, Thomas Schelling, Kenneth Boulding or
Anatol Rapoport.
While it is always dangerous to draw conclusions from any scholar’s personal
background, it is not without interest to note here that Deutsch might have fit well
within Bull’s criteria that would qualify him to practise the classical approach without
much difficulty. He was, after all, classically educated at a gymnasium in Prague during
the interwar period and studied for a degree in law at Prague’s Charles University,
which he received in 1938, not long before the outbreak of the Second World War. The
curriculum at Charles University demanded that he took standard courses in legal
history, philosophy and law.17 Several of his initial publications in the United States
were explicitly historical in their emphasis.18 His first appointment at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) was as Assistant Professor of History and while there he
made a pitch to publishers for an edited book Basic Images of Western Civilization that
would serve a course in the history of ideas and ‘make the basic ideas clear enough so
that they could be understood by persons who were no specialists in philosophy or the
social sciences, and attractive enough to hold the attention of busy engineers’.19 In
short, Deutsch was certainly no stranger to philosophy, history and law, nor was he
negatively predisposed to any of these areas. He did make arguments about significant
phenomena in international politics and stressed their tentative nature.
Alas, it would probably be unreasonable to expect Bull to have knowledge of most
of these facts. Besides, his inclusion of Deutsch among the adherents of the scientific
approach was based on his reading of a couple of Deutsch’s works published in the
1950s and 1960s. In these publications Deutsch did use, though to varying degrees,
quantitative and statistical methods associated by Bull with the scientific approach.
Bull’s delineation of the traditional and scientific approaches was, of course, more
than just an analytical exercise. It served a disciplinary purpose, whereby it was
‘desirable that if we are to reject the scientific approach we should at the same time pay
attention to it and formulate such objections to it as we may have’.20 Lest there were
any doubts about Bull’s sentiments, he stressed that the scientific approach had to be
kept at bay and ‘firmly in the background’. 21 For its contribution has practically been
none and ‘in so far as it is intended to encroach upon and ultimately displace the
classical approach, it is positively harmful’.22
Bull substantiated his objections by putting forward seven propositions that were
intended to illuminate the shortcomings of the scientific approach. Thus, he derided its
proponents for (1) limiting themselves to ‘what can be logically or mathematically
proved or verified’ and therefore having very little to say about actual international
politics, (2) stumbling into significant insights only when ‘stepping beyond the bounds
of that approach and employing the classical method’, (3) failing to ‘make progress of
the sort to which they aspire’, (4) resorting to the use of models when theorizing, (5)
offering analyses that are ‘distorted and impoverished by a fetish for measurement’, (6)
making the achievement of rigour in analysis unnecessarily complicated by going
beyond the traditional approach and (7) having, due to the abandonment of history and
philosophy, a ‘view of their subject and its possibilities that is callow and brash’.23 For
a better measure, Bull added a few pointers suggesting why the scientific approach
found particularly fertile ground in the United States. These were based on assertions
concerning morally simplistic views of issues in international politics, specifically
beliefs that problems might be scientifically understood and hence amenable to
solutions via manipulation of the relevant factors.
Karl Deutsch’s work came explicitly under Bull’s attack only with regard to the fifth
proposition, that is, because of its propensity to measure and quantify. Bull went so far
as to claim that to those adopting the scientific approach ‘quantification of the subject
must appear as the supreme ideal’.24 This, as shall be demonstrated in the following
sections, was hardly the case. For Deutsch at least, quantification represented a
conscious methodological choice because in his view it held a certain potential in
answering some crucial questions of international politics and human survival. But it is
certainly incorrect to state that quantification was deemed ‘the supreme ideal’. If this
was the accusation, Deutsch must have felt little compulsion to defend himself against
it.
Bull’s two other criticisms of Deutsch’s scholarship seem, at least on the surface,
more plausible. While he admitted that Deutsch’s work, along with that of Bruce
Russett, was ‘certainly original and suggestive’, Bull refused to entertain the possibility
that such originality might have anything to do with their theoretical and
methodological approach. Indeed, Bull once again reiterated that ‘the prominence they
give to it [i.e. quantitative analysis] is a source of weakness rather than strength in their
arguments’.25 A criticism of this kind is impossible to refute, because one cannot know
whether the arguments would have been formulated in the absence of the analytical
tools. But few indeed are the scholars who abandon their ways of doing research when
actually credited with having come across something that is recognized by others as
original and insightful.
Finally, Bull formulated an objection that:
counting often ignores (or, if it does not ignore, skates over) the most relevant differences
between the units counted: differences between the content of one item of mail and another,
the diplomatic importance of one treaty and another, the significance of one inch of
newspaper column and another.26
This claim has since been frequently repeated, most notably by Stanley Hoffmann. 27 It
was, however, also vigorously disputed by Morton Kaplan and J. David Singer in their
polemics with Bull.28 Both Kaplan and Singer noted that information was collected
carefully and empirical studies would eventually show whether appropriate information
was lumped together or not. In short, the design incorporated the possibility of making
corrections.
But perhaps the best answer was provided by Deutsch himself in an article written
years before Bull’s. It is therefore not a direct answer, and the ‘reply’ is thus
unintentional, though it was obviously written with a view towards possible criticisms
of the use of quantitative data. The 1960 article ‘Towards an Inventory of Basic Trends
and Patterns in Comparative and International Politics’ clearly foresaw the possibility
of a split within the discipline between those inclined to ‘studying political behaviour
by quantitative and experimental methods’ and those tending to ‘the humanistic literary
and historical tradition of scholarship and judgment’. 29 Deutsch warned against the
‘danger of losing communication with each other’ and pleaded for maintaining ‘the
unity of the study of politics’.30 While doing so, Deutsch repeatedly stressed that
‘quantitative data can aid the judgment of the political analyst, but cannot replace it in
the evaluation of historical cases or in the assessment of possible future
developments’.31
Few statements could capture better the futility of trying to castigate Deutsch to one
side of the debate created by Bull. The objective of revisiting Bull’s critique, as
stressed in the beginning, was not to contemplate its validity, but rather to better
understand how Deutsch’s position might have related to the debate. It should be
becoming apparent that Deutsch did not directly address the subject of the debate,
because he held beliefs that were incompatible with its terms. The following sections
will reconstruct further Deutsch’s scholarly position on the problems discussed in the
second debate.
The need for traditional and scientific approaches
Central to Karl Deutsch’s study of human relations, of which politics and international
politics were an important, but by no means the sole, focus, was preoccupation with the
survival of the species and the improvement of its condition. These closely connected
concerns spanned the entire arc of his scholarly career and were, undoubtedly, formed
well before he began publishing his academic research in the United States in the
1940s. For instance, in 1947 he discussed the question of justice and territorial disputes
with the view that social science ‘is called upon to make what contribution it can to the
survival of mankind’.32 Much the same sentiment was expressed in an introduction to a
collection of his various essays on nationalism, integration and world futures, which
appeared more than three decades later in 1979.33
This conviction was accompanied by a specific belief about the role of knowledge in
this process and various ways in which knowledge could be gained and forms that it
took. Deutsch considered knowledge as beneficial, though he was not blind to its
possibly negative effects. Science along with arts, humanities, philosophy and religion
represented one activity in the quest to gain knowledge. Irrespective of their specific
differences, these pursuits were therefore essentially tied in a larger unity. They could
be distinguished in their forms, manifestations and preferences, but not in their
purpose.
To choose in the study of human relations in general and in the case of International
Relations in particular between the traditional and scientific approaches, a choice that
stood at the heart of Bull’s critique of the developments in the field, must have made
little sense to Deutsch. In fact, there is ample material to reach the conclusion that he
rejected such a division. The rejection did not stem from a preference for the scientific
approach as superior to the traditional one, but from a consideration of the limits
inherent in each of the approaches as well as from the constraints that they imposed on
each other. In short, the questions which motivated Deutsch’s pursuit of knowledge
demanded insights from more than just science, more than just humanities and history,
and more than just philosophy or religion. All these had to be present in a unified
vision of knowledge.
Such a unified vision of knowledge was the guiding idea behind a series of meetings
organized by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in their Relation to
the Democratic Way of Life. Its annual symposia began in 1940 and were from the
onset headed by Lyman Bryson, Louis Finkelstein and Robert M. MacIver. The
organizers’ goal and the aim of their supporters, who numbered many leading
intellectual in the United States at that time, was to address the most important political
and social questions from the broadest possible perspective incorporating knowledge
from natural and social sciences, philosophy, humanities and religion. 34 There was
clearly a realization that each of these areas could contribute in significant ways. The
conference published volumes containing the revised presentations, and these are
fascinating in their depth and breadth of covered topics. From the initial three volumes
dedicated simply to science, philosophy and religion, the subsequent meetings and
ensuing books dealt with a varied range of topics: world peace, group understanding,
education and learning, freedom and authority, race relations, symbols and so on.
Karl Deutsch delivered his first paper, on intolerance and its economic drivers, at
the 1944 symposium devoted to Approaches to National Unity.35 He remained an
active participant in the meetings over the following decade. His papers, in line with
his research interests at the time, covered subjects such as justice and territorial
disputes, the value of freedom, nationalism, symbols and communication. In 1952, as
the conference was seeking greater institutionalization, Deutsch became one of its
fellows. It is impossible to precisely establish what kind of effect the participation in
the activities of the conference had on Deutsch’s intellectual formation. He was
studying questions related to nationalism, discrimination, group understanding and
conflict for several years by the time he spoke about them at the conference’s
symposia. But it seems reasonable to conclude that taking part in the symposia at least
reinforced his overarching views about the need to include in their study both
humanistic and scientific approaches.
At about the same time, in the summer of 1950, Deutsch was invited by Charles E.
Odegaard, the executive director of the American Council of Learned Societies, to join
the newly formed Committee on the Humanistic Aspects of Science. The committee
originated from an earlier informal conference on ‘Relationships between Science and
Humanities’ and conducted its work until the spring of 1954. Eventually, several of its
members, Deutsch included, published a book of their deliberations, entitled Science
and the Creative Spirit.36 Deutsch’s essay in the book provides an excellent insight into
his belief in what the authors of the book decided to call the ‘humanistic aspects of
science’.
Deutsch distinguished the humanities and science along a fairly simple line.
Whereas the former put the ‘emphasis on “the whole man”’, the latter isolates ‘events
or situations from their contexts’.37 He presented a broad conception of knowledge,
which included more than data that could be calculated. In such context, he argued that
‘scientific and humanistic knowledge are thus two different sides of one and the same
process of human thinking’.38 Deutsch rejected the notion that what made science
distinct was its cumulative nature. It appeared distinctive only because of ‘the
importance accorded to this accumulative element in the field of science, and denied to
it within the field of humanistic effort’.39 The different strengths of emphasis on the
cumulative aspects, stressed Deutsch, ‘should not obscure this basic unity’. 40 All this
then informed his idea of social sciences, which combine elements that can be
expressed as data and treated quantitatively with the effort to understand unique cases.
The decisive move buttressing the need for both humanistic and scientific
approaches came from the discussion of the role of values. Deutsch insisted that
science depended on the acceptance of a number of values just as moral action was
enhanced by scientific knowledge: ‘To act morally is in one sense the opposite of
acting blindly’.41 Good will and good intentions are important, but when facing some
questions and problems, they are not sufficient on their own. Significantly for the study
of International Relations, he invoked the dispute between idealism and realism as an
example. The intensity of that conflict hinged, in his view, ‘upon the discrepancy
between the strength of the moral convictions involved and the poverty of reliable
knowledge of the probable consequences of the proposed courses of action’. 42
The solution, however, did not rest in the simple increase of scientific knowledge.
Deutsch was well aware and offered a subtle analysis of how growing scientific
knowledge might lead to scientific discoveries that could have catastrophic
consequences at particular historical moments and within specific social contexts.
Rhetorically, he asked, ‘Would it have been better for mankind if Einstein’s principle
of relativity, or Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron, or Hahn’s work on uranium
fission had all come ten years later than they did, and no atom bomb had been available
to drop on Hiroshima?’43 Ultimately, he decided to bet upon the ‘potential goodness’ of
science, once again relying on the social and normative context. As he put it, ‘a
civilization so prone to commit suicide that it could be saved only by concealing from
it the means of its own destruction would not endure for long’. 44 The underlying unity
of knowledge meant that scientific and humanistic approaches would both enhance and
constrain each other.
Indeed, ensuring the unity of knowledge was imperative. Humankind’s survival in
‘transcending the potentially suicidal aspects of its heritage’ demanded the use of ‘all
the resources of scientific, humanistic, and religious thinking’. 45 To opt for any one of
these approaches alone was no panacea. With regard to international politics, the
choice could not have been between traditional and scientific approaches. The limits of
science, of which Deutsch was well aware, meant that the questions which drove his
research required other types of knowledge to inform possible answers.
Normative concerns and the discipline
Normative concerns at the heart of those questions directing Deutsch’s research had
other implications besides the need to maintain a diversity of approaches in their study.
Specifically, admitting the division between the traditional and scientific approaches
would have led to a rupture in the discipline. This prospect genuinely worried Deutsch.
In a rare, short personal reflection on his journey though world politics in the late
1980s he recalled the state of the discipline in the 1960s and the early 1970s. He noted
how the clashes between the proponents of the different approaches threatened to cause
a split in the American Political Science Association (APSA), a split that he would
have considered a ‘misfortune’, because ‘the three traditions, the scientific, the
descriptive, and the normative, needed each other and the various aspects of truth each
of them might discover’.46 As president of the APSA, and later in the 1970s as
president of the International Political Science Association, he attempted to work
towards unity and pluralism.
This is apparent from the presidential address which he delivered to APSA’s annual
meeting in 1970.47 Deutsch repeated several of the themes that he previously
articulated with regard to the unity of knowledge and the variety of approaches in
seeking it. Beginning with a general question about the types of knowledge produced
by theory, he outlined five ‘primarily cognitive’ and four ‘action-oriented’ kinds of
knowledge. These were not contrasted to each other, but instead formed indispensable
parts of the production cycle of theory with the objective of increasing the ‘chance of
critical self-liberation for the specific task of enhancing the power of human beings to
know reality and to deal with it’.48 In the given context, he then applied the general
observations on theory more directly to the study of political science. 49 Echoing his
statements made 10 years earlier, he reminded his audience that ‘computers cannot be
used as substitutes for thought, nor can data replace values’. 50 In short, Deutsch
considered it necessary that wisdom ‘what knowledge to seek, what skills to learn,
what values to strive for’ had to be accompanied with a concern for collection of data
and information. Once again, the various ways of seeking knowledge had to enhance
and constrain each other. On the one hand, wisdom without ‘reality control’ would
descend into mere ideology, on the other hand, the absence of wisdom would make
data gathering ‘the mere piling up of sterile information’. 51 Such a conception of
political science, and by extension of International Relations, carried with it an inherent
element of risk, because normative and value-based choices had to be made as to which
questions deserved the most attention. Deutsch outlined two such questions as central:
the abolition of poverty and the abolition of large-scale war.
The latter question was present in Deutsch’s scholarship from the beginning, but
took on a greater significance, as he was moving into the 1970s. Even before he began
spending more time in Germany, where he was asked to head the recently created
Social Science Center in West Berlin, Deutsch authored several publications in German
that fell within the area of peace research.52 The former question, concerning the
abolition of poverty and in a larger sense the question of resource allocation and
scarcity were, however, fairly new in his research. The concern was expressed chiefly
in the large world-modelling project called GLOBUS (Generating Long-term Options
By Using Simulation). But on a more mundane level, it was also reflected in an
International Relations textbook written by Deutsch. Whereas the first edition of The
Analysis of International Relations published in 1968 opened with a chapter including
10 fundamental questions, the subsequent two editions, issued in 1978 and 1988
respectively, opened with 12 fundamental questions. 53 The two sets of questions that
were added, found their place in the book under the headings ‘Transnational Processes
and International Interdependence’ and ‘World Population vs. Food, Resources, and
Environment’.
The emphasis which Deutsch put on value-based questions with normative concerns
is not only central when trying to grasp his scholarly position, but is also important for
a better understanding of his refusal to participate in the second debate. One of the
crucial charges levelled by Bull and other traditionalists was the claim that the
adherents of the scientific approach concerned themselves with marginal matters and
did not go to the substance of the subject of international politics. As restated by
Stanley Hoffman, their choice of scientific methods kept them ‘from asking what were,
according to him [i.e. Hedley Bull], the essential questions about international
relations’.54 Anybody who takes Karl Deutsch’s work over the decades seriously will
almost certainly come to a very different conclusion.
The division at the heart of the second debate was to an important degree predicated
on the assumption that the scientific approach was, in its quest for a value-free social
science, devoid of normative concerns. Deutsch went to great lengths, and well before
the debate actually began, to disprove this assumption. The assumption was not merely
wrong or absurd. Crucially, it was actually unhelpful in preserving the necessary unity
of knowledge that infused the discipline and the research it produced with normative
concerns.
The roots of the methodological choice
There is a fundamental, and potentially fatal, objection to all that has been written so
far. Deutsch might have argued for the unity of knowledge, he might have stressed the
need for various approaches and acknowledged the normative concerns underlying the
key questions. Nevertheless, he did adopt, overwhelmingly, methods introduced by and
identified with the scientific approach. There is no denying of this fact. A negatively
predisposed critic might well ask whether he talked the talk, but did not walk the walk.
The methodological choice has to be somehow explained and, importantly, squared
with the other parts identified as constituting Deutsch’s position.
One could fall back on Deutsch’s words in the APSA presidential address that ‘no
single theorist, nor any single group of scholars, is likely to make contributions in all
these ways [i.e. all parts of the production cycle of theory]’.55 Nevertheless, such an
explanation will not do. It would not be an explanation, it would be an excuse. It would
not say anything about why Deutsch made the choice he did. A more substantial
argument is required and it can be, I believe, reconstructed from Deutsch’s writings.
One of these is a review essay which, by all indications, has never been published,
though Deutsch did try to do so in several journals and presented it publicly. 56
In the late 1950s Deutsch wrote a review essay of a book The New Landscape in Art
and Science by Gyorgy Kepes, a Hungarian émigré painter who subsequently taught
visual design at MIT. The book presented, among others, a series of pictures that were
made possible by new scientific techniques. Deutsch argued that the book offered ‘an
important statement of the relations between [...] the experience of science and the
experience of art’.57 The book thus fits well with the familiar idea of the unity of
knowledge. Deutsch’s text conveyed an obvious fascination with what kind of images
could newly be captured by camera: ‘We are at the edge of a new world of insight, a
new range of sensitivity and of understanding’.58 For Deutsch, the images supported the
point that art, just like science, did not mirror reality, but transformed it into a code.
This was a key insight, because the process of transformation into a code could yield
novel patterns, which until now have not and could not have been noticed and were, at
best, only imagined by artists. Deutsch gave the example of Marcel Duchamp’s famous
modernist painting Nude Descending a Staircase which preceded similar visualizations
caught through the means of a high-speed camera by more than two decades. As he
remarked, ‘slowly, slowly, the high-speed camera is catching up to the artist’s vision of
reality’.59 Learning the new language of patterns and processes enabled the realization
of differing scales. This led Deutsch to formulate an impression inspired by the book
that man ‘has the ability to transcend his own scale’.60
Transcendence of scale and pattern recognition are, of course, central themes in
Deutsch’s research on nationalism, integration and disintegration, or political
communication.61 They are also core elements of his writing on security community,
which is today undoubtedly Deutsch’s best known concept in International Relations. 62
The research on security communities combined precisely the recognition of a new
pattern of interaction between political communities as well as the potential
transcendence of scale on which security could be provided and thought of. Methods
connected with the scientific tradition made it possible to notice both these processes.
Deutsch was convinced that humanity was ‘becoming increasingly familiar with
patterns of change and of motion’, even though this was merely the beginning.63 The
increasing familiarity came as a result of the unprecedented capacity to generate data
and treat them in new ways. As he told his audience at the APSA annual meeting,
‘technical improvements can work not only for the status quo but at least as much for
those who work for its change’.64 With these expanding options, it became a matter of
courage and imagination whether and how they would be used in trying to creatively
answer the old questions – perhaps this was now finally possible for at least some of
them – as well as the new problems facing humankind. The echoes of Horace’s Sapere
aude! (Dare to know!), which Immanuel Kant put at the centre of his essay What is
Enlightenment? are unmistakable.
It was the refusal to accept the status quo, which he perceived as obviously
unsatisfactory from his humanistic perspective, that led Deutsch to adopt the methods
linked with the scientific approach. Bull, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the status quo
bias in the English school, and other traditionalists did not allow for the possibility that
the adoption of the scientific methods might have been a way how to address the
normative concerns. It should also be apparent that pitching the debate among the
traditional and scientific approaches as a quest for ‘cognitive authority’ 65 of the
discipline of International Relations is, at least as far as Deutsch is concerned, rather
impoverishing. Certainly in his case, the methods of the scientific approach served a
bigger purpose than simply the instrumentality of enhancing the field’s stature. For
Deutsch, the issue was not whether IR could be studied as science, but what could
studying IR with the addition of scientific methods do for a better understanding of
international politics in so far as the transformative potential of knowledge was
concerned.
Conclusion
The starting point of this article was the puzzle why Karl Deutsch did not directly enter
into the second debate in International Relations. The puzzle served the larger aim of
reconstructing Deutsch’s scholarly position on the study of social relations in general
and international politics in particular. This, in turn, allowed for a better understanding
of his rejection of the terms of the debate initiated by Hedley Bull. The key arguments
are threefold. Deutsch did not accept the division between the traditional and scientific
approaches because it contradicted his belief in the unity of knowledge, where multiple
approaches were indispensable. Preserving and using the multiplicity of approaches
was necessary in order to formulate and answer normative concerns which stood at the
centre of key questions addressed by the field. Finally, Deutsch opted for the methods
of the scientific approach, because they contained previously unexplored potential in
answering those questions and transforming international politics.
The ultimate irony is that Bull, so closely related with the concept of the anarchical
society, stressed the social element in international politics as much as Deutsch. For
example, it can be envisaged how Bull’s different types of international societies could
be grasped in terms of Deutsch’s communication theory. Arend Lijphart argued that
Deutsch played a crucial role in forming and consolidating a new paradigm in the study
of international politics. He called it the Grotian paradigm. For its theoretical
expression Lijphart referred to none other than Hedley Bull, while the empirical
substantiation of his argument came from the work of Karl Deutsch on security
communities.66 Obviously, Lijphart did not fail to notice the suspicion with which the
link between Bull and Deutsch might be met. 67 He therefore claimed that Bull
represented a deviant case among traditionalists.68 But such a view seems rather
unsatisfactory. Why, for example, should Bull and not Deutsch be considered a deviant
case? And why does one have to think in the language of deviant cases to begin with?
Then again, spotting unexpected patterns, categorizing information, disassembling
and reassembling it in novel ways was precisely a type of scholarly activity that
Deutsch called for and would have welcomed. The central questions with which he was
preoccupied – survival in the presence of the unprecedented destructive potential of
nuclear weapons and in the face of resource scarcity and depletion – remain.
Addressing them will require keeping in mind the key guiding principles outlined by
Karl Deutsch – wisdom towards what needs to be known, so that the potential course of
action is as well informed as possible.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or
not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Hedley Bull, ‘International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach’, World Politics,
18(3), 1966, pp. 361–77.
Inevitably, contributions to the debate are scattered to a varying degree among numerous
books and journals. However, the essential starting point remains the book edited by Klaus
Knorr and James N. Rosenau (eds), Contending Approaches to International Politics
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), which assembled not only Bull’s initial
article and Morton Kaplan’s response to it (both originally published in World Politics), but
also a series of reactions to them.
See his article ‘Hobbes and the International Anarchy’, Social Research, 48(4), 1977, pp.
717–38.
See Bull, ‘International Theory’, pp. 372–3, and Hedley Bull, ‘The Theory of International
Politics, 1919–1969’, in Brian Porter (ed.) The Aberystwyth Papers: International Politics
1919–1969 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 42.
Hedley Bull, ‘New Directions in the Theory of International Relations’, International
Studies, 14(2), 1975, pp. 277–87.
Once again, this is a consistent theme in all three of Bull’s writings mentioned above. See,
for instance, Bull, ‘New Directions’, p. 279.
Perhaps the closest one can come to noticing a degree of Deutsch’s active involvement in
the second debate is the acknowledgment J. David Singer makes at the beginning of his
chapter ‘The Incompleat Theorist: Insight without Evidence’, in Knorr and Rosenau (eds),
Contending Approaches, p. 62. But we do not know the extent of Deutsch’s comments and
his agreement or disagreement with Singer, though it would not be unjustified to assume
Deutsch’s approval, given the close collaboration between the two scholars.
Brian C. Schmidt, ‘On the History and Historiography of International Relations’, in Walter
Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (eds) Handbook of International Relations
(London: SAGE, 2002), p. 13.
See, for instance, Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of
International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); William E.
Scheuerman, The Realist Case for Global Reform (Oxford: Polity Press, 2011); Nicolas
Guilhot, The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller
Foundation and the 1954 Conference on Theory (New York: Columbia University Press,
2011).
See the second edition, Brian C. Schmidt, ‘On the History and Historiography of
International Relations’, in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (eds)
Handbook of International Relations, 2nd ed. (London: SAGE, 2012), p. 18.
Klaus Knorr and James N. Rosenau, ‘Tradition and Science in the Study of International
Politics’, in Knorr and Rosenau (eds) Contending Approaches, p. 12.
Knorr and Rosenau, ‘Tradition and Science’, p. 12.
John A. Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to
Neotraditionalism, 2nd rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 39.
Singer, ‘The Incompleat Theorist’, p. 64.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 361.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 362.
This information is based on my research at the Archive of Charles University in Prague.
The relevant holdings are matriculation books of the Law Faculty of the German part of the
university between the years 1931–1935 and, following his decision to transfer, at the Czech
part of the university from 1935–1938.
See, for example, Karl W. Deutsch, ‘Medieval Unity and the Economic Conditions for an
International Civilization’, The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science,
10(1), February 1944, pp. 18–35; Karl W. Deutsch, ‘Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages:
International Civilizations in Expansion and Conflict’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 6(2),
April 1945, pp. 239–51.
‘Basic Images of Western Civilization’, Harvard University Archives, HUGFP 141.50, Box
1.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 364.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 364.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 366.
For the full exposition of these points see, Bull, ‘International Theory’, pp. 366–75.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 372.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 374.
Bull, ‘International Theory’, p. 374.
Stanley Hoffman, ‘International Society’, in J. D. B. Miller and R. J. Vincent (eds) Order
and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p.
16.
Morton A. Kaplan, ‘The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs. Science in International
Relations’, World Politics, 19(1), 1966, p. 12; Singer, ‘The Incompleat Theorist’, p. 77.
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘Towards an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative and
International Politics’, American Political Science Review, 54(1), 1960, p. 35.
Deutsch, ‘Towards an Inventory’, p. 35.
Deutsch, ‘Towards an Inventory’, p. 46. See also a nearly identical statement on page 40:
‘Let it be repeated again that these data are proposed as aids to political judgment, not as
substitutes for it’.
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘Problems of Justice in International Territorial Disputes’, in Lyman
Bryson, Louis Finkelstein and R. M. Maciver (eds) Approaches to Group Understanding
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), p. 243.
Karl W. Deutsch, Tides among Nations (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 1–9.
For some basic information about the conference see a brief historical summary preceding
the list of archival holdings at the Jewish Theological Seminary, available at: http://www.
jtsa.edu/The_Library/Collections/Archives/The_Ratner_Center/_Finding_Aids_to_institutio
nal_records_of_JTS/Record_Group_5_Conference_on_Science_Philosophy_and_Religion.
xml (accessed 10 June 2014). At the time when the conference began its existence and in
the subsequent years the Jewish Theological Seminary was headed by Louis Finkelstein;
hence the connection. The best picture about the amazing scope of the enterprise, however,
comes from the actual reading of the published volumes.
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘The Economic Factor in Intolerance’, in Lyman Bryson, Louis
Finkelstein and R. M. Maciver (eds) Approaches to National Unity (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1945), pp. 368–86.
Harcourt Brown (ed.), Science and the Creative Spirit: Essays on Humanistic Aspects of
Science (Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1958).
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge in the Growth of Civilization’, in
Brown (ed.) Science and the Creative Spirit, p. 3.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 4.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 6.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 8.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 19.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 20.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 20.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 21.
Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 43. See also a very similar section on
p. 47.
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘A Path among the Social Sciences’, in Joseph Kruzel and James N.
Rosenau (eds) Journeys through World Politics: Autobiographical Reflections of Thirtyfour Academic Travelers (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 1989), p. 20.
Karl W. Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory and Political Action’, American Political Science
Review, 65(1), 1971, pp. 11–27.
Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory’, p. 14.
For an earlier, but similar statement, one dealing in an even greater depth with
developments in political science, see Karl W. Deutsch and Leroy N. Rieselbach, ‘Recent
Trends in Political Theory and Political Philosophy’, The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, 360, 1965, pp. 139–62.
50. Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory’, p. 21.
51. Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory’, p. 21.
52. Deutsch was also instrumental in establishing a peace studies degree programme at Harvard,
which was discontinued shortly after his retirement. I am grateful to one of the anonymous
reviewers for pointing this out to me. For Deutsch’s peace studies publications in German
see, for example, his ‘Die bruechige Vernunft von Staaten’, in Dieter Senghaas (ed.)
52. Compare, Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis of International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1968), pp. 8–11; Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis of International Relations,
2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978), pp. 9–13; and Karl W. Deutsch, The
Analysis of International Relations, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988), pp.
6–10.
53. Hoffman, ‘International Society’, p. 16.
54. Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory’, p. 19.
55. The following draws on information contained in the folder ‘Review: A New Landscape
Revisited’, Harvard University Archives, HUGFP 141.50, Box 1.
56. Karl W. Deutsch, ‘A New Landscape for Man’s Mind’, unpublished manuscript, Harvard
University Archives, HUGFP 141.50, Box 1, p. 1.
57. Deutsch, ‘A New Landscape’, p. 4.
58. Deutsch, ‘A New Landscape’, p. 7.
59. Deutsch, ‘A New Landscape’, p. 11.
60. See, for instance, his perhaps two most famous books Nationalism and Social
Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1953) and The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and
Control (New York: Free Press, 1963).
61. Karl W. Deutsch, Sidney A. Burrell, Robert A. Kann, Maurice Lee Jr, Martin Lichteman,
Raymond E. Lindgren, Francis L. Loewenheim and Richard W. Van Wagenen, Political
Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of
Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).
62. Deutsch, ‘Scientific and Humanistic Knowledge’, p. 11.
63. Deutsch, ‘On Political Theory’, p. 26.
64. Schmidt, ‘On the History’, p. 14.
65. Arend Lijphart, ‘International Relations Theory: Great Debates and Lesser Debates’,
International Social Science Journal, 24(1), 1974, pp. 15–6.
66. Lijphart further expanded his claims in a chapter to the Festschrift dedicated to Karl
Deutsch several years later. See Arend Lijphart, ‘Karl W. Deutsch and the New Paradigm in
International Relations’, in Richard L. Merritt and Bruce M. Russett (eds) From National
Development to Global Community: Essays in Honor of Karl W. Deutsch (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1981), pp. 233–51.
67. Lijphart, ‘International Relations Theory’, p. 19.
Author biography
Jan Ruzicka is Lecturer in Security Studies in the Department of International Politics at
Aberystwyth University. He is also Director of the David Davies Memorial Institute of
International Studies. His recent work appeared in Ethics and International Affairs, London
Review of Books, and International Affairs. He is co-author with Vincent Keating of the article
‘Trusting Relationships in International Politics: No Need to Hedge’, which is forthcoming in the
Review of International Studies. He is primary investigator on the project ‘Alliances and Trustbuilding in International Politics’ supported by the British Academy.
Biographical appendix
Karl W. Deutsch (1912–1992)
1912 – Born in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
1918 – Collapse of the monarchy and establishment of Czechoslovakia
1920–1925 – Deutsch’s mother, Maria Deutsch, is a member of the Czechoslovak
Parliament for the German Social Democratic Party
1931 – Student at the Law Faculty of the German University in Prague
1935 – Transfers to the Law Faculty of Charles University Prague
1938 – Receives doctorate in jurisprudence (JUDr) from Charles University
1938 – Leaves for the United States, with wife Ruth, as a social democratic delegate
to the World Youth Congress
1939 – Begins studies at Harvard University
1942 – Begins teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
1944–1945 Works in the Office of Strategic Services
1945 – Member of the International Secretariat of the San Francisco Conference,
which set up the United Nations
1948 – Becomes a citizen of the United States; until then a citizen of
Czechoslovakia
1951 – Awarded PhD, Harvard University (dissertation wins the Sumner Prize)
1952 – Becomes professor at MIT
1953 – Nationalism and Social Communication (MIT Press)
1954 – Political Community at the International Level (Doubleday)
1957 – Political Community in the North Atlantic Area (Princeton University Press)
1958 – Moves to Yale University
1959 – Germany Rejoins the Powers (Stanford University Press)
1963 – The Nerves of Government (Free Press)
1965 – Awarded the William Benton Prize of the Yale Political Union
1967 – Moves to Harvard University
1968 – The Analysis of International Relations (Prentice-Hall)
1969 – Nationalism and Its Alternatives (Knopf)
1969–1970 President of the American Political Science Association
1970 – Politics and Government (Houghton Mifflin)
1971 – Becomes Stanfield Professor of International Peace, Harvard University
1973 – President of the Peace Science Society (International)
1976 – Organizes conference ‘Problems of World Modelling’ at Harvard University
1976–1979 – President of the International Political Science Association
1977–1987 – Director of the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer für Sozialforschung
1979 – Retires from full-time teaching at Harvard University
1979 – Tides among Nations (Free Press)
1983 – Retires from teaching at Harvard University
1992 – Dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts