C.A.W. Manning and the Study of International Relations

C. A. W. Manning, Professor of International Relations at the LSE (1930–1962), was a key contributor to the formation of the discipline in Britain. He wrote on Jurisprudence, which was his main strength; on the League of Nations, of which he was a keen supporter; on South Africa, concerning which he gained notoriety as the defender of Apartheid; on International Relations as an independent academic discipline, which, to him, was due to the sui generis character of international society as a formally anarchical but substantively orderly social environment. He was a Rationalist in Martin Wight's sense, and early constructivist, who saw that the society of states as a social construct was subject to interpretation, reinterpretation, and reshaping.</jats:p

Causation-in-the-world: A Contribution to Meta-theory of IR

This article examines critical realists’ key contention that ‘causing’, or the operation of causal powers, is real or mind-independent. Against their opponents (causal idealists), they point out the (seeming) empirical obviousness of the mind-independence of causal powers, causal idealism’s lack of ‘ontological grounding’, its ‘epistemic fallacy’ and so on. The validity or force of such arguments is ultimately dubious, however. Still, the understanding that causal powers are real is a necessary presupposition of scientific knowledge production and application and of our everyday thinking and practice; realists and idealists can converge on this point. Moreover, there is nothing in causal idealism as such that is incompatible with critical realists’ key insight that causal laws should be understood as stating the ways things work, producing observable regularities only in closed systems and that regularities are not an intrinsic feature of causal relations. I conclude by exploring the implications of this line of thinking for the study of world politics, endorsing a move from a search for parsimonious theories that explain regular patterns observable in the international system towards a historical study of global social relations, which pays attention to causal complexes, diversity of historical contexts and the contested nature of causal interpretations. </jats:p

Meta-Jackson: Re-thinking Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s Conduct of Inquiry

In his The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, Patrick Jackson identifies four distinct ways of studying world politics: ‘neopositivism’, ‘critical realism’, ‘analyticism’ and ‘reflexivity’. According to him, they all fall under the broad umbrella of ‘science’ but they each stem from a distinct philosophical foundation. In his view, which foundation one subscribes to is a matter of faith, which leads him to advocate pluralism. He classifies the underlying philosophical foundations in terms of two criteria: ‘mind–world dualism’ versus ‘mind–world monism’ and ‘phenomenalism’ versus ‘transfactualism’. Through a step-by-step analysis of his complex text, I show that what divides (1) neopositivism, (2) analyticism and (3) critical realism and reflexivity (classed together) is not in fact their philosophical foundations but the nature of the questions they ask, each reflecting distinct human interests. Accordingly, while praising Jackson’s philosophical vigilance against the dominance of neopositivism, I conclude by pointing to a need to consider the political underpinnings of different modes of knowledge production. </jats:p

Domestic analogy in proposals for world order, 1814-1945: the transfer of legal and political principles from the domestic to the international sphere in thought on international law and relations

The ways in which legal and political principles obtaining within states can profitably be transferred to the relations of states are among the contentious issues in the study of international relations, and the term 'domestic analogy' is used to refer to the argument which supports such transfer. The 'domestic analogy' is analogical reasoning according to which the conditions of order between states are similar to those of order within them, and therefore those institutions which sustain order within states should be transferred to the international system. However, despite the apparent division among writers on international relations between those who favour this analogy and those who are critical of it, no clear analysis has so far been made as to precisely what types of proposal should be treated as exemplifying reliance on this analogy. The first aim of this thesis is to clarify the range and types of proposal this analogy entails. The thesis then examines the role the domestic analogy played in ideas about world order in the period between 1814 and 1945. Particular attention is paid to the influence of changing circumstances in the domestic and international spheres upon the manner and the extent of the use of this analogy. In addition to the ideas of major writers on international law and relations, the creation of the League of Nations and of the United Nations is also examined. The thesis then discusses the merits of the five main types of approach to world order which emerge from the preceding analysis. Each embodies a distinct attitude towards the domestic analogy. The thesis shows that there are weaknesses in the approaches based on the domestic analogy, but that ideas critical of this analogy are not entirely flawless, and explores further the conditions under which the more promising proposals may bear fruit

The English School, History and Theory

El propósito de este artículo es triple: dar cuenta de los orígenes y desarrollo de la Escuela Inglesa como una entidad constituida históricamente; sintetizar desde los escritos de algunos de sus primeros representantes las visiones de la Escuela Inglesa acerca de cómo el conocimiento histórico se relaciona con la teoría y la práctica de las Relaciones Internacionales; y estudiar los tres principales trabajos históricos de la Escuela Inglesa, examinando cómo sus contribuciones se relacionan con las teorías de Relaciones Internacionales. En la breve discusión final, se sugiere qué podría introducirse en la agenda de investigación de la Escuela Inglesa sobre el tema de “historia y teoría”The purpose of this article is threefold: to give an account of the origins and development of the English School as a historically constituted entity; to distill from the writings of some of its early figures the English School’s views about how historical knowledge relates to the theory and practice of International Relations; and to study the English School’s three major historical works and examine how their contributions relate to the theories of international relations. In its brief concluding discussion, it suggests what might be placed on the English School’s research agenda on the theme of “history and theory

Deep hanging out with Michel Foucualt

In his energetic afterlife form, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) discusses his relationship to other luminaries of this pocket sphere for leading intellectuals and highlights how his work on the state, governmentality and discourse analysis all grew out of the broad French tradition in social science