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The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations
There are many different scientifically valid ways to produce knowledge. The field of International Relations should pay closer attention to these methodological differences, and to their implications for concrete research on world politics. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations provides an introduction to the philosophy of science issues and their implications for the study of global politics.
283 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 19, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 12, 2014
I must confess that I had begun to despair that I would ever read anything regarding the “science question” in International Relations (IR) that did not either founder on the Scylla of philosophical dilettantism or drown in the Charybdis of disciplinary obscuritanism. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations has cured me of that despair. Skillfully navigating between the twin hazards that have proven fatal to so many earlier efforts, Jackson provides us with a pluralistic vision of scientific inquiry in the field of IR that is philosophically sound yet accessible to non-specialists in the philosophy of science. His main argument is deceptively simple: science is a capacious concept and, properly understood, constitutes a kind of broad church that can accommodate a wide range of interpretive, reflexivist and critical IR approaches as well as the “hard science” approaches of neo-positivists. Claims to the contrary – i.e. that only certain approaches can claim the mantle of science and the legitimacy it confers – he dismisses as not only narrowly self-serving, but without philosophical warrant. There is simply no way, he argues, that a fair reading of the philosophy of science literature can lead one to conclude that there is a consensus regarding what constitutes “real” science. Rather, he argues, any such reading must necessarily lead to the conclusion that there are numerous ways of defining and doing science and that, as long as its “conclusions follow rigorously from the evidence and logical argumentation” (19) any approach to “empirical inquiry designed to produce knowledge” (19) must be considered scientific.
Having made his point about the irreducibly pluralist character of science, Jackson next proceeds to develop a typology of scientific approaches to the study of world politics. Constructing a 2x2 table of ontologies and methodologies, he specifies four basic provisional commitments or “wagers” regarding how to study world politics: neopositivism, critical realism, analyticism and reflexivity. Jackson then devotes chapters three through six to discussing these wagers, not only clarifying their respective philosophical and ontological commitments, but creating a framework for thinking (and talking) about the points of contention among them. He concludes the book with a call for a more “pluralist science of IR” – that is, a “‘post-foundational IR’ in which we as a field abandon the futile quest to articulate a single consistent basis on which to produce knowledge.” (189-90)
The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations has much to recommend it, and I could go on at some length about its strengths. Given space constraints, however, I will limit my comments here to what I consider to be its two most impressive qualities. To begin with, Jackson’s work usefully widens the circle of scientific approaches to the study of international relations. Specifically, it provides a philosophy-of-science foundation for a range of perspectives and approaches that are typically excluded (by their detractors) from the church of science, including those associated with critical theory, postcolonialism, feminism, English School and constructivism. In so doing, he usefully moves us beyond the various “dialogues of the deaf” that have characterized IR for so long, enabling (perhaps for the first time) a respectful ecumenism characterized not only by mutual toleration of methodological diversity, but also by a common language for talking respectfully about important philosophical differences. We’ll have to see, of course, if the opportunity to build such an ecumenical discipline is seized by the IR community, but at least Jackson has provided us with the raw materials for such an enterprise.
Beyond this, and (given that I teach at a liberal arts college) non-trivially, Jackson’s book is also notable for its accessibility to (advanced) undergraduate students. To be sure, the text is bound to be challenging for IR undergraduates, even good ones like those I have the pleasure to teach. But it is not so challenging that students will simply be left scratching their heads and wondering what these debates are about and why they should care. With careful coaching, the stakes can be made clear, the framework made intelligible and the call for methodological pluralism made to sound like the clarion call that it is. Indeed, so confident am I that this book is accessible to undergraduates that I intend to adopt it as a core text the next time I offer Advanced International Theory. The plan is to use this book as a framework text, having students read actual works of IR scholarship against the relevant chapters (neopositivist works in conjunction with the chapter on neopositivism, for example) and then placing them in a critical conversation (of the type envisioned by Jackson) with other approaches and their exemplars. While I haven’t yet worked out all the details, I can envision both the basic structure of the course and its potential payoffs – and both are exciting.
While Jackson is by and large successful in achieving what he sets out to accomplish, his reach (perhaps not surprisingly given the ambitions of the book) ultimately exceeds his grasp. Simply put, in the course of widening the circle of scientific IR scholarship, Jackson inadvertently reproduces the classic inside-outside distinction between science and ethics. The two, he claims, are simply incommensurable projects – science being about factual production of knowledge and ethics being about making evaluative judgments. But if science (or, more properly, scientific methodology) is ultimately about systematic inquiry in which “conclusions follow rigorously from the evidence and logical argumentation” (19), then it would seem to me that that there is ample warrant to include certain types of ethical inquiry within Jackson’s ecumenical dialogue. Surely no one doubts that the works of normative analytical philosophers and neo-Thomists (to take but two examples) meet this test. And just as surely, one would be hard pressed to find practitioners of these forms of ethical reasoning who do not believe themselves to be engaged in systemic production of knowledge about the human condition. Jackson’s explicit Weberianism, however, largely obscures the “scientific” character of this form of normative study, excommunicating ethical inquiry from his broad church of science. Given my own ethical commitments, my instinct is to resist this move and to look for ways to pursue an even broader ecumenical vision – one that includes certain forms of ethical inquiry – even if realizing this vision ultimately requires rejecting the Weberian stone upon which Jackson has built his church.
Ultimately, though, this is a perhaps unavoidable flaw in an otherwise excellent work. At the end of the day, Jackson has written an accessible and potentially game-changing book that seeks to build bridges where there are currently only impassable ravines. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations is precisely the kind of text I would – and someday will – use to anchor an undergraduate IR theory and methods course. I recommend it without reservation to all who are interested in – and interested in teaching about – the science question in IR.
Having made his point about the irreducibly pluralist character of science, Jackson next proceeds to develop a typology of scientific approaches to the study of world politics. Constructing a 2x2 table of ontologies and methodologies, he specifies four basic provisional commitments or “wagers” regarding how to study world politics: neopositivism, critical realism, analyticism and reflexivity. Jackson then devotes chapters three through six to discussing these wagers, not only clarifying their respective philosophical and ontological commitments, but creating a framework for thinking (and talking) about the points of contention among them. He concludes the book with a call for a more “pluralist science of IR” – that is, a “‘post-foundational IR’ in which we as a field abandon the futile quest to articulate a single consistent basis on which to produce knowledge.” (189-90)
The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations has much to recommend it, and I could go on at some length about its strengths. Given space constraints, however, I will limit my comments here to what I consider to be its two most impressive qualities. To begin with, Jackson’s work usefully widens the circle of scientific approaches to the study of international relations. Specifically, it provides a philosophy-of-science foundation for a range of perspectives and approaches that are typically excluded (by their detractors) from the church of science, including those associated with critical theory, postcolonialism, feminism, English School and constructivism. In so doing, he usefully moves us beyond the various “dialogues of the deaf” that have characterized IR for so long, enabling (perhaps for the first time) a respectful ecumenism characterized not only by mutual toleration of methodological diversity, but also by a common language for talking respectfully about important philosophical differences. We’ll have to see, of course, if the opportunity to build such an ecumenical discipline is seized by the IR community, but at least Jackson has provided us with the raw materials for such an enterprise.
Beyond this, and (given that I teach at a liberal arts college) non-trivially, Jackson’s book is also notable for its accessibility to (advanced) undergraduate students. To be sure, the text is bound to be challenging for IR undergraduates, even good ones like those I have the pleasure to teach. But it is not so challenging that students will simply be left scratching their heads and wondering what these debates are about and why they should care. With careful coaching, the stakes can be made clear, the framework made intelligible and the call for methodological pluralism made to sound like the clarion call that it is. Indeed, so confident am I that this book is accessible to undergraduates that I intend to adopt it as a core text the next time I offer Advanced International Theory. The plan is to use this book as a framework text, having students read actual works of IR scholarship against the relevant chapters (neopositivist works in conjunction with the chapter on neopositivism, for example) and then placing them in a critical conversation (of the type envisioned by Jackson) with other approaches and their exemplars. While I haven’t yet worked out all the details, I can envision both the basic structure of the course and its potential payoffs – and both are exciting.
While Jackson is by and large successful in achieving what he sets out to accomplish, his reach (perhaps not surprisingly given the ambitions of the book) ultimately exceeds his grasp. Simply put, in the course of widening the circle of scientific IR scholarship, Jackson inadvertently reproduces the classic inside-outside distinction between science and ethics. The two, he claims, are simply incommensurable projects – science being about factual production of knowledge and ethics being about making evaluative judgments. But if science (or, more properly, scientific methodology) is ultimately about systematic inquiry in which “conclusions follow rigorously from the evidence and logical argumentation” (19), then it would seem to me that that there is ample warrant to include certain types of ethical inquiry within Jackson’s ecumenical dialogue. Surely no one doubts that the works of normative analytical philosophers and neo-Thomists (to take but two examples) meet this test. And just as surely, one would be hard pressed to find practitioners of these forms of ethical reasoning who do not believe themselves to be engaged in systemic production of knowledge about the human condition. Jackson’s explicit Weberianism, however, largely obscures the “scientific” character of this form of normative study, excommunicating ethical inquiry from his broad church of science. Given my own ethical commitments, my instinct is to resist this move and to look for ways to pursue an even broader ecumenical vision – one that includes certain forms of ethical inquiry – even if realizing this vision ultimately requires rejecting the Weberian stone upon which Jackson has built his church.
Ultimately, though, this is a perhaps unavoidable flaw in an otherwise excellent work. At the end of the day, Jackson has written an accessible and potentially game-changing book that seeks to build bridges where there are currently only impassable ravines. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations is precisely the kind of text I would – and someday will – use to anchor an undergraduate IR theory and methods course. I recommend it without reservation to all who are interested in – and interested in teaching about – the science question in IR.
June 15, 2020
DISCLAIMER: this was written by a professor of mine and I used it as material for a capstone project that he oversaw.
Now, that's out of the way and I can be be completely honest: fuck international relations. I spent years of my life studying something, never able to shake the feeling that all I was doing was learning the language games of the oppressors. The epistemology that is regurgitated in standard "theory" or "methods" courses is bunk, to the point that I always wondering how it came to be that THIS was our standard of inquiry.
PTJ does the work of God in this book. Not only does he present in plain language the heady concepts which are served by everyday methods in political science, he also does an expert job of explaining the history of how different forms of analysis became ascendant in different times. This book is a remarkable piece of scholarship and clearly a work of passion. I cannot recommend it highly enough for someone who wishes to gain a more fundamental understand of why the contemporary rules of political analysis are what they are.
Now, that's out of the way and I can be be completely honest: fuck international relations. I spent years of my life studying something, never able to shake the feeling that all I was doing was learning the language games of the oppressors. The epistemology that is regurgitated in standard "theory" or "methods" courses is bunk, to the point that I always wondering how it came to be that THIS was our standard of inquiry.
PTJ does the work of God in this book. Not only does he present in plain language the heady concepts which are served by everyday methods in political science, he also does an expert job of explaining the history of how different forms of analysis became ascendant in different times. This book is a remarkable piece of scholarship and clearly a work of passion. I cannot recommend it highly enough for someone who wishes to gain a more fundamental understand of why the contemporary rules of political analysis are what they are.
June 13, 2020
Imagino que logo precisarei ler este livro novamente. Filosofia da ciência é um assunto difícil, para o qual este livro foi minha porta de entrada. Uma porta de entrada muito bem organizada que deu margem a várias descobertas e obrigações ao construir um argumento científico válido. Um livro difícil de ler, difícil de compreender a profundidade dos argumentos e difícil de assimilar o conteúdo para futuros trabalhos - por isso sei que nova leitura será necessária - porém muito prático em sua organização das abordagens ontológicas e epistemológicas que podem ser um ponto de partida para uma pesquisa. Recomendo. Mas saiba que é um caminho íngreme.
January 13, 2018
This book is amazing. Despite the rather dry title it is highly readable, entertaining and truly eye-opening. It will change the way you read and conduct IR research. A must-read for everyone studying IR or interested in knowledge production and different ways of doing science.
Be warned, though, that this book contains many quotes by philosophers whose language was not always as clear as Jackson's.
Be warned, though, that this book contains many quotes by philosophers whose language was not always as clear as Jackson's.
March 9, 2016
Excelente introducción para estudiantes que viene de filosofía y que están interesados en las relaciones internacionales. El eje del estudio del campo de las relaciones internacionales, y de sus posibles metodologías, se hace a partir de compromisos filosóficos fundamentales que dependen de diferentes aproximaciones a la filosofía de las ciencias sociales.
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November 26, 2010Kaget baca ungkapan persembahan di halaman awal buku ini,
"This book is dedicated to the memory of
Hayward Alker
and
Charles Tilly
in the hope that something of their pluralist spirit
lives on in its pages
and in its readers."
Ketauan gak pernah update :D
"This book is dedicated to the memory of
Hayward Alker
and
Charles Tilly
in the hope that something of their pluralist spirit
lives on in its pages
and in its readers."
Ketauan gak pernah update :D
September 1, 2016
The only book you need to survive any international relations postgrad programme and aside from that, any social scientist should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews