Methodological Diversity (bis)

This is a short follow up on the previous post and ahead of tomorrow's seminar, as revisiting certain parts of this dense text triggered additional reflexions and questions.

The analogy between science and religion made in chapter 7 seems both pertinent and intriguing. Pertinent because in many instances, PTJ offers an authentic exegesis of foundational texts of both IR and philosophy of science, and because he advocates for "tolerance" for the different ways science can be interpreted and knowledge can be generated. It is also intriguing because science is supposed to be somehow antagonistic with religion: as defined here, and following Weber, science should produce a "thoughtful ordering of empirical reality," which is quite different from pure beliefs in forms of spirituality. Yet, the tolerance and acceptation of diversity promoted here imply that researchers are also believers, and while they might be tolerant of other approaches (as religious Christians and Muslims can be tolerant of each other), they probably still believe that their way is the right one.

If we agree with PTJ's typology, this work should help us (and any student of IR) to situate herself/himself in the field and find her/his own identity. The enterprise is even more ambitious because PTJ sometimes reveals to scholars, or their followers, their real identity: some critical realists use the semantic field of neopositivism because they have always evolved in an environment dominated by this philosophical ontology, although it is obviously not theirs. Admirers of Waltz and Carr have ignored, or not noticed, the analyticism and reflexivity, respectively, which characterize their work. As we have seen in the reactions, some contest these categorizations; it is deeply interesting to speculate on the reactions of such authors to PTJ's framework (and it would have been fantastic to have those).

Finally, as PTJ demonstrates, other authors have attempted to shed light on the field's contours and partitions. Their vision was most of the time framed by their own preferences: for instance, Cox's critical theory is opposed to problem-solving theory and has obviously not the same connotation than Mearsheimer's account of critical theory, basically defined as everything that is not neopositivism. What does PTJ's typology tell us about PTJ's preferences of philosophical ontology and methodology?

Sandra Harding (2015) Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research

Hello all, since this is a blog post I am going to try to refrain from making the post like an essay, especially since there is so much rich material to engage in. As a bit of background, as an Antioch graduate the main points of the book were my orthodoxy until I got to the quantitative methods class here at SIS, so I tried to read with my critical thinking intact. Harding did a great job of addressing many of my (our?) initial critical thoughts (such as about fair standards opposed to relativism (p.151 or p.33), what groups should or should not be included from a standpoint perspective (p.35) whether these ideas are themselves culturally tied to a Western mindset and concerns (p.44), is Creationism a valid “indigenous knowledge system”? (p.146-148) etc.). So instead I pose some simple questions to start the conversation.

The main claim of the book is: “The social norm of diversity and the epistemic norm of objectivity can provide mutual support for each other” (p.23) or in another phrasing: “The sociopolitical commitment to certain kinds of diversity and the epistemic-scientific commitment to objectivity need not conflict with each other” (p.150). The second phrasing seems closer to her intention, as her discussion of standpoint accounts emphasizes that scientists should start research from “the daily lives of oppressed groups such as women” (p.30) in order to achieve more objective accounts of social relations and nature. Indeed, she contrasts the “weak objectivity” of logical positivism (or we might think of neopositivism in our context?) that un-self-reflexively recreates the dominant perspectives of society by adopting a supposed value free perspective from nowhere with a “strong objectivity” that starts from the daily lives of oppressed groups and promote the “values and interests of anti-authoritarian, pro-democratic social movements” (p.37). The crux of the argument is that diversity and strong objectivity will create more complete and reliable research compared to neopositivism.

The book also highlights how all sciences, including the dominant forms in Western universities, are co-constituted and co-produced with particular societies during particular times. She gives the example of the Vienna School logical positivists who were initially socialist Jews dedicated to anti-fascist research who then promoted a value-free vision of science in response to McCarthyism persecution. Her point is that science is always socially connected and promotes some values, and that scientists can (or should?) align themselves with progressive social movements. Accordingly, scientists should also recognize indigenous sciences as valid types of science and gives several possible strategies to relating to indigenous sciences (although she kept using the phrase indigenous knowledge systems).

Questions

1. What is Sandra Harding’s goal in writing this book?

            I am torn. Part of me reads her book as a call to an acceptance of diverse forms of sciences, as she claims in Chapter 5 (aptly titled “Pluralism, Multiplicity, and the Disunity of Sciences”) that “a ‘world of sciences’ turns out to provide benefits to everyone (p.105). In this sense, her main point seems to agree with PTJ in opening up a diversity of philosophies of science in international relations and for engagement within and across those differences. Chapter 4 on indigenous knowledge systems seems to fit that purpose, as does Ch 6 on the secularism, religion, and mythical components of various sciences being accepted (or fairly engaged with and not dismissed outright).

 On the other hand, chapters 1, 2, and 7 (and spread through other chapters like Ch 5 in smaller pieces) seems to promote a specific kind of science as the most reliable and accurate. In these sections she seems to argue that neopositivism as practiced especially in the U.S. is too narrow and supportive of militaristic and anti-progressive agendas, and that participatory action research or other methods should be aligned with progressive values that support anti-authoritarian, pro-democratic social movements. And that science will be more accurate and representative in this alignment. Perhaps both are goals promoted in the book or I might be reading into various sections, but I’m hoping discussion will be productive around this question and I’m intrigued what others think!

            (It was intriguing the overlap and divergences with the PTJ book since both are commenting on plural sciences. Yet parts of her book seemed so reminiscent of the reflexivity quadrant and yet at points borrowed very mind-world dualist and phenomenalist language, such as pg. 50-51. But maybe that language was employed to prove rhetorical points rather than to suggest an underlying philosophy of science. I also suspect that they use the phrase “philosophy of science” very differently, and their calls for pluralist sciences are distinct, but I can’t quite pin down why I think these things. I digress.)

2. Should there be a specific type of relationship (or balance although I hate to use such an empty term) between Society and Science?

            She makes the great point that all forms of science arise out of and interacts with society during a particular time-period. This co-constitution works through values, funding, types of questions asked, etc. Are her points about Society and Science at all similar to Polanyi’s arguments about markets; markets had been and should be embedded in society and subordinated to politics, religion, and social groups? She claims Science and Society constitute each other, but they also have current relations of a specific type.  So, should science be somewhat distinct from society and drive politics through research with/on that society? Or should political actors drive science? Should only certain groups help drive science? I don’t know, maybe it’s not a helpful comparison or it is too complex a relationship. But if a progressive agenda is part of her scientific vision, it seems important to disentangle. 

3. Is her treatment of Creationism (p.146-148) convincing? How does her treatment of Creationism or Intelligent Design influence your judgement of her wider claims about “strong objectivity,” diversity, and indigenous or spiritual science issues?

            I ask because as I read the book I kept thinking of practical examples to extend her argument, and I kept arriving at Creationism and economically disadvantaged rural whites in the United States. So I was excited she spent some pages addressing the issue, but I’m not sure that I felt fully satisfied by the answer. Her response seems appropriate, and nuanced, and fits with her overall claims, but it still left me unsatisfied and I don’t know why.

Those are my thoughts and confusions. Sorry it is too long.

Methodological Diversity

The preceding sessions of our seminar have started to highlight how IR as an academic discipline lack of self-reflexivity in diverse respects. Obviously failing to offer much varying perspectives in terms of race, gender, social class, geographies, and histories, IR, as practiced in the West in general and in the the US in particular, may also have failed to comprehensively engage with the debates of adjacent—sometimes extensively used within the field—disciplines. This is the case, PTJ suggests, with philosophy of science, which in fact bears by essence a foundational character to any scientific enterprise.

Indeed, one cannot help but notice that, when philosophers of science are called upon in IR, their journey is oftentimes presented as a Lakatos’ progressing research program: everything fits rather neatly from Descartes to Weber, Kuhn, Popper, and is eventually harmonized and articulated in KKV. PTJ points out that these “opportunistic raids into foreign scholarly territory” have eclipsed the demarcation problem at the core of the actual debates. If PTJ proposes a (Weber-inspired) definition of science in the IR context (he later argues that “international studies” need not be a science, see PTJ 2015), the principal innovation is to uncover the lack of coherence in the field’s organization—if one consider carefully the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of different approaches—and to offer an alternative typology (p. 37-40).

At the crossroads of mind-world dualism and monism (concepts that could maybe be reversed: to be discussed in class), and phenomenalism and transfactualism, PTJ brings out 4 ideal-types, equally “scientific” but based on different evaluative criteria. His typology is sometimes counter-intuitive: for instance, analyticism is illustrated with the work of Ken Waltz, notorious father of neorealism (in the old typology; PTJ is challenged by Humphreys on this point). The extended metaphor of the democratic peace theory in different ideal-types illustrates the potential narrowness of interpretation of science if one of them holds an undue monopoly (namely, neopositivism). Indeed, many seminars in IR theory across the US would use Green et al. (2001)—which strongly criticize the use of pooled cross-sectional time series using the MIDs dataset so as to validate democratic peace theory—to demonstrate ongoing methodological debates in IR. Instead, it should be described as mere “discussion about methods for achieving neopositivist goals” (p. 68). The four scientific ways through which one can study world politics in fact respond to different philosophies (ontological) and use distinctive methodologies.

As Suganami suggests, could PTJ's propositions be rearranged in 3 categories, as their inherent and original character rests on “the questions they ask” and the interests they reflect rather than their “philosophical foundations”? Why would PTJ’s typology overlook the myth-historical character of IR, along with other parameters, as Michel implies? Is PTJ’s approach unsympathetic to engagement (Wight) or forgetful of major components in his ideal-types (Sylvester)? It can be noted that the literature PTJ engages with is American (comprehensively), Anglo-Saxon (in majority), and Western (quasi-exclusively?). Would his ideal-types have been different had the research been extended to more non-Western philosophers of science and social scientists?

Thinking International Relations Differently

Arlene Tickner and David Blaney’s Thinking International Relations Differently is quite an interesting read and an important addition to the ongoing debate about the Western dominance of the discipline of International Relations and the possibilities of creating a “Global IR” – to borrow the term used by Amitav Acharya in his ISA presidential address. This discussion is by no means new. Stanley Hoffman’s famous article “An American Social Science: International Relations” was published in the 1970s and since than several authors have expanded on this idea.

Both Tickner & Blaney and Acharya start by assuming that Western dominance over IR is a well documented fact (I tend to agree with them here, though it would be interesting hearing different perspectives on this) and focus on discussing both the implications of this dominance and different ways we can overcome it – and why we should try to overcome it. Tickner & Blaney’s work is part of a series of books dedicated to the subject and I believe the introduction shows pretty clearly how the discussion on this topic has matured over the past few decades. What shows this most clearly is, perhaps, the presence of a considerable dose of self-critique.

The book is dedicated to showing perspectives from different places on IR theories and concepts. It’s divided in four parts, each dedicated to different subjects: security; state, sovereignty and authority; globalization; secularism and religion; and the international. Each section has contributions from authors from different regions, and each region will not necessarily be represented in all sections – Latin America, for example, only has a chapter on security. The book seeks, therefore, to create a dialogue between non-western scholarship and traditional IR concepts, in an effort to showcase how these are seen and incorporated – critically or not - into the work of IR scholars around the world.

The book has many chapters and I won’t delve into them particularly, so I wanted to focus on some themes that emerged in my reading of both Tickner & Blaney’s book and Acharya’s talk.

The first theme is parochialism and the question of whether theory can be global. While Acharya affirms that “a truly global IR cannot be based on cultural exceptionalism and parochialism” and that “While the development of national schools of IR can broaden and enrich IR, if based mainly on exceptionalism, it is a challenge to the possibility of Global IR” (p. 11) the idea of national schools of IR has been somewhat popular in the debate about western dominance of the discipline. I would like to add a quote from a well known Brazilian IR scholar on this subject:

“Theories of International Relations are neither free from bias nor impartial. They are linked to specific interests, values, and patterns of conduct in certain societies which constitute their field of observation. They discard these factors of other societies. So, the theories which serve the First World are not convenient, necessarily, to emerging countries. This text proposes to substitute theories by concepts applied to the field of the study of international relations. Concepts expose the national or regional roots on which they stand“ (Amado Cervo, Concepts in International Relations, available at http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-73292008000200002&lng=en&nrm=iso).

The second theme is exoticism. One of the first things that caught my attention in Tickner and Blaney’s introduction was their disappointment with non-western IR not being different enough. To quote the authors: “Although International Relations is arguably different in distinct places, its difference does not reflect what we might have originally expected in terms of variation and “local flavor” [...] this finding was somewhat unexpected and a bit disappointing” (p. 3). It is hard not to question what the authors meant by “local flavor” and what exactly would be enough of it.

I believe this is connected to the third theme which is the epistemological double trap faced by non-western scholars. It has been widely demonstrated by works dedicated to non-western IR that it very rarely meets the methodological standards of positivist mainstream American IR. However, it also seems to frustrate non-mainstream IR scholars by frequently trying to meet these standards and, in a way, not being critical enough. As Tickner & Weaver’s IR Scholarship Around the World well shows, non-western theoretical debate is often still centered around “traditional” theories – realism, liberalism – and doesn’t always engage more critical approaches.

The fourth and final theme I would like to propose was alluded to, I believe, but not really analyzed by the authors. It’s the exclusion among the excluded. Academia outside of the West, more often than not, looks very much as it does inside the West: male and white. This instantly brought to mind Vitalis’ work and how patterns of marginalization can be similar in very different places. With this in mind it is valid, I believe, to question how representative these voiced really are of local realities. (Some anecdotal evidence: the Federal University of Bahia’s IR department, located in a state with 80%+ black population, only has one black professor.)