Socializing IR Theory
Political Science 748
Ted Hopf
2176 Derby
Thursdays, 330-615p
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 330-530p
292 3392 hopf.2@osu.edu
Overview
The theorization of international politics can be cut up any number of ways: levels of analysis, issue-areas, regions of the world, methodology, epistemology, and ontology. It is the latter cut that defines this course. The accounts of IR that constitute this course share an ontology, a theory what is meaningful, that places social actors, agents, institutions, and structures in privileged causal and constitutive positions. Since social agents can appear within the state, society, and international institution, it is a cut that operates at all levels of analysis other than the monadic individual. Only the latter is ontologically excluded from social theorization.
While the course is divided into international and domestic, institutional and normative, pluralist and symbolic, etc. these divisions bleed into each other. They should and must. A truly social account of IR presumes that social relations transcend and implicate multiple levels of analysis at once. While useful for heuristic and analytical purposes to treat sections as separate, the themes should inexorably dissolve into one another as the weeks go by.
Requirements
There will be student presentations in every class, active participation by all, thorough treatment of the readings by the same, and an experimental collective final paper.
Ten weeks is not enough time for any one of you to write a creditable research paper. But perhaps as a collectivity, this being a course on social theories after all, you all could produce not only a research paper, but a publishable piece of work. My proposal is the following:
What the IR world needs now is less theorizing and more understanding of real empirical events through theorization. This of course is the rap shared by both constructivists and formal modelers: why dont they get their heads out of their morasses and start doing some real work. Thats what you are going to do, in my modest proposal. It is about time we started producing deep and thick empirical tests of competing theoretical paradigms. In what follows, I propose one such test. It is based on Katja Weber’s "Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: A Transaction Costs Approach to International Security Cooperation," International Studies Quarterly, 1997, v 41, 321-40.
I will explain the rationale for choosing this particular article on our first day of class, but here I will only say that she tries to account for why states prefer alliances or confederations based on hypotheses derived from transaction costs. She claims to have trumped realisms, but did not engage any constructivist alternatives. That is what you all are going to do. You are going to 1. develop realist, institutionalist, and constructivist theories of alliance choice; 2. deduce testable hypotheses from each collection of theories; 3. execute a deep (primary sources if possible) empirical test of these competing propositions; and 4. conclude with a nuanced and sophisticated treatment of these alternative accounts. The empirical case will be Katja Weber’s empirical case: French, German, Benelux, British, and US attitudes toward the European Defense Community in 1950-53.
The division of labor, as I foresee it at this point will involve:
A 1 person each for realisms, institutionalisms and constructivisms, each generating a set of testable propositions OR teams for each. This work must be done in the first 3 weeks of the course.
B 1 person each to gather the necessary empirical data on France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, and the US, the relevant evidence having been determined by our development of the alternative theoretical accounts OR teams. This process will occur over the next 4 weeks.
C You will then write up your results in the following manner: Those responsible for Realisms will apply it to the evidence for each of the countries, in collaboration with those responsible for the countries. And those for Institutionalisms.... and for Constructivisms... you get the picture.
D By the 8th week we will have all the theoretical and empirical pieces to make a comparative assessment of our competing theories. Now comes the hard part. Grading and publishing.
I think I will have to rely on you all to tell me about your contributions to the collective effort. I really cant Panopticize the process in any meaningful sense. Tho I suspect I will be able to detect shirkers and overachievers.
My responsibility all along will be to act as the research director of this project, more or less telling all of you what needs to be done, by whom, by when, and how. I will take no authorial credit for the project, if it is published, unless all of you drop out, leaving me with a pile of papers that I choose to put together independently, though with attribution.
MEANWHILE, of course, all of you will still be responsible for readings and presentations in class. And the presentations in class should be aimed at both critically analyzing the assigned reading, placing it in more general theoretical context, relating it to other theoretical streams AND making it fit with our collective project. In fact, you should be able to produce a short, less than one page, memo to the class laying out the relevance of the reading for our project on alliance choice.
I have both reduced the amount of reading and fiddled around with its order in the hope that it will be more closely coordinated with the extraordinary demands that are going to placed upon you by the collective paper.
Buying Books
The following books have been ordered at the usual suspects, and may be purchased there or anywhere else you desire:
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge 1999)
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Anchor 1966)
Part One
Getting our Collective Project off the Ground
Week One: Constructivist Research Designs
Roxanne Lynn Doty, «Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of US Counterinsurgency Policy in the Phillipines,» International Studies Quarterly 37:3 (September 1993), 297-320, x
Hopf, Taking Our Selves Seriously. Social Origins of International Politics, Moscow 1955/1999 (Cornell 2002) chapters 1 and 6, (This book ms. will appear on my website for this course)
chapter 1
chapter 6
Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies (Princeton 1995), 12-41
Hopf, "The Limits of Interpreting Evidence," typescript on my homepage
Recommended:
Jeffrey Checkel, "The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory," World Politics 50:2 (January 1998), 324-48
Emanuel Adler, "Seizing the Middle Ground," European Journal of International Relations 3:3 (1997), 319-63
Week Two: Constructivist Claims
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge 1999), 1-44, 92-190, 246-369
John Gerard Ruggie, "What Makes the World Hang Together?," IO 52:4 (Autumn 1998), 855-85
Jennifer Sterling-Folker, "Competing Paradigms or Birds of a Feather? Constructivism and Neoliberal Institutionalism Compared," International Studies Quarterly 44:1 (2000), 97-119
Recommended:
Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is what states make of it," International Organization 46:2 (Spring 1992), 391-425
Alexander Wendt, "Collective Identity Formation and the International State," American Political Science Review 88:2 (June 1994), 384-96
Week Three: Constructivism in Action
Hopf, Taking Our Selves Seriously, chapters 2-5
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
John Duffield, "Political Culture and State Behavior," IO 53:4 (Autumn 1999), 765-803
Maja Zehfuss, "Constructivism and Identity: A Dangerous Liaison," EJIR 7:3 (September 2001), 315-48
Rodney Bruce Hall, National Collective Identity (Columbia 1999), 26-73
Week Four: Constructivist Reinterpretations
Maria Fanis, Hegemonic Peaces, Chapters 1, 4, and 6.
Nina Tannenwald, "The Nuclear Taboo," IO 53:3 (Summer 1999), 433-68
Richard Price, "Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines," 613-44
Duncan Snidal, "The limits of hegemonic stability theory," 579-614
Part Two: Back to Basics
Week Five: Social Constructivism
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Anchor 1966), ALL
Karl W. Deutsch, Political Community at the International Level (Doubleday 1954), 3-70
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (Columbia 1977), 8-52, 65-74, 315-20
Robert W. Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Orders," Millennium 10:2 (1981), 126-55
Robert W. Cox, "Gramsci, Hegemony and IR," Millennium 12:2 (1983), 162-74
Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge 1997), 136-69 (Recommended 126–210)
Recommended:
Chris Brown, "World Society and the English School," EJIR 7:4 (December 2001), 423-42
Dietrich Jung, "The Political Sociology of World Society," EJIR 7:4 (December 2001), 443-74
Week Six: Order
Robert Jervis, Logic of Images, 18-40
Robert O. Keohane, "The demand for international regimes," in International Regimes, 141-71
James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, "The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders," IO 52:4 (Autumn 1998), 943-54 only
Jeff Checkel, "Why Comply? Social Learning and European Identity Change," IO 55:3 (Summer 2001), 553-88
Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces. The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Cornell 1999), 374-91
Recommended
Rick Herrmann and Vaughn Shannon, "Defending International Norms," IO 55:3 (Summer 2001), 621-54
Christian Reus-Smit, "The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions," IO, 51:4 (Autumn) 1997, 555-90
Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Cornell 1996), 1-33, 128-49
Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identity in a Democratic Community," in Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security (Columbia 1996), 357-99
Michael Williams, "The Discipline of the Democratic Peace," EJIR 7:4 (December 2001), 525-54
Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge 1989), 45-68
Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence," in Culture of National Security, 114-52
Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," IO 52:4 (Autumn 1998), 887-917
Week Seven: Community
Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds. Security Communities (Cambridge 1998), 29-65
Andrew Hurrell, "An emerging security community in South America?," in Adler and Barnett, Security Communities, 228-64
Ole Waever, "Insecurity, security, and asecurity in the West European non-war community," in Adler and Barnett, Security Communities, 69-118
Janice Bially Mattern, "The Power Politics of Identity," EJIR 7:3 (September 2001), 349-97
Recommended:
John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, Francisco O. Ramirez, "World Society and the Nation-State," AJS 103:1 (July 1997), 144-81
Week Eight: Interests
Thomas Risse-Kappen, Bringing Transnational Relations Back In (Cambridge 1995), 3-36
Helen V. Milner, "Rationalizing Politics," IO 52:4 (Autumn 1998), 759-86
Audie Klotz, "Norms reconstituting interests," IO 49:3 (Summer 1995), 451-78
Kathryn Sikkink, "Human rights, principled issue-networks, and sovereignty in Latin America," IO 47:3 (Summer 1993), 411-41
Jutta Weldes, "Constructing National Interests," EJIR 2:3 (1996), 275-318
Recommended:
James I. Walsh, "National Preferences and International Institutions," ISQ 45:1 (March 2001), 59-80
Week Nine: Institutions
Judith Goldstein, "Ideas, institutions, and American trade policy," IO, 42:1 (Winter 1988), 179-217
Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr., "How do International Institutions Matter?," ISQ, 40:4 (December 1996) 451-78
Jeffrey W. Legro, "Culture and Preferences in the International Cooperation Two-Step," APSR 90:1 (March 1996), 118-37
Alex Wendt, "Driving with the Rearview Mirror," International Organization 55:4 (Autumn 2001), 1019-50
Alastair Iain Johnston, "Treating International Institutions as Social Environments," International Studies Quarterly 45:4 (December 2001), 487-516
Recommended
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, (Columbia 1954), 80-123
Peter Alexis Gourevitch, "International Trade, Domestic Coalitions, and Liberty," JIH 8:2 (Autumn 1977), 281-313
Celeste Wallander, "Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO After the Cold War," IO 54:4 (Autumn 2000), 705-36
Andrew Moravcsik, "A Liberal Theory of International Politics," IO 51:4 (Autumn 1997), 513-54
Chaim D. Kaufmann and Robert A. Pape, "Explaining Costly International Moral Action," IO 53:4 (Autumn 1999), 631-68
Week Ten: Finding YourSelf in Others
Roxanne Lynn Doty, Imperial Encounters, (Minnesota 1996), 1-49
Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney, "Knowing Encounters," in Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil, eds. The Return of Culture and Identity to IR Theory (Rienner 1996), 65-84
Edward Rhodes, "Constructing Peace and War," Millennium 24:1 (1995), 53-85
Iver Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, "The Other in European self-definition," RIS 17 (1991), 327-48
Henrikki Heikka, "Beyond Neorealism and Constructivism," in Hopf, Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy (Penn State 1999), 57-107
Recommended
Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty, (Cambridge 1995), 1-29, 123-44+