Adam R.C. Humphreys

The heuristic application of explanatory theories in International Relations

Explanatory theorists increasingly insist that their theories are useful even though they cannot be deductively applied. But if so, then how do such theories contribute to our understanding of international relations? I argue that explanatory theories are typically heuristically applied: theorists’ accounts of specific empirical episodes are shaped by their theories’ thematic content, but are not inferred from putative causal generalizations or covering laws. These accounts therefore gain no weight from their purely rhetorical association with theories’ quasi-deductive arguments: they must be judged on the plausibility of their empirical claims. Moreover, the quasi-deductive form in which explanatory theories are typically presented obscures their actual explanatory role, which is to indicate what sort of explanation may be required, to provide conceptual categories, and to suggest an empirical focus. This account of how theoretical explanations are constructed subverts the nomothetic–idiographic distinction that is often used to distinguish International Relations from History.

Applying Jackson’s Methodological Ideal-Types: Problems of Differentiation and Classification

In The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, Patrick Jackson situates methodologies in International Relations in relation to their underlying philosophical assumptions. One of his aims is to map International Relations debates in a way that ‘capture[s] current controversies’ (p. 40). This ambition is overstated: whilst Jackson’s typology is useful as a clarificatory tool, (re)classifying existing scholarship in International Relations is more problematic. One problem with Jackson’s approach is that he tends to run together the philosophical assumptions which decisively differentiate his methodologies (by stipulating a distinctive warrant for knowledge claims) and the explanatory strategies that are employed to generate such knowledge claims, suggesting that the latter are entailed by the former. In fact, the explanatory strategies which Jackson associates with each methodology reflect conventional practice in International Relations just as much as they reflect philosophical assumptions. This makes it more difficult to identify each methodology at work than Jackson implies. I illustrate this point through a critical analysis of Jackson’s controversial reclassification of Waltz as an analyticist, showing that whilst Jackson’s typology helps to expose inconsistencies in Waltz’s approach, it does not fully support the proposed reclassification. The conventional aspect of methodologies in International Relations also raises questions about the limits of Jackson’s ‘engaged pluralism’.

Realism, empiricism and causal inquiry in International Relations: What is at stake?:

Discussions of causal inquiry in International Relations are increasingly framed in terms of a contrast between rival philosophical positions, each with a putative methodological corollary — empiricism is associated with a search for patterns of covariation, while scientific realism is associated with a search for causal mechanisms. Scientific realism is, on this basis, claimed to open up avenues of causal inquiry that are unavailable to empiricists. This is misleading. Empiricism appears inferior only if its reformulation by contemporary philosophers of science, such as Bas van Fraassen, is ignored. I therefore develop a fuller account than has previously been provided in International Relations of Van Fraassen’s ‘constructive empiricism’ and how it differs from scientific realism. In light of that, I consider what is at stake in calls for the reconstitution of causal inquiry along scientific realist, rather than empiricist, lines. I argue that scientific realists have failed to make a compelling case that what matters is whether researchers are realists. Constructive empiricism and scientific realism differ only on narrow epistemological and metaphysical grounds that carry no clear implications for the conduct of causal inquiry. Yet, insofar as Van Fraassen has reformed empiricism to meet the scientific realist challenge, this has created a striking disjunction between mainstream practices of causal inquiry in International Relations and the vision of scientific practice that scientific realists and contemporary empiricists share, especially regarding the significance of regularities observed in everyday world politics. Although scientific realist calls for a philosophical revolution in International Relations are overstated, this disjunction demands further consideration.

Questioning Kenneth N. Waltz (1924–2013)

Professor Hani Magus and Dr Umesh Harpy are in the midst of a viva. The candidate is Kenneth Waltz. His work turns out to be one of the most successful doctoral theses in the history of IR but the examiners are giving him a hard time. Some years later, the two examiners visit Professor Waltz, now a leading IR theorist, for an interview.

What Should We Expect of a Liberal Explanatory Theory

One of the most problematic aspects of the ‘Harvard School’ of liberal international theory is its failure to fulfil its own methodological ideals. Although Harvard School liberals subscribe to a nomothetic model of explanation, in practice they employ their theories as heuristic resources. Given this practice, we should expect them neither to develop candidate causal generalizations nor to be value-neutral: their explanatory insights are underpinned by value-laden choices about which questions to address and what concepts to employ. A key question for liberal theorists, therefore, is how a theory may be simultaneously explanatory and value-oriented. The difficulties inherent in resolving this problem are manifested in Ikenberrys writing: whilst his work on constitutionalism in international politics partially fulfils the requirements of a more satisfactory liberal explanatory theory, his recent attempts to develop prescriptions for US foreign policy reproduce, in a new form, key failings of Harvard School realism.

Another Waltz? Methodological Rhetoric and Practice in Theory of International Politics

Although Theory of International Politics is a standard-bearer for explanatory theory in international relations (IR), Waltz’s methodology has been subject to numerous quite disparate analyses. One reason why it has proved hard to pin down is that too little attention has been paid to how, in practice, Waltz approaches real-world problems. Despite his neopositivist rhetoric, Waltz applies neorealism in a notably loose, even indeterminate, fashion. There is therefore a disjunction between what he says and what he does. This is partly explained by his unsatisfactory attempt to reconcile his avowed neopositivism with his belief that international politics is characterized by organized complexity. The inconsistencies thus created also help to make sense of why competing interpretations of his methodology have emerged. Some aspects of his work do point beyond these particular methodological travails in ways that will continue to be of interest to IR theorists, but its most enduring methodological lesson may be that rhetoric and practice do not necessarily fit harmoniously together.