Operaciones virtuales

sim plest level, a theory - any theory - is a general explanation of certain selected phenomena set forth in a m anner satisfactory to someone acquainted with the characteristics of the reality being

studied." T hat this understanding begs a range of questions does not go unnoticed, but they declare th a t "The authors of this text will refrain from attem pting to settle the profound questions of epistemology th a t have rem ained unsettled for centuries."66 The consequence is th a t they proceed to use a notion of theory th a t effectively "resolves" the

epistemological issues in favor of a positivist conception w ithout actually specifying its limitations.

Sim ilar examples abound in the seemingly varied International Relations literature. Michael Sullivan has noted th a t the

transnationalist and interdependence debates of the 1960s and 1970s reflected a possible mi sunder standing because "Their ‘picture’ of the world ...may be a t variance with the real world."67 Sullivan wrote later, although w ithout reflecting upon his view, th a t underlying the exercise of assessing different views of the world "is the epistemological

assum ption th a t a real world exists and th a t we can know it."68 In their influential text, Keohane and Nye stated th a t it was not their

66. J.E. Dougherty and R.L. Pfaltzgraff, Contending Theories of International Relations: A Comprehensive Survey (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), p.20.

CT. Sullivan, "Competing Frameworks and the Study of Contemporary International Politics", p.108.

“ . Michael P. Sullivan, "Transnationalism, Power Politics, and the Realities of the Present System", in Globalism versus Realism, ed. Magroohri and Ramberg, p.197.

intention to construct a model that "faithfully reflects world political reality. " 69 In the literature on international regimes, Ernst Haas noted

that the many theorists "differ over...concepts that are appropriate for the description of reality, " 70 while Susan Strange, in a critique of

regime analysis, believed that the interest in the area was "an

intellectual reaction to the objective reality. " 71 In international political

economy, Joan Spero has written that a bridge between economics and politics was necessary "if theory and analysis are to maintain touch with reality. . . " , 72 while Gilpin argues that "Transformations in the real

world have made economics and politics more relevant to one another than in the past. . . " 73

For many, such statements will seem unexceptionable. Surely

references to the "real" world and different ways of perceiving it are no more than statements of the obvious, references to what we intuitively know to be true? However, the instantaneous recognition of the

"commonsense" status of these metatheoretical commitments, the belief th at we are unable to conceive of an alternative process of

understanding the world, is itself testimony to the dominance of positivism and its pivotal place in the identities of modernity. Our

w. Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, p.24.

70. Ernst Hass, "Words Can’t Hurt You; Or, Who Said What to Whom About Regimes", in International Regimes, ed. Krasner, p.341.

71. Strange, "Cave! Hie Dragoness", in International Regimes, ed. Krasner, p.341.

72. Joan E. Spero, The Politics of International Economic Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977), pp.3-4.

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cultural understanding of science, and the associated influence of positivism upon the discipline, means that these assumptions and

presuppositions constitute the dominant means of coping with the world and have thus escaped examination. What the postempiricist debates in the philosophy of science - and the concomitant developments in social theory, particularly poststructuralism - have demonstrated is that the isolation of these presuppositions from critical inquiry can no longer be

sustained.

The propensity to dichotomize structures our understanding of global life and is sustained by the belief that the ‘opposites’ which are

‘juxtaposed’ constitute real alternatives. The Verstehen debates in social theory indicated that the appearance of difference can disguise identity, and many of the debates in International Relations have exhibited similar tendencies. For example, although the debate between the traditionalists and the behavioralists has been conventionally

understood as the meeting of disparate minds, an examination of the epistemological options offered by the protagonists - the inductive British empiricism of Bull versus Kaplan’s positivist conception of science - reduces it to no more than "a family feud between different versions of Anglo-American empiricism. " 74

The shared metatheoretical commitments give form to the problematization via which scholars and practitioners operate. The positivist metatheoretical discourse, with its subject/object dualism and

74. Walker, "Political Theory and the Transformation of World Politics", pp.29, 47.

insistence on reducing contingencies to the secure ground of agency, structure or other presence, privileges a reading of global politics in term s of the state system. It helps give rise to a problem atization th at Ashley has term ed the "anarchy problematique": international relations as being the consequence of the absence of a central agency of order combined with the presence of a multiplicity of states.75 The dominance of the anarchy problematique is evidenced by the fact th a t common to all the diverse orientations of International Relations (bar a few m arginalized M arxist approaches) is the view th a t the discipline of International Relations is about inter-national relations. It is a view th a t m aintains th a t international relations theory is th a t "body of general propositions th a t may be advanced about political relations between states, or more generally about world politics."76 It is a view th a t m aintains th a t theory is outside the world it observes. Relations between states and world politics constitutes a given realm th a t cannot be theorized.77 When theory does attem pt to get inside this world it can only do so via the internal images th a t people hold which affect their interpretation of reality.

The notion of taking relations between states and world politics as given involves forgetting the practices th a t made such an understanding

75. Richard K. Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique", Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17 (1988), p.227.

76. John Garnett, Commonsense and the Theory of International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1984), p.4.

77. The classic example of this argument is Martin Wight, 'Why is there No International Theory?", in Diplomatic Investigations, ed. H. Butterfield and M. Wight (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966).

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possible. The view that international relations comprises a realm of anarchy comes not from an interminable reality imparting knowledge upon passive subjects but, rather, from practices of representation that exclude or marginalize many histories, and normalize the current international order. In other words, "the appearance of global anarchy among states, far from being an eternal condition, is a social

structuration taking form and moment through long-historical processes that were rich in their possibilities. " 78 The divergent theoretical

traditions of International Relations, be they ‘idealist’, behavioralist or associated with all but the most radical streams of international political economy, operate within this problematization. The

marginalization of Marxist critiques that sought to replace the state with class and anarchy with global capitalism can be explained in terms of this problematization. It allows only certain problems to be posed and only certain solutions to be considered.

The effect of this problematization in privileging a narrow reading of global politics to the exclusion of others can be demonstrated by

considering how it handles the issues around non-state actors. There are two dimensions to this. Firstly, have non-state actors been excluded in terms consistent with their empirical status? In other words, has the problematization simply overlooked the existence of certain realities in global life?

78. Richard K. Ashley, The Political Economy of War and Peace: The Sino- Soviet-American Triangle and the Modem Security Problematique (London: Frances Pinter, 1980), p.37. Ashley has pursued this argument in "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Towards a Critical Social Theory of International Politics", Alternatives 12 (1987), pp.403-434.

Consider the "novelty" of the transnationalist and interdependence literature- This strain of international political economy that emerged in the late 1960s was premised on the notion that "World politics is

changing, but our conceptual paradigms have not kept pace",79 or that "theoretical development in our discipline is presently lagging behind the evolving reality of day-to-day practice in international affairs."00 But did the world suddenly change in the later 1960s and produce a large number of novel phenomena? Were the instances that the

interdependence and transnationalist literature cited as new

developments - the economic power of multinational corporations and the activities of non-state actors - actually new developments not seen before the late 1960s?

In Keohane and Nye’s volume Transnational Relations and

International Politics, one scholar noted that the period since the 1800s had been an era of transnationalism. The completion of the process of discovery and the export of Western technology by the imperial powers not only involved transnational relations, it was largely conducted by nongovernmental actors.81 Among the most important of these non-state actors were the European trading companies, particularly the Dutch East India Company. Exercising control over extensive non-European areas, these organizations were "semi-official bodies which enjoyed great

79. Nye, "Transnational Relations and World Politics: A Conclusion", p.371. 80. Puchala and Fagen, "International Politics in the 1970s", p.37.

81. J. A. Field,"Transnationalism and the New Tribe", in Transnational Relations and World Politics, ed. Keohane and Nye, p.5.

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political influence. . . " 82 Such organizations laid the foundations for the

later development of European state control over much of the globe, but for a century or more they operated as transnational, nonstate actors. Nor was this only a European phenomenon. American multinational corporations such as the United Fruit Company (UFCO) have had a history of enormous influence in the politics of Central America, often being more significant centers of power than the states themselves. 83

The consequences for a reading of global politics have thus been more complex than the problematization simply turning a blind eye to certain issues and actors. As a result, this understanding of its impact is more comprehensive than the usual complaint that realism excludes a range of issues and actors. 84 The effect of the problematization has

been to marginalize accounts of exploitation and colonialism (among other histories) by constantly forcing the focus back to the position of sovereign states in an anarchic realm. Such a focus has allowed the activities of nonstate actors and the importance of nonsecurity issues - though not ignored - to be restricted to a peripheral status in the

Matthew S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 1713-1783. 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1961), p.324.

M. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1983). However, for all their claims about establishing a new paradigm of International Relations, scholars were careful about the degree of novelty they accorded to transnationalist phenomena. Nye, for example, conceded that transnational relations were not new, but argued the significance of the work was that for the first time actors and issues outside the ‘realist’ paradigm were affecting "interstate politics by altering the choices open to statesmen and the costs that must be borne for adopting various courses of action." Nye, "Transnational Relations and World Politics: A Conclusion", p.374.

84. An example is Michael Banks indictment that in realism, "The price of an MX missile is included; the passions of an Islamic revolutionary are not." Banks, "The Evolution of International Relations Theory", p.14.

hierarchy of concerns within the discipline. While all issues may be considered at one time or another, the way problems are posed, solutions mandated, and concerns hierarchized is a function of the interpretive practices.

The second dimension to the concern of how the problematization privileges one reading of global politics - the dimension concerned with its disciplining and hierarchizing, rather than simple ignorance, of non­

state actors and issues - can be demonstrated by reference to the

tension in much of the recent literature on regimes. This literature had to turn to intersubjective elements to try and explain the persistence of certain patterns of global politics despite changes in the power balances associated with the postwar world. This shift generated a tension with the positivist metatheoretical commitments of the problematization through which the regime theorists operated.

Regimes, as commonly understood, represent rules, norms and

principles central to the development of actors preferences or interests. 85

As Ruggie has argued, regimes (such as the "embedded liberalism" of the trade and money regimes associated with the Bretton Woods arrangements) are akin to language, known not by a description of their elements but by their generative grammar - the underlying principles of order and meaning that give rise to international

8S. See Keohane, "The Demand for International Regimes", in International Regimes, ed. Krasner.

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