A turn not taken: Ethics in IR at the millennium

Review of International Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 119-132

  Frost, Mervyn ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0032262518     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0260210598001296     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. In this paper I use the phrases 'ethics' and 'normative theory' interchangeably.
2. For an extended discussion of these see my Ethics in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), chs. 1 and 2.
3. On the requirements of argumentation see Alain Perelman, The New Rhetoric of the Humanities (London: Reidel, 1979).
4. It is crucial to note that the 'we' here is inclusive and does not refer narrowly to Europeans, Africans, liberals, or socialists (and so on).
5. In what follows I outline what I take to be the dominant position in IR. There are, of course, exceptions to the picture which I sketch of a discipline which does not take ethics seriously. The most notable exception is that body of scholars working in the field of human rights theory. This tradition has fed into the peace research programmes, integrationist studies and some feminist theories of IR.
6. I have discussed the positivist bias in IR and the discipline's general scepticism towards normative theory in considerable detail in Ethics in International Relations. See also Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), and Mark Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
7. I have discussed the positivist bias in IR and the discipline's general scepticism towards normative theory in considerable detail in Ethics in International Relations. See also Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), and Mark Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
8. I have discussed the positivist bias in IR and the discipline's general scepticism towards normative theory in considerable detail in Ethics in International Relations. See also Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), and Mark Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
9. Paul R. Viotti and Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism (New York: MacMillan, 1993), p. 5.
10. Martin Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 64.
11. Martin Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science, p. 64.
12. International Relations Theory, p. 5.
13. Gregory Raymond, 'Problems and Prospects in the Study of International Norms', in Mershon International Studies Review, 41,2 (1997), pp. 205-46. The article includes a very detailed 10 page bibliography.
14. Raymond mentions the literatures on the war convention, the democratic peace, the long peace, alliance dynamics, and regime theory.
15. Raymond, 'Problems and Prospects in the Study of International Norms', pp. 219-20.
16. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
17. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations, p. 7.
18. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations, p. 3.
19. Emanuel Adler, 'Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Polities', in European Journal of International Relations, 3,3 (September 1997), pp. 319-64.
20. Emanuel Adler, 'Seizing the Middle Ground', p. 322.
21. Emanuel Adler, 'Seizing the Middle Ground', p. 323.
22. See, for example, Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora Books, 1989).
23. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid; Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', in International Organization, 46/2, (1992) ; Nicholus Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Ruled in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia. SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Friedrich Kratockwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
24. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid; Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', in International Organization, 46/2, (1992) ; Nicholus Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Ruled in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia. SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Friedrich Kratockwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
25. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid; Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', in International Organization, 46/2, (1992) ; Nicholus Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Ruled in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia. SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Friedrich Kratockwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
26. Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid; Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', in International Organization, 46/2, (1992) ; Nicholus Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Ruled in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia. SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); Friedrich Kratockwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
27. For example see Cynthia Enloe, Bananas Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, ch. 1 and Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 164 and following pages.
28. For example see Cynthia Enloe, Bananas Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, ch. 1 and Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 164 and following pages.
29. R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), ch. 1.
30. Vivienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).
31. Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Chicago: Notre Dame University Press, 1994).
32. For an example of this style of argument, see David Campbell's discussion of the USA's post Cold War search for a hostile 'other' against which it could assert its identity in his 'Violent Performances: Identity, Sovereignty Responsibility', in Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996).
33. William Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. x.
34. David Campbell, Writing Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 257.
35. I use the 'practice' here as Ludwig Wittgenstein used it the following quotation: 'Where is the connexion effected between the sense of an expression "Let's play a game of chess" and all the rules of the game? - Well, in the list of rules of the game, in the teaching of it, in the day-to-day practice of playing.' Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), para. 197. For our purposes we might ask 'Where is the sense of "Let's argue about how our political world should be organized" and all the rules of our political world? Well in the list of rules of our political world, in the teaching of these, in the day to day practice of world politics.' Just as making a move in the game of chess can only be understood within the wider practice of chess playing, so, too, making an argument about an ethical issue in world politics can only take place within the practice of world politics. The particular act presupposes the wider practice.
36. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996).