State agency: Social action without human activity?

Review of International Studies

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2004, Pages

  Wight, Colin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 11144355442     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210504006060     Document Type: Review

References (58)

1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, Trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956), p. 39.
2. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Oxford University Press, 1962).
3. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra in The Portable Nietzsche, Trans. Walter Kauffman (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 160.
4. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 215. For the purposes of this piece I will not draw any theoretical distinctions between 'persons' and 'people'.
5. David Easton, The Political System (New York: Knopf, 1953).
6. Robert Gilpin, 'The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism', in Robert Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 318. See also, John Schwarzmantel, The State in Contemporary Society (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), p. 7.
7. Robert Gilpin, 'The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism', in Robert Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 318. See also, John Schwarzmantel, The State in Contemporary Society (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), p. 7.
8. Wendt, Social Theory, p. 195.
9. See Andrew Collier, Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar's Philosophy (London: Verso, 1994), pp. 6-7.
10. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. III (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1966), p. 817.
11. Wendt, Social Theory, p. 197.
12. Iver Neumann, 'Alex Wendt is a Dated Durkheimian - Discuss', this issue.
13. See, for example, Neumann's claim that, 'The job of the social scientist is to draw up analyses of how and why worlds appear to us the way they do'. Notwithstanding that many would outright disagree with this account of social science, its limiting of ontology to that of 'appearance' is a restatement of the empiricist fallacy; that we deal only with the network and not what the network describes.
14. Patrick Jackson, 'Hegel's House, or "People are States Too"', this issue.
15. Ian Hacking, Scientific Revolutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Ian Hacking, Representing And Intervening: Introductory Topics In The Philosophy Of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Social scientists do the same, even if not in the same manner. See Mario Augusto Bunge, Finding Philosophy In Social Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
16. Ian Hacking, Scientific Revolutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Ian Hacking, Representing And Intervening: Introductory Topics In The Philosophy Of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Social scientists do the same, even if not in the same manner. See Mario Augusto Bunge, Finding Philosophy In Social Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
17. Ian Hacking, Scientific Revolutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Ian Hacking, Representing And Intervening: Introductory Topics In The Philosophy Of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Social scientists do the same, even if not in the same manner. See Mario Augusto Bunge, Finding Philosophy In Social Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
18. This is not to say that scientists do not routinely accept pragmatic compromises concerning the status of theoretical posits; they do. However, where they do these posits are almost always picked up at a later date and put to the reality test. See for example, John Carey (ed.), The Faber Book of Science (London: Faber and Faber, 1995); Stathis Psillos, Scientific Realism : How Science Tracks Truth (London ; New York: Routledge, 1999); Ilkka Niiniluoto, Critical Scientific Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
19. This is not to say that scientists do not routinely accept pragmatic compromises concerning the status of theoretical posits; they do. However, where they do these posits are almost always picked up at a later date and put to the reality test. See for example, John Carey (ed.), The Faber Book of Science (London: Faber and Faber, 1995); Stathis Psillos, Scientific Realism : How Science Tracks Truth (London ; New York: Routledge, 1999); Ilkka Niiniluoto, Critical Scientific Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
20. This is not to say that scientists do not routinely accept pragmatic compromises concerning the status of theoretical posits; they do. However, where they do these posits are almost always picked up at a later date and put to the reality test. See for example, John Carey (ed.), The Faber Book of Science (London: Faber and Faber, 1995); Stathis Psillos, Scientific Realism : How Science Tracks Truth (London ; New York: Routledge, 1999); Ilkka Niiniluoto, Critical Scientific Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
21. Paul K. Feyerabend, Realism, Rationalism and the Scientific Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
22. It is important to realise that there is more than one account of the 'person'. One could legitimately differentiate between 'moral personhood', 'legal personhood' and 'psychological personhood'. See, Andrew Vincent, 'Can Groups be Persons?' Review of Metaphysics, 42:2 (1989), pp. 687-715. This raises the interesting question of what kind of person, if at all, the state might be.
23. John Law and John Hassard, Actor Network Theory And After (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999); Bruno Latour, Science In Action: How To Follow Scientists And Engineers Through Society (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987).
24. John Law and John Hassard, Actor Network Theory And After (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999); Bruno Latour, Science In Action: How To Follow Scientists And Engineers Through Society (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987).
25. Ole Waever, 'Resisting the Temptation of Post Foreign Policy Analysis', in Walter Carlsnaes and Steve Smith (eds.), European Foreign Policy: The EC and Changing Perspectives in Europe (London: Sage, 1994).
26. For a critical commentary on the anti-humanism of actor-network theory, see O. Amsterdamska, 'Surely, You Must be Joking, Monsieur Latour!' Science, Technology and Human Values, 15 (1990), pp. 495-504.
27. Barry Buzan, Richard Little, and Roy Jones, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 103.
28. Alexander E. Wendt, 'The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory', International Organization, 41:3 (1987), pp. 335-70.
29. Rom Harré, Social Being, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p. 3.
30. Richard Harland, Superstructuralism: The Philosophy Of Structuralism And Post-Structuralism, New Accents (London: Methuen, 1987).
31. Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press, 1979), p. 174.
32. Bob Jessop, State Theory : Putting the Capitalist State in its Place (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), p. 367.
33. Colin Wight, They Shoot Dead Horses Don't They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique', European Journal of International Relations, 5:1 (1999), pp. 109-42.
34. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 'Subaltern Talk: Interview with the Editors', in Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean (eds.), The Spivak Reader (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 294.
35. It is for this reason that I find Jackson's attempt to read my account of agency as an essentialism of the self as confused. I may be guilty of essentialism, but the self does not exhaust the elements I deem essential to social agency.
36. Roger Benjamin and Raymond Duvall, 'The Capitalist State in Context', in Roger Benjamin and Stephen L. Elkin (eds.), The Democratic State (Lawrence, K.S: University Press of Kansas, 1985), p. 27.
37. Wendt, Social Theory, p. 216.
38. Easton, 'Political System', p. 316.
39. Ralph Miliband, 'The Capitalist State: Reply to Nicos Poulantzas', New Left Review, 59 (1970), pp. 50, 54.
40. Wendt, Social Theory, pp. 216-17.
41. Ibid., pp. 218. Wendt claims that three factors are important. He only cites two yet disaggregates the second into two further dimensions.
42. Ibid., p. 218.
43. Ibid., p. 219.
44. M. R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997); Werner Maser, Nuremberg : A Nation On Trial (London: Allen Lane, 1979); Geoffrey Best, Nuremberg And After: The Continuing History Of War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity; The Stenton Lecture, 1983 (Reading: University of Reading, 1984); Steven R. Ratner and Jason S. Abrams, Accountability For Human Rights Atrocities In International Law : Beyond The Nuremberg Legacy, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
45. M. R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997); Werner Maser, Nuremberg : A Nation On Trial (London: Allen Lane, 1979); Geoffrey Best, Nuremberg And After: The Continuing History Of War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity; The Stenton Lecture, 1983 (Reading: University of Reading, 1984); Steven R. Ratner and Jason S. Abrams, Accountability For Human Rights Atrocities In International Law : Beyond The Nuremberg Legacy, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
46. M. R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997); Werner Maser, Nuremberg : A Nation On Trial (London: Allen Lane, 1979); Geoffrey Best, Nuremberg And After: The Continuing History Of War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity; The Stenton Lecture, 1983 (Reading: University of Reading, 1984); Steven R. Ratner and Jason S. Abrams, Accountability For Human Rights Atrocities In International Law : Beyond The Nuremberg Legacy, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
47. M. R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997); Werner Maser, Nuremberg : A Nation On Trial (London: Allen Lane, 1979); Geoffrey Best, Nuremberg And After: The Continuing History Of War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity; The Stenton Lecture, 1983 (Reading: University of Reading, 1984); Steven R. Ratner and Jason S. Abrams, Accountability For Human Rights Atrocities In International Law : Beyond The Nuremberg Legacy, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
48. Wendt, Social Theory, p. 219.
49. Ibid., p. 220.
50. I b i d.
51. Ibid., pp. 220-221.
52. Marx, Capital, vol. I, p. 100.
53. It seems clear that although Wendt distinguishes intentionality from consciousness, the former is dependent upon the latter. The two concepts, however, although related are distinct. Wendt, State as Person, this issue p. 291.
54. Ibid., this issue p. 299.
55. Ibid., this issue, p. 299.
56. Ibid., this issue, p. 299.
57. Ibid., this issue, p. 299.
58. Ibid., this issue, p. 299.