Tradition as invention: The 'traditions tradition' and the history of ideas in international relations

Millennium: Journal of International Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 57-84

  Jeffery, Renée ^a  

^a LA TROBE UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27844522376     PISSN: 03058298     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/03058298050340011101     Document Type: Review

References (137)

1. Ian Clark, 'Traditions of Thought and Classical Theories of International Relations', in Classical Theories of International Relations, eds. Ian Clark and Iver B. Neumann (London: Macmillan, 1996), 1.
2. For example, see Tim Dunne, 'Mythology or Methodology? Traditions in International Theory', Review of International Studies 19, no.2 (1993): 305-318;
3. Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts, 'Introduction: Grotian Thought in International Relations', in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, eds. Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 1-64;
4. David S. Yost, 'Wight and the "Three Traditions": Political philosophy and the Theory of Internationial Relations', International Affairs 70, no. 2 (1994): 263-290;
5. and James Der Derian, 'Introducing Philosophical Traditions in International Relations', Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17, no. 2 (1988): 189-193.
6. E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, ed. Michael Cox (London: Palgrave, 2001);
7. and Peter Wilson, 'The Myth of the "First Great Debate"', Review of International Studies 24 (1998): 49-58.
8. Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, eds. Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (London: Leicester University Press, 1991);
9. and Michael Donelan, Elements of International Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 2.
10. Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel, eds., Traditions of International Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992);
11. and David Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations: From Thucydides to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
12. Stephen Krasner, 'Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables', International Organitation 36, no. 2 (1982):185-206. Following the infusion and general misappropriation of Thomas Kuhn's seminal work on the role of paradigms in scientific research, the 'traditions' have, in some quarters, become 'paradigms'.
13. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Clicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962);
14. and Michael Banks, 'The Inter-Paradigm Debate', in International Relations: A Handbook of Current Theory, eds. Margot Light and A. J. R. Groom (London: Francis Pinter, 1985).
15. Martin Wight, 'Why Is There No International Theory?', in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays on the Theory of World Politics, eds. Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), 20.
16. Michael Donelan, 'The Political Theorists and International Theory', in The Reason of States, ed. Michael Donelan (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978), 75.
17. Howard Williams, International Relations in Political Theory (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1992). Recognising this, and a range of other problems inherent to the discipline - though conceding IR's value as an 'educational device' - Brown, Nardin and Rengger's volume, International Relations in Political Thought, provides a far more broadly based set of thinkers, which includes a number of less well-known figures such as Cornelius Bynershoek, Eusebius Pamphili and Samuel Rachel.
18. Chris Brown, Terry Nardin and Nicholas Rengger, eds., International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2-3.
19. Clark, 'Traditions of Thought', 7;
20. and Wight, International Theory, 259.
21. Clark, 'Traditions of Thought', 8.
22. R. B. J. Walker, 'History and Structure in the Theory of International Relations', in International Theory: Critical Investigations, ed. James Der Derian (London: Macmillan, 1995), 315,
23. and Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 27.
24. Clark, 'Traditions of Thought', 8.
25. Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas', History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History 8 (1969): 3-53.
26. King, 'Introduction' to The History of Ideas: An Introduction to Method, ed. Preston King (London and Canberra: Croom Hem, 1983), 4.
27. Boucher, Political Theories, 29.
28. Terry Nardin, 'Ethical Traditions in International Affairs', in Traditions of International Ethics, 6.
29. Martin Wight, 'An Anatomy of International Thought', Review of International Studies 13 (1987): 226.
30. Conal Condren, 'Political Theory and the Problem of Anachronism', in Political Theory: Tradition and Diversity, ed. Andrew Vincent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 48.
31. J. G. A. Pocock, 'Time, Institutions and Action: An Essay on Traditions and Their Understanding', in Politics and Experience: Essays Presented to Professor Michael Oakeshott on the Occasion of his Retirement, eds. Preston King and B. C. Parekh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 212.
32. Martin Krygier, 'The Traditionality of Statutes', Ratio Juris 1, no. 1 (1988): 21.
33. Nardin, 'Ethical Traditions', 7.
34. Martin Krygier, 'Law as Tradition', Law and Philosophy 5 (1986): 240.
35. Ibid., 250. Emphasis in original.
36. Eric Hobsbawm, 'Introduction: Inventing Traditions', in The Invention of Tradition, eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1.
37. Ibid., 2.
38. Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988), 326.
39. Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealog and Tradition (London: Duckworth, 1990), 116.
40. Ibid.
41. Preston King, introduction to The History of Ideas, 3. Emphasis his.
42. Ibid.
43. Preston King, 'Thinking Past a Problem', in Thinking Past a Problem: Essays on the History of Ideas, (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 25-6.
44. Michael Oakeshott, 'Present, Future and Past', in On History and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), 1.
45. Ibid.
46. Michael Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933/1966), 109.
47. Ibid., 75.
48. Michael Oakeshott, 'The Activity of Being an Historian', in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London: Methuen & Co., 1962), 143.
49. Ibid., 144-5.
50. Preston King, 'Michael Oakeshott and Historical Particularism', in Thinking Past a Problem, 93. Indeed, as Luke O'Sullivan writes, in his early works Oakeshott, went so far as to suppose that 'the historian could never reach "the past as it was"'. However, by Experience and Its Modes he had 'dismissed scepticism about the possibility of historical knowledge as such' although maintained the idea that historical knowledge is 'ultimately less satisfactory than philosophy.
51. Luke O'Sullivan, introduction to What is History? And Other Essays, by Michael Oakeshott, ed. Luke O'Sullivan (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004), 7.
52. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 109.
53. Ibid. Contrary to this, Preston King argues that the past/present paradox in Oakeshott is not a paradox at all.
54. See King, Thinking Past a Problem, 111.
55. Oakeshott, 'Activity', 146.
56. 'Survivals' is a term that Oakeshott uses in 'Present, Future and Past' to denote 'artefacts (perhaps recognized as models to be copied), recorded anecdotes or episodes of bygone human fortune, alleged reports of persons' and so on. 'Present, Future and Past, 18.
57. Oakeahott, 'Activity, 146.
58. Oakeshott, 'Present, Future and Past', 38.
59. Oakeshott, 'Activity, 153.
60. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 103.
61. Oakeshott, 'Present Future and Past', 33.
62. Oakeshott, 'Historical Events', in On History, 53.
63. Oakeshott, 'Present, Future and Past', 18.
64. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 108.
65. Michael Oakeshott, 'What is History?', in What is History, 320.
66. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes, 108, 106.
67. Oakeshott, 'Activity', 164. My emphasis.
68. David Boucher, 'Human Conduct, History and Social Science in the Works of R. G. Collingwood and Mcbael Oakeshott', New Literary History 24, no. 3 (1993): 697.
69. R. G. Collingwood, 'The Limits of Historical Knowledge', in Essays in the Philosophy of History, ed. William Debbins (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1965), 102. Emphasis his.
70. R. G. Collingwood, 'The, Historical Logic of Question and Answer', in History of Ideas, 151-152.
71. R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 58.
72. Oakeshott, 'Activity', 166.
73. Oakeshott, 'Present, Future and Past', 37.
74. Timothy Fuller, foreword to On History, xii.
75. Thomas Smith, 'Michael Oakeshott on History, Practice and Political Theory', History of Political Thought 17, no. 4 (1996): 607.
76. Michael Oakeshott, 'Rationalism in Politics, in Rationalism in Politics, 7.
77. Ibid., 8.
78. Ibid., 10.
79. Oakeshott, 'Political Education', in Rationalism in Politics, 128.
80. Oakeshott, 'Rationalism in Politics', 11.
81. Oakeshott, 'Political Education', 129
82. Oakeshott, 'Rationalism in Politics', 21.
83. See also Oakeshott's discussion of Hannah Arendt's Between Past and Future on understanding traditions of political activity 'in terms of analogy of fabrication'. Michael Oakeshott, 'Between, Past and Future', in What is History, 316-17.
84. Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 55.
85. Ibid., 55-56.
86. Michael Oakeshott, Lectures on the History of Political Thought, eds. Terry Nardin and Luke O'Sullivan, (Exeter: Imprint Academic, forthcoming 2006), 2. An excerpt of this work is available on the Michael Oakeshott Association [website, https://www.michael-oakeshott-association.org] (9 July 2005).
87. Ian Tregenza, 'The Life of Hobbes in the Writings of Michael Oakeshott', History of Political Thought 18, no. 3 (1997): 535.
88. Luke O'Sullivan, 'Michael Oakeshott on European Political History', History of Political Thought 21, no. 1 (2000): 150.
89. Ibid., 611.
90. What I mean here is that even when applying the principles of historical inquiry strictly, it is logically impossible to entirely discount the contribution of the interpreter to the interpretation of ideas and texts.
91. Oakeshott, 'Present, Future and Past', 37.
92. John G. Gunnell, 'The Historiography of American Political Science', in The Development of Political Science: A Comparative Survey, eds. David Easton, John Gunnell and Luigi Graziano (London: Routledge, 1990), 14.
93. John G. Gunnell, The Orders of Discourse: Philosophy, Social Science and Politic, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 155.
94. John G. Gunnell, 'Interpretation and the History of Political Theory: Apology and Epistemology', American Political Science Review 70, no. 2 (1982): 326.
95. John G. Gunnell, 'The Myth of the Tradition' in History of Ideas, 249.
96. John G. Gunnell, Political Philosophy and Time: Plato and the Origins of Political Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), ix.
97. Ibid.
98. Brian C. Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations, (Albany, NY: SNY Press, 1998), 15.
99. Ibid. The second assumption is that 'events in the realm of international politics have fundamentally structured the development of international relations as an academic field of study'.
100. Alastair J. H. Murray, Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics (Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997), 3.
101. Steven Forde, 'Classical Realism', in Traditions of International Ethics, 62.
102. Murray, Reconstructing Realism, 3.
103. Schmidt, Discourse of Anarchy, 25.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., 31.
106. Smith, 'Oakeshott on History', 608;
107. and King, Thinking Past a Problem, 99.
108. Schmidt, Discourse of Anarchy, 25.
109. Gunnell quoted in Schmidt, ibid.
110. Wight, International Theory, 5.
111. Ibid., 7.
112. Jens Bartelson, 'Short Circuits: Society and Tradition in International Relations Theory', Review of International Studies 22 (1996): 347.
113. Martin Wight, 'Western Values in International Relations', in Diplomatic Investigations, 90-91.
114. Ibid., 91.
115. Wight, International Theory, 14.
116. Ibid., 12.
117. Ibid., 14-15.
118. Ibid., 259.
119. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1995), 23.
120. Hedley Bull, 'The Grotian Conception of International Society', in Diplomatic Investigations, 66.
121. See also, Benedict Kingsbury, 'Grotius, Law and Moral Scepticism: Theory and Practice in the Thought of Hedley Bull', in Classical Theories, 42.
122. Wight, International Theory, 14.
123. Edward Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 34.
124. Wight, International Theory, 162.
125. Brian C. Schmidt, 'The Historiography of Academic International Relations', Review of International Studies 20, no.4 (1994): 359.
126. A. Claire Cutler has made an argument similar to Bull's. However, like Bull, Cutler's interpretation of Grotius has been prefigured by her reliance on a number of writers who are members of the 'Grotian tradition'. A. Claire Culter, 'The "Grotian Tradition" in International Relations', Review of International Studies 17, no.1 (1991): 41-65.
127. Hedley Bull, 'Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations', introduction to International Theory, xiii.
128. Ibid., xviii.
129. Hedley Bull, 'The Theory of International Politics 1919-1969', in The Aberystwyth Papers: International Politics 1919-1969, ed. Brian Porter (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 33.
130. Bull, 'Martin Wight', xviii.
131. Bartelson, 'Short Circuits', 347.
132. Bull, 'Martin Wight', xviii.
133. Bartelson, 'Short Circuits', 347.
134. Walker, Inside/Outside, 27.
135. Dunne, 'Mythology or Methodology?', 308.
136. Nardin, 'Ethical Traditions'.
137. Nicholas Rengger, 'Eternal Return? Modes of Encountering Religion in International Relations', 32, no. 2 (2003): 335. My emphasis.