Actor, structure, process: Transcending the state personhood debate by means of a pragmatist ontological model for International Relations theory

Review of International Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 1057-1077

  Franke, Ulrich ^a   Roos, Ulrich ^b  

^a BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF AUGSBURG   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79953027364     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210510000203     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. On the agent-structure problem see, for example, Alexander E. Wendt, 'The agent-structure problem in international relations theory', International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 335-70;
2. David Dessler, 'What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate', International Organization, 43 (1989), pp. 441-73;
3. Walter Carlsnaes, 'The Agent-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis', International Studies Quarterly, 36 (1992), pp. 245-70;
4. and Colin Wight, 'They Shoot Dead Horses, Don't They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique', in: European Journal of International Relations, 5 (1999), pp. 109-42.
5. Since we adopt a pragmatist position, ontology is not to be understood in its older metaphysical sense of describing the social world as it really or truly is. For us, ontology denotes a view of the world as we believe it to be; a view, to be clear, that (hopefully) will be superseded by a better truth and a better view of reality.
6. Our understanding of abduction follows Charles Sanders Peirce, who himself was drawing on Aristotle to develop an explanation for the emergence of new hypotheses (which is impossible for both deduction and induction): 'Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing but determine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis. Deduction proves that something must be; Induction shows that something is actually operative; Abduction merely suggests that something may be. Its only justification is that from its suggestion deduction can draw a prediction which can be tested by induction, and that, if we are ever to learn anything or to understand phenomena at all, it must be by abduction that this is to be brought about.'
7. Cf. Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 106 (5.171).
8. See also George Herbert Mead, 'The Social Self', Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 10 (1913), pp. 374-80
9. as well as Hans Joas, Die Kreativität des Handelns (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1992), p. 198.
10. See Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 255-316
11. and 31 (2005), pp. 349-60.
12. See Alexander Wendt, 'The state as person in international theory', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), p. 289.
13. See Alexander Wendt, 'The state as person in international theory', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), p. 291.
14. Colin Wight, 'State agency: social action without human activity?', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), p. 270.
15. Colin Wight, 'State agency: social action without human activity?', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), p. 271.
16. Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 290.
17. See Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 215-24
18. and Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 291.
19. and Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 296.
20. and Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 297.
21. See Wendt, Social Theory, pp. 155-6.
22. See Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 302.
23. See Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 302.
24. See Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 304.
25. Wight, 'State agency', p. 270.
26. Wight, 'State agency', p. 270.
27. Wight, 'State agency', pp. 278-9.
28. Wight, 'State agency', p. 276.
29. Wight, 'State agency', p. 279. In his response, Wendt describes Wight's position as an interesting hybrid. While arguing against the reducibility of states to their members, he was approving the reducibility of their intentions (
30. see Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 298). The demarcation line that separates Wendt's response to the as if-approach from Wight's runs along this point indeed. While the former asserts that state persons have own intentions irreducible to human beings, the latter assumes that states cannot have any intentions, since they are no persons at all.
31. See Alexander Wendt, 'How not to argue against state personhood: a reply to Lomas', Review of International Studies, 31 (2005), p. 358.
32. See Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 312.
33. Despite we share unease in the dual framing of the state-personhood debate, this stance marks a rather strong contrast to the position of another contributor, who treats non-humans as responsible actors as well.
34. See Jacob Schiff, '"Real"? As if! Critical reflections on state personhood', Review of International Studies, 34 (2008), pp. 363-77.
35. See, for example, Jörg Friedrichs and Friedrich Kratochwil, 'On Acting and Knowing. How Pragmatism can advance International Relations Research and Methodology', International Organization, 63 (2009), pp. 701-31;
36. Gunther Hellmann, 'Pragmatism and International Relations', International Studies Review, 11 (2009), pp. 638-62
37. ('The Forum', with contributions by Gunther Hellmann, Jörg Friedrichs, Patrick T. Jackson, Markus Kornprobst, Helena Rytövuori-Apunen and Rudra Sil); Harry Bauer and Elisabetta Brighi (eds), Pragmatism in International Relations (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009);
38. Friedrich Kratochwil, 'Of false promises and good bets: a plea for a pragmatic approach to theory building (the Tartu lecture) ', Journal of International Relations and Development, 10 (2007), pp. 1-15; (Pubitemid 46505772)
39. Helena Rytövuori-Apunen, 'Forget 'Post-Positivist IR'! The Legacy of IR Theory as the Locus for a Pragmatist Turn', Cooperation and Conflict, 40 (2005), pp. 147-77; (Pubitemid 43074569)
40. Molly Cochran, 'Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivst Social Science in IR', Millennium. Journal of International Studies, 31 (2002), pp. 525-48; (Pubitemid 44775814)
41. David Owen, 'Re-orienting International Relations: On Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning', Millennium. Journal of International Studies, 31 (2002), pp. 653-73; (Pubitemid 44775819)
42. and Ronald J. Deibert, "Exorcismus Theoriae': Pragmatism, Metaphors and the Return of the Medieval in IR Theory', European Journal of International Relations, 3 (1997), pp. 167-92. (Pubitemid 127176457)
43. See Wight, 'State agency', p. 279.
44. See Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 258.
45. Wight, 'State agency', p. 276.
46. See Wendt, 'The agent-structure problem'. Interestingly, a similar kind of 'problem-shift' can be found in Neumann who classifies Wendt as a reifying and organic thinker in the style of Durkheim
47. (see Iver B. Neumann, 'Beware of organicism: the narrative self of the state', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 260-1)
48. 'As social structures, corporate actors such as the state have interfaces which also harbour such possibilities as division, growth, merger, interlocking and specialisation' (Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 265). Here again, the problem of the relationship between actors and states tends to be negated by equating both sides with each other.
49. See Imre Lakatos, 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 118.
50. In particular, this concern is fed by Alexander Wendt, 'Why a world state is inevitable', European Journal of International Relations, 9 (2003), pp. 491-542.
51. See Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York et al.: McGraw-Hill, 1979) as still the most prominent example. To our surprise and in contrast to his piece on anarchy (
52. see Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics', International Organization, 46 (1992), pp. 391-425) this increasingly applies to Wendt as well.
53. See, for example, Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, 'Let us now praise great men. Bringing the statesmen back in', International Security, 25 (2001), pp. 107-46.
54. Wight, 'State agency', p. 275.
55. At least on the level of the signifier, Jackson (see Patrick T. Jackson, 'Hegel's House, or "People are states too"', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 281-87)
56. seems to strongly emphasise processes as well. But to our minds, his focus on the social processes which create and sustain entities (Patrick T. Jackson, 'Hegel's House, or "People are states too"', Review of International Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 284) does not leave sufficient space for both structures and actors. Due to a different ontology, his idea of process rather resembles something that we try to grasp by means of the category of structure.
57. Wight, 'State agency', p. 280.
58. In this context, we will be drawing on Aristotle's differentiation between four types of causes that were only recently restated in a brilliant manner by Kurki. See Milja Kurki, 'Causes of a divided discipline: rethinking the concept of cause in International Relations theory', Review of International Studies, 32 (2006), pp. 189-216. (Pubitemid 43823182)
59. According to our understanding, state structures show no 'active causal' effects in the sense of Aristotle and Kurki. However, although we hold that structures of corporate practice do not have causal effects, we do not state that there are no causal powers in the social world at all. But as driving forces of social processes, causal powers, due to the temporal differentiation between 'I' and 'me' established by G. H. Mead, always emanate from human beings (see also the characterisation of the process-part of our model below).
60. Wight, 'State agency', pp. 275, 278, 280.
61. Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations. Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 220.
62. See Charles Sanders Peirce, Selected Writings: values in a universe of chance, edited by Philip P. Wiener (New York: Dover Publications, 1966 [1958]), p. 192: 'Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearing you conceive the object of your conception to have. Then your conception of those effects is the WHOLE of your conception of the object; (emphasis in original).
63. See George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society: from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974 [1934]).
64. See John Dewey, 'The Public and Its Problems', in John Dewey (ed.), The Later Works, 1925-53, Vol. 2:1925-1927. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984 [1927]).
65. What we call an 'actor' here is often referred to as 'agent' or 'person' in the literature. Since it is not always clear what each concept exactly stands for, we are going to use the same term for the same analytical object throughout the whole article.
66. It is exactly this competence to act that termed as 'agency' can be found in a growing part of the literature, occasionally making things more complicate than they were by equating agency with actor. For a comprehensive discussion of the term agency and its history (of effects), however, see Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische, 'What is agency?', American Journal of Sociology, 103 (1998), pp. 962-1023.
67. See Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 214
68. and George Herbert Mead, The individual and the social self: unpublished work of George Herbert Mead, edited with an introduction by David L. Miller (London, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 177.
69. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 174.
70. See Kurki, 'Causes', p. 206.
71. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 177.
72. See Alexander Wendt, 'On constitution and causation in International Relations', Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), p. 105.
73. In this context, it might of course also be useful to study varying rules for action on the level of a certain SCP's leading personnel.
74. Just as in the context of rejecting the state personhood concept, it is important to note that we do not claim to be the first to present a process model of international relations. While believing that Wendt's model does not leave enough room for open processes but provides a closed system with pre-determined outcomes instead, we are aware of certain parallels between our model and the proposals by Herborth, Jackson and Nexon, as well Patomäki. See Benjamin Herborth, 'Die via media als konstitutionstheoretische Einbahnstraße. Zur Entwicklung des Akteur-Struktur-Problems bei Alexander Wendt', Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 11 (2004), pp. 61-88;
75. Patrick T. Jackson and Daniel Nexon, 'Relations Before States: Substance, Process, and the Study of World Politics', European Journal of International Relations, 5 (1999), pp. 291-332;
76. and Heikki Patomäki, 'How to tell better stories about world politics', European Journal of International Relations, 2 (1996), pp. 101-33.
77. Concerning the record of theoretical explanations, we side with Wight who states: 'There is a real need for the development of theoretical accounts able to locate the continuity of change and the change in continuity.' See Colin Wight, 'The Continuity of Change, or a Change in Continuity?', International Studies Review, 3 (2001), pp. 81-90.
78. Even though all of these forms of continuity and change were stated in the mode of transformation and change, continuity is not precluded from this scheme. Due to the dialectical relationship between the two phenomena, not to discover a change in any of these forms always means continuity.
79. Wendt, 'The state as person', p. 316.
80. See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)
81. and Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin, 2000).