Theoreticians' obligation of transparency: When parsimony, reflexivity, transparency and reciprocity meet

Review of International Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 973-996

  Ish Shalom, Piki ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79960220845     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210510001026     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. See also autoethnography, Jan du Preez, 'Locating the Researcher in the Research: Personal Narrative and Reflective Practice', Reflective Practice, 9 (2008), pp. 509-19.
2. Neo-pragmatism also seeks to locate knowledge in a particular perspective, see Patrick Baert, Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Towards Pragmatism (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 136, 153-4.
3. James N. Rosenau, Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
4. Aydinli Ersel and James N. Rosenau, 'Courage Versus Caution: A Dialogue on Entering and Prospering in IR', International Studies Review, 6 (2004), pp. 511-26. As will become clear below, I think Rosenau's position, while laudable, is too naïve in its expectations that theoreticians be fully aware of the assumptions, commitments, and convictions that inform their theories. (Pubitemid 40067727)
5. Standpoint theory, embraced mainly by feminist epistemologists, claims that all knowledge is situated. Standpoint theory is historically predisposed towards materialist analysis according to which standpoints are determined by the position of the knower in the social hierarchy and his or her corresponding social commitments.
6. Elizabeth Potter, Feminism and Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 131-2;
7. Dorothy E. Smith, 'Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology', in Sandra G. Harding (ed.), Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 91;
8. Mary E. Hawkesworth, 'Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth', in Barbara Laslett, Sally G. Kohlstedt, Helen Longino and Evelynn Hammonds (eds), Gender and Scientific Authority (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 78;
9. Barbara Laslett, Sally G. Kohlstedt, Helen Longino and Evelynn Hammonds, 'Introduction', in Ibid., p. 192;
10. Donna Haraway, 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective', Feminist Studies, 14 (1988), pp. 575-99.
11. Parsimony is defined as 'The principle that the best statistical model among all satisfactory models is that with the fewest parameters. Hence, more generally, the principle which asserts that if it is possible to explain a phenomenon equally adequately in a number of different ways, then the simplest of explanations (in terms of the number of variables or propositions) should be selected.'
12. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd edition, edited by John Scott and Gordon Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 477.
13. According to this strict definition, not all IR theoreticians are committed to parsimony. Clearly constructivists do not seek the explanation with the fewest possible variables, and Hans Morgenthau's realism is not as parsimonious as that of Waltz. However, all theoreticians, including constructivists (as we see clearly from the Ned Lebow quotation below), seek simplified explanations; explanations that are much simpler and sparser than the complexities of social reality.
14. This loose conception of parsimony is the focus of my analysis. While not as accurate as the strict definition, the loose conception is much more convenient and word-efficient than 'simpler and sparser than the complexities of social reality'. I therefore invite the reader to understand 'parsimony' as I do, that is loosely.
15. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1987).
16. Sheila Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990)
17. Sheila Jasanoff, Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the US (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005);
18. Roger A. Pielke, The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
19. Helen E. Longino, The fate of knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
20. For example, Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 51-2.
21. Baert, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, p. 96.
22. See also, Alfred Schütz, The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert (Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 1967), p. 226;
23. Molly Cochran, 'Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivist Social Science in IR', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 31 (2002), pp. 535-6.
24. Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 72.
25. Tulia G. Falleti and Julia F. Lynch, 'Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis', Comparative Political Studies, 42 (2009), pp 1143-66.
26. Ibid., p. 1145. Emphasis added.
27. John S. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1995), pp. 27-9.
28. See, for example, Tal Dingott Alkopher, 'The Social (and Religious) Meanings that Constitute War: The Crusades as Realpolitik vs. Socialpolitik', International Studies Quarterly, 49 (2005), p. 719.
29. Jonathan W. Moses and Torbjørn L. Knutsen, Ways of Knowing: Competing Methodologies in Social and Political Research (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 190.
30. See also, Amir Lupovici, 'Constructivist methods: A plea and manifesto for pluralism', Review of International Studies, 35 (2009), pp. 195-218
31. Milja Kurki and Adriana Sinclair, 'Hidden in Plain Sight: Constructivist Treatment of Social Context and its Limitations', International Politics, 47 (2010), pp. 4-10.
32. See also Peter Winch who advanced a radical version of constructivism and argued that 'the category of cause [fitting to natural phenomena] involves generality by way of empirical generalizations, that of a reason for action [fitting to social phenomena] involves generality by way of rules.'
33. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relations to Philosophy, second edition (London: Routledge, 1990), p. xi.
34. Robert W. Cox, 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 10 (1981), pp. 128-9.
35. For a recent critical exercise in the historicisation of the meaning of democracy, see Christopher Hobson, 'Beyond the End of History: The Need for a "Radical Historicisation" of Democracy in International Relations Theory', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 37 (2009), pp. 631-57.
36. A devastating criticism of behaviourism can be found in Steven Lukes. Lukes rightly argues that behaviourism's single-minded focus on observable behaviour leaves it unable to say anything fruitful about power that quite often works in invisible ways, Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
37. Charles Taylor criticises behaviourism for other reasons, namely, that contrary to its pretensions, behaviourist research is caught up with values and norms, Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 77-81.
38. Vincent Pouliot, 'The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities', International Organization, 62 (2008), pp. 257-88.
39. While this understanding is most explicit in the constructivist approach to the social science it is by all means not exclusive to it.
40. Most theories are attempts at establishing and explicating the causal patterned relations between phenomena, yet causality is not a necessary element of theory as theory can try to establish and explicate constitutional patterned relations.
41. Khunians would rather see the academic process as a continuous effort of shielding theory from falsification. For an engaging comparison of Popper and Khun, see Steve Fuller, Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
42. Fuller favours Popper and sees his philosophy of science as companion to democratic politics and 'the open society'. Ibid., p. 16.
43. Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life (New York, NY: Free Press, 1991), p. 3.
44. See footnote 6.
45. As analysed above, these patterned regularities can be seen as universally or contextually applicable, depending on the theoretical approach.
46. Kenneth N. Waltz, 'Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory', Journal of International Affairs, 44 (1990), p. 27.
47. Richard N. Lebow, 'Power, Persuasion and Justice', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 33 (2005), p. 574.
48. Thomas Gilovich, Dale W. Griffin and Daniel Kahneman (eds), Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
49. See also Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations, p. 201.
50. In a recent article Niko Kolodny attempted to demonstrate that there is no requirement for formal coherence as such, but that reason and rationality cannot do without coherence, Niko Kolodny, 'Why Be Disposed to Be Coherent?', Ethics, 118 (2008), pp. 437-63.
51. Compare with the seminal observation of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, 'people rely on a limited number of heuristic principles which reduce the complex tasks of assessing probabilities and predicting values to simpler judgmental operations. In general, these heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors.'
52. In 'Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases', Science, 185:4157 (27 September 1974), p. 1124.
53. See also, Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), pp. 47-8.
54. Hawkesworth, 'Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth', pp. 90-2;
55. Stefano Guzzini, 'The Concept of Power: A Constructivist Analysis', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 33 (2005), pp. 498.
56. Piki Ish-Shalom, 'The Triptych of Realism, Elitism, and Conservatism', International Studies Review, 8 (2006), p. 441.
57. See also, Beate Jahn, 'Liberal Internationalism - From Ideology to Empirical Theory - and Back Again', International Theory, 1 (2009), p. 424.
58. This does not imply that theory is ideology (Here I part ways with Beate). The ideological inclination is one component among other components of theorising, and the academic culture of healthy scepticism along with methodological rigorousness help to distinguish theory from ideology, even though the two share a common foundation.
59. It could be argued that the existence of those ideological inclinations and normative commitments in theory may give good reasons for disclosure, for example out of decency and civility, or out of epistemological concerns for the quality of theory. But by itself the existence of those ideological inclinations and normative commitments does not generate a moral obligation for transparency. To ground transparency as a moral obligation we need to relate the existence of those ideological inclinations and normative commitments to principles of justice, such as the principle of reciprocity.
60. Eibe Riedel, 'The Human Right to Social Security: Some Challenges', in Eibe Riedel (ed.), Social Security as a Human Right: Drafting a General Comment on Article 9 ICESCR - Some Challenges (Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, 2007), p. 19.
61. Ido Oren, 'Can Political Science Emulate the Natural Sciences? The Problem of Self-Disconfirming Analysis', Polity, 38 (2006), pp. 72-100. (Pubitemid 43123965)
62. Social capital is intimately linked to trust, which in the terms used here is a kind of inner state of human mind.
63. Piki Ish-Shalom, 'Theory gets Real, and the Case for a Normative Ethic: Rostow, Modernization Theory, and the Alliance for Progress', International Studies Quarterly, 50 (2006), pp. 287-311.
64. A central role in Rostow's theory of modernisation is kept for what he termed the Newtonian conception, namely the awareness of the ability to change the environment. See, Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 4-12. This awareness is, in the terms use here, an inner state of human mind.
65. Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
66. Piki Ish-Shalom, 'Theory as a Hermeneutical Mechanism: The Democratic Peace and the Politics of Democratization', European Journal of International Relations, 12 (2006), pp. 565-98. (Pubitemid 44826628)
67. Joseph Lepgold, 'Is Anyone Listening? International Relations Theory and the Problem of Policy Relevance', Political Science Quarterly, 113 (1998), pp. 43-62.
68. Piki Ish-Shalom, '"The Civilization of Clashes": Misapplying the Democratic Peace in the Middle East', Political Science Quarterly, 122 (2007-2008), pp. 533-54.
69. Piki Ish-Shalom, 'The Rhetorical Capital of Theories: The Democratic Peace and the Road to the Roadmap', International Political Science Review, 29 (2008), pp. 281-301.
70. As can be seen in the title of the first academic article that pointed out the phenomenon of the democratic peace, Dean V. Babst, 'Elective Governments - A Force for Peace', The Wisconsin Sociologist, 3 (1964), pp. 9-14.
71. Douglas J. Davis, 'Reciprocity', in P. A. B. Clarke and A. Linzey (eds), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology, and Society (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 721-2.
72. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 88.
73. Lawrence C. Becker, 'Reciprocity, Justice, and Disability', Ethics, 116 (2005), p. 18.
74. Simon Blackburn, 'Reciprocity', in S. Blackburn (ed.), Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 310.
75. Alvin W. Gouldner, 'The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement', American Sociological Review, 25 (1960), p. 172.
76. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 207-22. In the realm of distributive justice, reciprocity can be conditioned by egalitarian principles. See, Stuart White, 'Liberal Equality, Exploitation, and the Case for an Unconditional Basic Income', Political Studies, 45 (1997), pp. 318-9.
77. Shlomi Segall, 'Unconditional Welfare Benefits and the Principle of Reciprocity', Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 4 (2005), p. 337.
78. Becker, 'Reciprocity, Justice, and Disability', pp. 20-1.
79. Smith, 'Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology', p. 92.
80. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Boston Beacon Press 1984), p. xiii.
81. Segall, 'Unconditional Welfare Benefits and the Principle of Reciprocity', p. 337.
82. William E. Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 97.
83. See, for example, Ericka Engelstad and Siri Gerrard, 'Challenging Situatedness', in Ericka Engelstad and Siri Gerrard (eds), Challenging Situatedness: Gender, Culture and the Production of Knowledge (Delft: Eburon, 2005), p. 6;
84. Sandra G. Harding, The science question in feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 137-8;
85. Sandra G. Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking From Women's Lives (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 163;
86. Harding, Is Science Multicultural?, p. 188;
87. Potter, Feminism and Philosophy of Science, p. 140;
88. Smith, 'Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology', p. 92.
89. Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, p. 163.
90. Though once again, the particularity implied by Harding is very much socially and materially located. The particularity I imply is more idealist as it is centred around a priori assumptions of various kinds and various (and undefined) origins.
91. Hawkesworth, 'Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth', p. 92.
92. See also, Piki Ish-Shalom, 'Theorizing Politics, Politicizing Theory, and the Responsibility That Runs Between', Perspectives on Politics, 7 (2009), p. 312;
93. Engelstad and Gerrard, 'Challenging Situatedness', p. 6;
94. Laurel S. Weldon, 'Inclusion and Understanding: A Collective Methodology for Feminist International Relations', in Brooke A. Ackerly, Maria Stern and Jacqui True (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 62-87.
95. Though those desires may be the motives and reasons for the action of theoreticians as sentient beings. As such, of course, they might be of interest to other theoreticians seeking to theoretically explain the social behaviour of the theoreticians as sentient beings.
96. Thus there is no acute breach of the privacy of theoreticians, and whatever breach does exists is proportional to the above-established obligation of transparency.
97. Ish-Shalom, 'The Triptych of Realism, Elitism, and Conservatism'.
98. Ibid., p. 441. I want to repeat that this doesn't mean that theory is ideology.
99. Though strictly speaking the theory I advance is a moral theory, not a social science one. Thus, the full force of the argument for transparency is not applicable. However, I can safely argue that in this case the principle of reciprocity does apply, and that it is sufficient by itself. In other words, what I demand of social science theoreticians I must be willing to undertake myself, namely the practice of self-reflexivity and transparency.
100. Adrienne Héritier, 'Composite democracy in Europe: The Role of Transparency and Access to Information', Journal of European Public Policy, 10 (2003), p. 819.
101. John S. Dryzek and Christian List, 'Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation', British Journal of Political Science, 33 (2003), p. 26.
102. Donatella della Porta, 'Deliberation in Movement: Why and How to Study Deliberative Democracy and Social Movements', Acta Politica, 40 (2005), p. 340.
103. Piki Ish-Shalom, 'Theorization, Harm, and the Democratic Imperative: Lessons from the Politicization of the Democratic-Peace Thesis', International Studies Review, 10 (2008), p. 690.