1 See also autoethnography, Preez, Jan du, ‘Locating the Researcher in the Research: Personal Narrative and Reflective Practice’, Reflective Practice, 9 (2008), pp. 509–519Google Scholar . Neo-pragmatism also seeks to locate knowledge in a particular perspective, see Baert, Patrick, Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Towards Pragmatism (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 136, 153–154Google Scholar .

2 Rosenau, James N., Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar .

3 Ibid., p. 405.

4 Ersel, Aydinli and Rosenau, James N., ‘Courage Versus Caution: A Dialogue on Entering and Prospering in IR’, International Studies Review, 6 (2004), pp. 511–526Google Scholar . 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.

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. See, Potter, Elizabeth, Feminism and Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 131–132Google Scholar ; Smith, Dorothy E., ‘Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology’, in Harding, Sandra G. (ed.), Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 91Google Scholar ; Hawkesworth, Mary E., ‘Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth’, in Laslett, Barbara, Kohlstedt, Sally G., Longino, Helen and Hammonds, Evelynn (eds), Gender and Scientific Authority (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 78Google Scholar ; Barbara Laslett, Sally G. Kohlstedt, Helen Longino and Evelynn Hammonds, ‘Introduction’, in Ibid., p. 192; Haraway, Donna, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies, 14 (1988), pp. 575–599.Google Scholar

6 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.’ Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd edition, edited by John Scott and Gordon Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 477. 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. 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.

7 Latour, Bruno, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar . Jasanoff, Sheila, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar , Jasanoff, Sheila, Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the US (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar ; Pielke, Roger A., The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar ; Longino, Helen E., The fate of knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar .

8 For example, Wight, Colin, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 51–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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10 Ibid., p. 43. See also, Schütz, Alfred, The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. Walsh, George and Lehnert, Frederick (Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 1967), p. 226Google Scholar ; Cochran, Molly, ‘Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivist Social Science in IR’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 31 (2002), pp. 535–536Google Scholar .

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12 Falleti, Tulia G. and Lynch, Julia F., ‘Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis’, Comparative Political Studies, 42 (2009), pp 1143–1166CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

13 Ibid., p. 1145. Emphasis added.

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18 Ibid., p. 129. For a recent critical exercise in the historicisation of the meaning of democracy, see Hobson, Christopher, ‘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. 631–657CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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20 Pouliot, Vincent, ‘The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities’, International Organization, 62 (2008), pp. 257–288CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

21 While this understanding is most explicit in the constructivist approach to the social science it is by all means not exclusive to it.

22 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.

23 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 Fuller, Steve, Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)Google Scholar . Fuller favours Popper and sees his philosophy of science as companion to democratic politics and ‘the open society’. Ibid., p. 16.

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25 See footnote 6.

26 As analysed above, these patterned regularities can be seen as universally or contextually applicable, depending on the theoretical approach.

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35 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.

36 Ibid., pp. 463–4.

37 Riedel, Eibe, ‘The Human Right to Social Security: Some Challenges’, in Riedel, Eibe (ed.), Social Security as a Human Right: Drafting a General Comment on Article 9 ICESCR – Some Challenges (Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, 2007), p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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39 Social capital is intimately linked to trust, which in the terms used here is a kind of inner state of human mind.

40 Ibid., pp. 97–8.

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57 Smith, ‘Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology’, p. 92.

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63 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.

64 Hawkesworth, ‘Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth’, p. 92.

65 Ibid., p. 96.

66 See also, Ish-Shalom, Piki, ‘Theorizing Politics, Politicizing Theory, and the Responsibility That Runs Between’, Perspectives on Politics, 7 (2009), p. 312Google Scholar ; Engelstad and Gerrard, ‘Challenging Situatedness’, p. 6; Weldon, Laurel S., ‘Inclusion and Understanding: A Collective Methodology for Feminist International Relations’, in Ackerly, Brooke A., Stern, Maria and True, Jacqui (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 62–87Google Scholar .

67 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.

68 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.

69 Ish-Shalom, ‘The Triptych of Realism, Elitism, and Conservatism’.

70 Ibid., p. 441. I want to repeat that this doesn't mean that theory is ideology.

71 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.

72 Héritier, Adrienne, ‘Composite democracy in Europe: the Role of Transparency and Access to Information’, Journal of European Public Policy, 10 (2003), p. 819CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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