Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:19:47.852Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Interpretation of International Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John J. Weltman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Methodological controversy and self-awareness have been endemic in international relations. Yet it is curious how little genuine debate this has engendered, if we understand by “debate” an arena in which arguments are joined rather than one in which assertions are juxtaposed. One has instead the sense of a number of separate guilds, each of which proceeds on the basis of its own indigenous premises, conscious of the work of other groups only as caricature. The various guilds, or intellectual groups, may be distinguished on the basis of their central notions as to the most important data in the field, the appropriate manner of investigating that data, and the character of the knowledge which can result. Occasionally exercises in critique or defense, ostensibly directed outward, are undertaken, but the effect of these sallies remains internal to the group of origin. One finds little evidence of essential change in major premises brought about in response to external criticism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 27 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For example, Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar;Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding (New York, 1963)Google Scholar.

2 See Miller, Eugene F., “Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry,” American Political Science Review, 66 (1972), 796–817CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moon, J. Donald, “The Logic of Political Inquiry: A Synthesis of Opposed Perspectives,” in Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., ed., Handbook of Political Science (Reading, Massachusetts, 1975), 6: 121–228Google Scholar.

3 Bull, Hedley, “International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach,” in Knorr, Klaus and Rosenau, James N., eds., Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton, 1969), pp. 20–38Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 20.

5 Ibid., p. 30.

6 Kuhn, Structure. For a survey of the controversy surrounding these views, see Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan, ed., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 see Wight, Martin, “Why Is There No International Theory?” in Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin, Diplomatic Investigations (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966), pp. 17–34Google Scholar.

8 Waltz, , Man, the State and War (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

9 Wight, , “Western Values in International Relations,” in Butterfield and Wight, Diplomatic Investigations, pp. 89–131Google Scholar.

10 Bull, Hedley, “Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations,” British Journal of International Studies, 2 (1976), 101–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Bull, Hedley, “Introduction: Martin Wight and the Study of International Relations,” in Martin Wight, Systems of Slates (Leicester, 1977), pp. 1–20Google Scholar; Porter, Brian, “Patterns of Thought and Practice: Martin Wight's'International Theory'” in Donelan, Michael, ed., The Reason of States: A Study in International Political Theory (London 1978), pp. 64–74Google Scholar.

11 Bull, , The Anarchical Society (London, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 see Weltman, John J., “On the Obsolescence of War,” International Studies Quarterly, 18 (1974), 395–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 For a survey of dependency literature, see Pettman, Ralph H., State and Class: A Sociology of World Affairs (New York, 1979); and International Studies Quarterly, 25 (March 1981)Google Scholar.

14 For a survey of the interdependence literature, see Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., “International Interdependence and Integration,” in Greenstein, and Polsby, , Handbook, 8: 363–414Google Scholar. See also Morse, Edward L., Modernization and the Transformation of World Politics (New York, 1976)Google Scholar.

15 See Weltman, “On the Obsolescence of War.”

16 Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Massachusetts, 1979), pp. 41–59Google Scholar; also see Weltman, John J., Systems Theory in International Relations (Lexington, Massachusetts, 1973)Google Scholar.

17 see Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.

18 see Aron, Raymond, Peace and War (New York, 1967), esp. pp. 94–149Google Scholar; Hoffmann, Stanley, “Minerva and Janus,” in The State of War (New York, 1965), pp. 22–53Google Scholar; Hoffmann, “International Systems and International Law,” ibid., pp. 88–122.

19 Crick, , The American Science of Politics (London, 1959)Google Scholar.

20 See also, Bull, , “International Theory,” p. 37Google Scholar.

21 Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, 1976)Google Scholar.

22 see Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision (Boston, 1971)Google Scholar.

23 Rosenau, James N., ed., In Search of Global Patterns (New York, 1976), pp. 10–144Google Scholar.

24 For recent examples, see Baldwin, David A., “Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends vs. Old Tendencies,” World Politics, 31 (1979), 161–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hanrieder, Wolfram F., “Dissolving International Politics: Reflections on the Nation-State,” American Political Science Review, 72 (1978), 1276–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See Weltman, “On the Obsolescence of War.”

26 Waltz, , Man, the State and War, p. 69Google Scholar.

27 Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

28 For example, the essays in Donelan, Michael, ed., The Reason of States: A Study in International Political Theory (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

29 Waltz, Man, the State and War.

30 Ibid., esp. pp. 38–101.

31 Ibid., pp. 129–93.

32 See Snyder, Glenn H. and Diesing, Paul, Conflict among Nations (Princeton, 1977), pp. 419–70Google Scholar; also see Weltman, John J., “Nuclear Devolution and World Order,” World Politics, 32 (1980), 169–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.