‘A Life of Their Own’? Traditions, Power and ‘As If Realism’ in Political Analysis
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720921502 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720921502
Political Studies
2021, Vol. 69(3) 709 –724
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720921502
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‘A Life of Their Own’?
Traditions, Power and ‘As If
Realism’ in Political Analysis
Karl Pike
Abstract
This article explores the role of tradition in the social world and offers a theory of why some
traditions ‘stick’. Building on the ontological insight of ‘as if realism’, I argue that traditions are
constitutive both of an actor’s beliefs and of their institutional context, and so critical to political
analysis. The relative resonance of traditions can be understood as contingent upon power
relations and ideational maintenance of traditions by groups of upholders – what could be termed
‘socially contingent’. Traditions help us understand why a person believes what they believe
and how a person’s strategic calculations are affected by perceptions of what others believe.
They exert a powerful pull to political actors as orientation tools in complex social settings and
through the symbols and argumentation attached by those who uphold them. While traditions are
contingent upon people’s beliefs, it is ‘as if’ they have a life of their own.
Keywords
tradition, power, meanings, interpretivism, constructivism
Accepted: 3 April 2020
Introduction
In a foreshadowing of a future debate in political science, the historian Eric Hobsbawm
discussed the open question of the viability of traditions. In a paper which focused on the
‘invention’ of tradition, Hobsbawm (1977: 2) noted that the ‘extent to which invented
traditions . . . develop a life of their own’, and why some remained in existence while
others fell away, would have to remain points unaddressed for the time being.1 In more
contemporary work, while these critical questions are beginning to be addressed, tradition
remains ambiguous – simultaneously under-theorised, yet much discussed as a concept
seemingly overcome by intractable ontological differences within political science.
Across different approaches to political analysis, traditions have been seen as ideational
School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Karl Pike, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London E1
4NS, UK.
Email: k.pike@qmul.ac.uk
921502PSX0010.1177/0032321720921502Political StudiesPike
research-article2020
Article
710 Political Studies 69(3)
backgrounds that do not determine an actor’s beliefs going forward (Bevir and Rhodes,
2018: 17), part of an ‘ongoing social inheritance’ for actors (Bevir and Blakely, 2018: 54),
things that are ‘inscribed’ within institutions (Marsh et al., 2014: 341) and beliefs that can
be transmitted and developed not just by agents, but by ‘structures and discourses’ too
(Hall, 2011: 73). While traditions have long featured in political science, this article
argues that the ‘interpretive’ turn (Bevir and Blakely, 2018: 2), and a renewed focus on
traditions (Hay, 2011), requires further theoretical work to clarify a key ideational con-
cept. In so doing, I also aim to draw upon insights from different analytical approaches,
theorising tradition while avoiding ontological debates becoming ‘ontological evange-
lism’ (Hay, 2011: 175).
It is by attempting an answer to Hobsbawm’s question, one more recently articulated
by Emily Robinson (2016: 123) around ‘why certain traditions “stick”’, that this article
seeks to contribute to theorising tradition. Furthermore, and building on the suggestion
that to understand why some traditions ‘acquire and retain resonance’ we need to con-
sider synthesising interpretivist and constructivist insights (Hay, 2011: 167), this article
seeks to build on the suggestion of a synthesis. Working with an interpretive theoretical
framework, my argument also draws upon contributions from social constructivism,
critical realism and work exploring institutionalism. The argument’s distinctiveness lies
in an understanding of tradition to be what Colin Hay has termed ‘as if real’: both as an
analytical device and as part of a ‘separate ontological category’ where a conceptual
abstraction can still be understood as ‘at least partially generative of the practices and
processes which we can directly observe’ (Hay, 2014: 467). While all traditions are
legitimated by people and therefore contingent upon them (Berger and Luckmann, 1975:
111), the actions of those who uphold traditions can also lead to a level of social or insti-
tutional authority (Robinson, 2016: 121). Actors orient from (on the basis of inherited
beliefs) and around (on the basis of the beliefs of others) traditions, and these ‘effects’
can be usefully understood and analysed through an ‘as if real’ ontology (Hay, 2014:
465). Traditions are abstractions of particular beliefs and practices, and so not ‘real’. Nor
are they ‘real’ in the sense of being capable of agency. But they can appear ‘as if real’ on
the basis of the actions of groups of actors within historically contingent contexts. The
resonance2 of traditions, I argue, can therefore be understood as ‘socially contingent’:
that is, contingent upon power relations and the ideational maintenance of traditions by
their upholders.
Both are essential for understanding the contingency and relative resonance of tradi-
tions, and both are understated in the literature on tradition and interpretive political sci-
ence. From this ontological position comes the argument that traditions are partly
constitutive of both an actor’s beliefs and of their institutional context – they help us
understand why a person believes what they believe and how a person’s strategic calcula-
tions may be affected by perceptions of what others believe. Traditions are not only an
initial foregrounding of inherited beliefs, but also evolving and ongoing orientation tools
in dynamic institutional and political contexts (Hay, 2014; Robinson, 2016). This helps us
understand the relevance of traditions to any actor in an institutional context, particularly
where there is contestation over the ‘right way’ of doing things. It is an incredibly impor-
tant insight of interpretivism, effectively and convincingly set out in the work of Bevir
and Rhodes, that the stories people construct about the past, present and future are inte-
gral to understanding beliefs, motivations and actions. Epistemologically, this means
‘grasping the intentional content attached to human actions’ (Bevir and Rhodes, 2012).
Building on these insights requires us to ask why some stories prove to be so successful
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