Book Review: Milja Kurki, Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 349 pp., £62.00 hbk)
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298110400011206 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Fatemeh Shayan |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews 195
the most interesting – and most revealing of the difficulties in defining the exact meaning
of ‘globalising’ the research imagination. For Rizvi, the fact that students are moving
between different universities emphasises the connection between the local and the
global, thus calling for a new imaginary. For Connell, her interactions with international
students made her better aware of various intellectual traditions and of her own intellec-
tual and cultural predispositions as a supervisor. Yet, as Sassen warns us, student mobil-
ity ‘does not necessarily give them the tools to do serious research … [because] it can
soothe them into thinking that cosmopolitanism is all you need’ (p. 131). Hence, we are
back to the question of the value of travel experiences and how travel ‘globalises’ or not
the research imagination. Sassen gets the last words on this tension between the editors’
focus on travel experiences and the claim that travel is not necessary: ‘Producing know-
ledge is hard work’, she says, and this must be distinguished from the ‘highly visible
landscape’ of cosmopolitan travelling. ‘I’m a traveller, and I know how my thinking can
get stimulated, but it’s different from really trying to work through a massive reality that
demands decoding’ (p. 132).
Overall, the book is an enjoyable and stimulating read. The interviews entice the
reader to go read or reread the inspirational works of distinguished intellectuals, while
the book’s emphasis on the location of both knowledge and the researcher is crucial in
challenging disciplinary boundaries and hegemonic epistemologies, thus opening up
‘opportunities for thinking about globalization in fresh ways’ (p. 20). In particular, it
should be of great interest to graduate students and young researchers, not just in
globalisation, but across the social sciences.
Bruno Charbonneau
Bruno Charbonneau is an Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Laurentian
University, Canada.
Milja Kurki, Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008, 349 pp., £62.00 hbk).
Kurki’s book about causation in theoretical inquiry has crucial implications for the
discipline of International Relations (IR). A central contention of the book is that causal
analysis need not follow rationalist Humean lines, but can adopt non-Humean method-
ological, epistemological and ontological premises. This approach opens for re-evaluation
the social-scientific validity of theoretical approaches in IR. The book is welcomed
because it provides an important opening for more in-depth discussions of causality in
the field. It is also worth noting that the book suffers from a few shortcomings. This
review first examines the book’s structure and content. This evaluation is then followed
by comments and critical remarks. Finally, I explore if Kurki presents fresh options for
expanding the concept of causation in IR.
Kurki develops a model to reconceptualise the concept of causality by looking to
alternative philosophies of science to grasp the multiplicity of meanings surrounding
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