Micro-moves in International Relations theory
| Author | Brent J. Steele,Ty Solomon |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116634442 |
E
JR
I
https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116634442
European Journal of
International Relations
2017, Vol. 23(2) 267 –291
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354066116634442
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
Micro-moves in International
Relations theory
Ty Solomon
University of Glasgow, UK
Brent J. Steele
University of Utah, USA
Abstract
This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent ‘micro-moves’ in several
contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International
Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions and
the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory’s
value without ‘going down’ to ‘lower levels’ of analysis where structures are enacted
and contested. We suggest that empirics of the last 15 years — including the war on
terror and the Arab Spring — have pushed scholars into increasingly micropolitical
positions and analytical frameworks. Drawing upon insights from Gilles Deleuze, William
Connolly and Henri Lefebvre, among others, we argue that attention to three issues —
affect, space and time — hold promise to further develop micropolitical perspectives
on and in International Relations, particularly on issues of power, identity and change.
The article offers empirical illustrations of the analytical purchase of these concepts via
discussion of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Arab Spring uprisings.
Keywords
Constructivism, critical security studies, critical theory, International Relations,
ontology, post-structuralism
Introduction
Every macro-theory presupposes, whether implicitly or explicitly, a micro-theory to back
up its explanations. (Steven Lukes (1982: 16), Introduction to Emile Durkheim’s The
Rules of Sociological Method)
Corresponding author:
Ty Solomon, School of Social and Political Sciences, Adam Smith Building, Bute Gardens, University of
Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK.
Email: ty.solomon@glasgow.ac.uk
634442EJT0010.1177/1354066116634442European Journal of International RelationsSolomon and Steele
research-article2016
Article
268 European Journal of International Relations 23(2)
The balance one strikes between the macro and micro is a tension that has character-
ized social theory since at least Durkheim’s time. Whether it is titled a level-of-analy-
sis (Singer, 1961) or agent–structure (Wendt, 1987) ‘problem’, International Relations
(IR) has faced its own related quandaries over which level(s) should be afforded theo-
retical, methodological and even normative primacy. Since Kenneth Waltz’s (1959)
critique of the first and second images as inadequate to capture the most important
dynamics of world politics, IR has at times focused within a grand theory mode that
too often eschews the myriad of subsystem and sub-state phenomena. Attention to
anarchy and its inescapable pressures on nation-states was said to offer the most reli-
able insights into the ‘small number of big and important things’ of which IR should
mostly concern itself (Waltz, 1986: 329). While a recent and persuasive 2013 special
issue of the European Journal of International Relations considered whether we were
at the ‘End of IR theory’, there continues to be a default admonition to scholars, and
students, to re-embrace grand theory (Harrison and Mitchell, 2014; Snyder, 2013). A
15 December 2011 post by Professor Brian Rathbun on the popular blog ‘Duck of
Minerva’ provides ample illustration of this move — an exaltation to all IR scholars to
find the ‘big’ theoretical argument that will make them famous. The post asks graduate
students (especially) whether the empirical studies that seem to have permeated IR as
of late ‘will make you the next Robert Keohane? Or Alex Wendt? Will we be talking
about you in 20 years? I doubt it’.1
Nevertheless, although grand theory neglected most of the life of global politics, life
continued with or without it. In a field long dominated by the recurring attraction to
grand theories, and one whose disciplinary trends continue to incentivize a refocus upon
global structures and systems, there are continued moves afoot not only in complement-
ing, but in steering away from, such systemic frameworks. Building upon several well-
established critical traditions, a number of recent efforts have inverted Waltz’s lens of the
three images. Rather than peering down on the world from the third-image heights of
systemic pressures, many now explore the significance of the micro, the everyday and
the quotidian of global politics. While some, as suggested in the aforementioned special
issue of the European Journal of International Relations, may lament that we are near
the ‘end of IR theory’, we contend that it is only now — with increasing shifts to the
micro — that academic IR has begun to (re)discover the lives and people of global poli-
tics, and to breathe life back into a field that grand theory mostly neglected.
How might we characterize or appraise these micro-moves? What is a micropolitical
approach to IR, and how might scholars take advantage of this and develop micropolitics
going forward? To the first question, we suggest three sets of reasons for the turn to mic-
ropolitics: the empirical trend of interstate war’s decreasing frequency; the political con-
text of the 2000s; and the theoretical shortcomings of grand and systemic theory. We also
seek to characterize micropolitics as exemplified in (parts of) three contemporary agen-
das: practices, emotions and the everyday. Important strands of each of these agendas
emphasize key factors that escape macro-level theories yet are the very elements through
which macro-forces are often filtered. Whether through practice research that empha-
sizes the generative power of diplomatic practices (Adler and Pouliot, 2011), emotions
work that explores how individual emotions become collective and political (Hutchison
and Bleiker, 2014), or research on the everyday focused on the actions of ‘ordinary’
To continue reading
Request your trial