Militarizing politics, essentializing identities: Interpretivist process tracing and the power of geopolitics
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| Author | Stefano Guzzini |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836717719735 |
| Subject Matter | Rejoinder article |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717719735
Cooperation and Conflict
2017, Vol. 52(3) 423 –445
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836717719735
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Militarizing politics,
essentializing identities:
Interpretivist process tracing
and the power of geopolitics
Stefano Guzzini
Abstract
This reply to the Symposium on Stefano Guzzini (ed.) The return of geopolitics in Europe?, answers
the criticisms by John Agnew, Jeffrey Checkel, Dan Deudney and Jennifer Mitzen. It justifies (1) its
specific definition and critique of geopolitics as a theory – and not just a foreign policy strategy; (2)
its proposed interpretivist process tracing; (3) the role of mechanisms in constructivist theorizing
and foreign policy theory; and (4) its usage of non-Humean causality in the analysis of multiple
parallel processes and their interaction. At the same time, it develops the logic of the book’s main
mechanism of foreign policy identity crisis reduction.
Keywords
Causality, constructivism, foreign policy analysis, geopolitics, identity, social/causal mechanisms
The return of geopolitics in Europe? (Guzzini, 2012c) engages a series of research agen-
das: the analysis of European security in the 1990s, the content and role of geopolitical
theory, the usage of social mechanisms and process tracing in interpretivism and the theo-
rization of micro-dynamics in constructivist theories of international relations (IR). It did
not start that way (Guzzini, 2003). The more the research advanced, the more these differ-
ent agendas connected. To a considerable extent, this is due to the discussion within the
research group. Although the six framework and theory chapters addressed in this Forum
were written by myself, they have been informed by an ongoing conversation. Far from
simply providing case studies on different countries, the other authors in the book are all
theorists in their own right with quite diverse sensitivities (Astrov and Morozova, 2012;
Behnke, 2012; Bilgin, 2012; Brighi and Petito, 2012; Drulák, 2012; Kuus, 2012). Their
empirical analyses were no mere application, but spurred reflections that fed back into the
Corresponding author:
Stefano Guzzini, Danish Institute for International Studies, Østbanegade 117, 2100 Copenhagen Ø,
Denmark.
Email: sgu@diis.dk
719735CAC0010.1177/0010836717719735Cooperation and ConflictGuzzini
research-article2017
Rejoinder article
424 Cooperation and Conflict 52(3)
general framework; inversely, the discussion around the framework also affected the dif-
ferent paths of their own research (see e.g. Behnke, 2013; Bilgin, 2017; Kuus, 2014).
The present Forum bears witness to the book’s approach to thinking empirics, meth-
odology and theory at the same time. John Agnew (in Agnew et al., 2017), although
generally sympathetic, sees crucial factors missing. Daniel Deudney (in Agnew et al.,
2017) takes me to task over the very understanding and tradition of geopolitics. Jeffrey
Checkel (in Agnew et al., 2017) assesses the methodological proposal of interpretivist
process tracing with the teaser of excessive inductivism. Jennifer Mitzen (in Agnew
et al., 2017) would have preferred more theoretical engagement with anxiety, identity
and security in constructivism before making the methodological jumps.
My reply roughly follows the logic of the book. I will start with Deudney, who got
lost, perhaps not ‘on Earth’, but somewhere in Chapter 2. Since he alone misunderstands
the research design and choices of the book, most of his remarks are unfortunately irrel-
evant. Yet, they allow me to situate the logic of the book before addressing Agnew’s,
Checkel’s and Mitzen’s incisive comments on theory and methodology.
Which geopolitics?
Deudney (in Agnew et al., 2017: 10) claims that the omissions, absences and silences
profoundly shape ‘in negative ways the insights this book advances about the nature of
foreign policy crises, the role of “geopolitical” claims in the politics of this crisis’. In one
stroke, he reduces foreign policy identity crises to simple foreign policy crises and,
hence, eliminates the major focus of the book. As he sees it, I omit the pedigree of con-
temporary geopolitical thought – from Colin Gray’s strategic culture to his own work –
that shows how geopolitical and liberal, democratic and republican thought can be
combined. I do not deal with the central role of technology in geopolitical thought, nei-
ther at its height (Mackinder) nor in its role at the end of the Cold War with the nuclear
fear heightened by Chernobyl. Finally, all turns towards Russia again, when I miss how
justified Russia’s foreign policy (now suddenly) ‘identity crisis’ is in the wake of the
gentlemen’s agreement undermined by a cheating West.1 Instead, I concentrate on Ratzel,
the pre-Nazi soil and land (Lebensraum) theorist.
The critique follows an established scheme. People criticize geopolitics, either
because they do not know it, or because they have put on ideological blinders. Geopolitics
is the victimized pet enemy of the righteous but ignorant liberal idealist. If only Deudney
had read the chapter carefully, not to speak of the other chapters that establish the puzzle
and framework of analysis, he would have noticed that the purpose of this chapter had to
be entirely different than assessing a geopolitical explanation of the end of the Cold War
or the crisis in Ukraine. He may have been intrigued by me making a controversial
defence of Ratzel from easy charges of proto-fascist expansionism, and noticed that I do
not omit but actually use Gray’s strategic culture, yet as a way to show the difference
with the proposed framework (Guzzini, 2012a: 51–52). This said, his neglect of the main
purpose of the study and even of the argument of the chapter in case makes it necessary
for me to clarify the issue.
The first chapter (Guzzini, 2012f) establishes the background to the puzzle and sets
the stage for the definition in Chapter 2. To (geopolitical) realists, the revival of
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