The closing of the American mind: ‘American School’ International Relations and the state of grand theory
| Author | Alexander D. Barder,Daniel J. Levine |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066114530010 |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2014
EJ R
I
Article
European Journal of
International Relations
The closing of the American
2014, Vol. 20(4) 863 –888
© The Author(s) 2014
mind: ‘American School’
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066114530010
International Relations and the
ejt.sagepub.com
state of grand theory
Daniel J. Levine
University of Alabama, USA
Alexander D. Barder
American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Abstract
Senior ‘American School’ International Relations theorists — John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt, Robert Keohane, and others — have evinced a growing concern about a
rise of technocratic hypothesis-testing, and a parallel decline in grand theory. We share
many of their concerns; yet, we also find such discussions deeply unsatisfying. Grand
theory descends into ‘technocracy’ because of reifying and depoliticizing processes
deeply woven into both thought and the academic vocation. While confronting such
processes is possible, these same scholars are among those who dismiss — and have
long dismissed — the key intellectual moves that would sustain such a confrontation.
That infelicitous combination, we argue, is unlikely to produce a renaissance of grand
theory; indeed, past precedent suggests that it will further stifle it. To suggest how these
theorists might better revalorize grand theory, we develop disciplinary-historical case
studies around two key research programs: neo-functionalism and structural liberalism.
Both were the product of an abiding commitment to grand theory; yet, both fell into
reified and depoliticized stances that left little space for such theory. Breaking that
cycle of reification and depoliticization might yet be possible; but it will require thinking
beyond the call for ‘more grand theory.’
Keywords
Depoliticization, ‘end of International Relations theory,’ grand theory, hypothesis-
testing, International Relations theory, reification
Corresponding author:
Daniel J. Levine, University of Alabama, Box 870213, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0213, USA.
Email: daniel.j.levine@ua.edu
864
European Journal of International Relations 20(4)
Powerful professional incentives encourage an emphasis on simplistic hypothesis-testing,
and the rise of think tanks and consulting firms has reduced demand for academic scholarship
on policy issues. IR [International Relations] scholars are less inclined to develop, refine
and test theories … and we are not optimistic that this situation will change. (Mearsheimer
and Walt, 2013: 449)
Introduction
In an article appearing in this journal’s recent ‘End of IR theory’ special issue, John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt lament what they see as the ‘triumph of methods over
theory’ (Mearsheimer and Walt, 2013: 429). By that, they mean a particular shift in IR
research, away from what they call ‘grand theory’ and toward ‘hypothesis-testing.’ The
latter, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, represents attempts at determining ‘plausible’
covariations; determining ‘statistically significant relationship[s]’ in larger-scale phe-
nomena while downplaying explanations or understanding causal relations inferred from
collected data (Mearsheimer and Walt, 2013: 438). Such approaches lend themselves to
statistical methods, determining dependent and independent variables, and, as a conse-
quence, result in ‘little attention to specifying the mechanisms linking independent and
dependent variables and virtually no attention to exploring them directly’ (Mearsheimer
and Walt, 2013: 438). Put differently, they argue, the question of why such variables are
associated or correlated remains beyond the scope of mere hypothesis-testing. Only
grand theory can lay the groundwork for understanding and explaining how patterns and
practices emerge in world politics. Such theory, as they understand it, provides maps that
simplify and interpret reality. They guide scholars by identifying which variables in par-
ticular are significant enough in their explanatory potential to merit sustained hypothe-
sis-testing by providing larger explanations as to how things work.
Mearsheimer and Walt are not alone in their concerns. Recently, Robert Keohane
admonished the community of IR theorists to ‘be … aware of the uncertainty of our
inferences’ (Keohane, 2008: 710). International theory has, Keohane avers, tended to
focus on establishing ‘static conditional generalizations’ that are not amenable to height-
ened periods of change; IR scholars need to ask ‘big questions’ about changes in human
history and the international system. At risk of getting caught up in the particularities of
a present condition or a particular historical moment, Keohane implicitly recognizes that
methods will not, on their own, be able to determine the substance of what is ‘political’
about IR. ‘To my taste,’ Keohane continues:
there has been an overemphasis recently on tools at the expense of reflection about which
questions are most important for the human race and for the ecosystem. Focusing on major
problems can help us to figure out which insights from the broad approaches to the field
are valuable, and which analytical tools yield genuine insights or evidence. (Keohane,
2008: 714)
What has caused this turn away from grand theories and big questions? Mearsheimer
and Walt seek their answers in the institutional workings of the American academy: the
growth of second-tier graduate programs; shortening publication and training timeta-
bles; the professionalization of funding; and the growing influence of think tanks
Levine and Barder
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(Mearsheimer and Walt, 2013: 445–448). Keohane, too, has alluded to ‘professional’
constraints, though his focus remains more overtly normative (Keohane, 2002: 9–10).
‘The way we think about practical issues such as institutional design,’ Keohane has
argued, ‘will necessarily be shaped by our answers to these fundamental normative
questions’ (Keohane, 2008: 713). The merit of asking ‘big questions’ (‘How has world
politics been affected by changes in capitalism?’; ‘Is there any plausible sense in which
progress has taken place?’) lies precisely in their potential to unsettle profound assump-
tions about what constitutes the array of political, economic, and social forces that hold
a particular epoch together (Keohane, 2008: 710–713). Keohane is forthright in his
cosmopolitan democratic liberalism and how it connects his theoretical motivations to
his normative ideals (Keohane, 2002: 10).1 What is less clear, however, is the extent to
which he admits the radical potentialities of distinct socio-political arrangements
beyond his own normative inclinations; the degree to which those same inclinations
may generate resistance, insofar as they may, for example, offer only limited horizons
to those most disadvantaged by them.2
Despite a very different disposition to ‘grand theory,’ David Lake reveals a similar
ambivalence. Methodological rationalism, he asserts, is the equivalent of the philoso-
pher’s stone, dissolving all ‘isms’ — mutually exclusive grand-theoretic worldviews and
essentially contested sensibilities — together. But, if so, then surely rationalism is itself
an ‘ism’: a point made by IR theorists from Stanley Hoffmann (1977) to Brian Rathbun
(2012, 2013). Overlooking this allows Lake to dismiss the unsettling possibility that IR
theories and theorists must contend with worlds that are radically morally incompatible
with one another; moreover, that this incompatibility is not an epistemological artifact or
a matter of intellectual sectarianism, but an inherent, enduring feature of political life.
The question of ‘hav[ing] something constructive to say to policymakers’ who wish to
engage in broad processes of global steering must, presumably, depend upon what those
policymakers wish to steer us toward: the moral quality of their goals and the cultural-
contextual value systems from which those moral considerations spring (Lake, 2011:
472). As Anne Norton — and, before her, a line of philosophical inquiry stretching from
Nietzsche to Foucault — has pointed out, those values will always be relative and con-
textual; and they will, accordingly, always engender resistance (Norton, 2004a: 60–65:
2004b). Yet, on this point, Lake — and, like him, Mearsheimer, Walt, and Keohane — is
silent. Nor are they alone: varying degrees of that silence can be discerned in ‘American
School’ IR, from Alex Wendt to Richard Price, Rudra Sil, and Peter Katzenstein.3
A certain mismatch is at work here. For Mearsheimer, Walt, and Keohane, the demise
of grand-theoretical inquiry in the contemporary academy is attributed to the purely
‘hypothetical’ study of events in world politics. Yet, all three were instrumental through-
out the 1980s and 1990s in idealizing research agendas that proceeded from just this sort
of hypothesis-testing. All three, that is, called in various ways for more ‘scientific’ means
of determining notions of validity: developing ‘cumulative knowledge’ based on ‘stand-
ard canons of scientific research’ — as if the purpose of those canons was not specifically
to isolate political ‘science’ from cross-cutting contested values and contingent forces
and dynamics in order to carefully pose, and test, hypotheses.4 Further, they specifically
rejected — and continue to reject — those approaches to IR that aimed to bring such
factors into a space of critical and...
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