Towards a political concept of reversibility in international relations: Bridging political philosophy and policy studies
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066119836469 |
| Author | Hartmut Behr |
research-article2019
EJ R
I
Article
European Journal of
International Relations
Towards a political concept of
2019, Vol. 25(4) 1212 –1235
© The Author(s) 2019
reversibility in international
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119836469
DOI: 10.1177/1354066119836469
relations: Bridging political
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philosophy and policy studies
Hartmut Behr
Newcastle University, UK
Abstract
While contingency and negation are relatively well-established notions in the
theoretical analysis of international relations, their practical implications remain under-
conceptualised. In order to discuss the question of how to act under conditions of
contingency and negation, this article, in a first step, triangulates both with Aristotelian
noesis. Such triangulation suggests that the consequences of political action cannot
be predicted and always have inadvertent consequences due to the contingent and
historically and intellectually negated and refutable (even self-refutable) character
of politics. It therefore appears as irresponsible to enact policies with interminable
consequences. Rather, responsible political action — which is responsible precisely
as, and only if, it accounts for contingency and negation — must hence act only in
such a way that its consequences are reversible. In a second step, policy theory is
critically reviewed in light of reversibility and its underlying philosophical principles,
trying to bridge political philosophy and policy studies for a mutually enriched analysis
of politics. Such a bridging exercise not only brings enhanced normative reflection into
policy studies, but also, in reverse, hints at the crucial aspect of the non-linear unfolding
of action consequences, which is, in addition to questions for a future research agenda,
discussed in the concluding section. These discussions are understood as a twofold,
yet interlinked, contribution: first, to develop a concept of reversibility as a practical
response to the philosophical notions of contingency and negation; and, second, to
bridge two different paradigms, encouraging the synergy of scholarly expertise for the
management of contemporary international and global problems.
Corresponding author:
Hartmut Behr, International Politics, School of Geography, Politics, Sociology, Newcastle University, 40–42
Great North Road, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK.
Email: Hartmut.behr@ncl.ac.uk
Behr
1213
Keywords
Contingency, critical theory, policy studies, reflexive realism, reversibility
Introduction
Political problems in the 21st century demand radical imagination to cope with the most
serious global challenges. The consequences of these problems existentially concern pre-
sent and further generations as they fundamentally put the conditions of our societies and
of the world at risk. For tackling respective problems, mono-paradigm and mono-disci-
plinary ways to analyse politics and to design policies are limited and in need of renego-
tiation. Radical imagination includes the questioning of the ways in which we are used
to thinking and acting in order to synergise expertise across and between disciplines and
sub-disciplines to learn from each other. Researchers, political analysts and policymak-
ers must jointly develop new approaches to research and to political action. The synergy
of cross-paradigm research across humanities and social sciences (and natural sciences
too) is therefore more conducive than epistemological and methodological silos.
Concretely, this article bridges philosophy in International Relations (IR) and policy
process studies, speaking initially to two audiences, but ultimately attempting to create a
new audience through the interlocution of these two disciplines.
This bridging exercise between political philosophy in IR and policy studies seeks to
create an avenue to develop normative thinking in policy studies and to move IR theory
out of its theoretical corner into the terrain of political practice and policymaking. This
interlocution addresses both the generic theory–practice problem in IR and provides an
action-theoretical orientation in order to progress from reflection on the conditions of the
possibility to a conceptual consideration of the possibility of responsible politics. This
progress offers guidance dealing with contemporary political problems in a pluralist and
contingent world in which we need policy norms without prescribing or determining the
content of politics. As the bridging exercise has reciprocal learning effects, a concept of
reversibility also needs to analyse the non-linearity, negation and refutation of the tem-
poral unfolding of policy consequences, as alluded to by policy process studies.
In the study of international politics, particularly in critical IR (see, among others,
Rengger and Thirkell-White, 2007),1 contingency and negation have become acknowl-
edged notions (see, among others, Anievas, 2016; Katzenstein and Seybert, 2018;
Kessler, 2016; Kratochwil, 1991; Levine, 2012) due to the reception of a diverse spec-
trum of social and political theories.2 Yet, although the theory–practice relation plays an
important part in IR (see, among others, Kratochwil, 2003; Lepgold, 1998; Smith, 2003;
Zalewski, 1996; from a more orthodox IR angle, see Walt, 2005), the question of how
contingency and dialectic negation inform political practice remains underdeveloped.
Therefore, this article explores the question of what kind of action and policies conclude
from the non-linearity and perspectivity of contingent and always refuting and refuted
politics. We need to go further than ‘just’ prudential, ‘realist’ admonitions to choose the
lesser evil (Morgenthau, 1945; see also Molloy, 2009), important as this insight is.
In order to explore this question of the practical implications of the notions of contin-
gency and dialectic negation, this article triangulates both with the Aristotelian notion of
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European Journal of International Relations 25(4)
noesis (which stresses the prime status of the human experience of political uncertainties,
indeterminacies and contingencies, emphasising the analytical awareness of the corre-
spondence of political order with such experience). Seeing contingency, negation and
noesis as co-constitutive and irreducible conceptual elements of political ethics
(Baumann, 1993)3 provides insights into what responsible political action mindful of the
tensions of politics in a contingent and pluralist world would be like. Consequently, poli-
tics should and must not attempt to dissolve these tensions by claiming final answers and
by acting upon them.4 Instead, we need to adopt a politics of reversibility, which will be
developed in this article as the scrutiny of policy consequences according to whether or
not they harm the principles of contingency and negation. This implies that if policy
decisions harm the principles of contingency and negation, then a politics of reversibility
would stop the implementation of those policies. Policymaking must therefore be action-
theoretically guided by the principle of non-irreversibility,5 that is, by planning and
implementing policies that do not violate or undermine contingency and negation as
intrinsic conditions of politics.6
The article proceeds in two main steps. The first section outlines the triangulation of
contingency, negation and noesis, examining the formulation of each concept in the
political and social theories of Hans Morgenthau (on contingency), Herbert Marcuse (on
negation) and Eric Voegelin (on noesis),7 and showing their relationship to the theme of
reversibility in IR. The second section explores the contribution of a concept of reversi-
bility to policy process studies. The purpose of this section is to attempt to explore the
possibilities of a philosophical understanding of reversibility for a more practical engage-
ment with politics. Policy process studies have been chosen for such a first step to render
a philosophical concept more practical as they make very similar observations of poli-
tics.8 Their ontological observation (even though they would not term them ‘ontologi-
cal’) of non-linearity and inadvertent action consequences that negate and refute policy
planning (Sharkansky, 2002; Weible, 2014; Wilson, 1989; Zahariadis, 2014) is a promis-
ing way to bring in reversibility. However, they fail to account for the epistemological
consequences of this observation, disallowing, as will be shown later, normative think-
ing. This discussion reveals that policy process studies underplay the question of contin-
gency and non-linearity in politics and that a concept of reversibility suggests an
important move in policy studies towards a more reflective and normative understanding
of policy processes. The conclusion develops further questions for a future research
agenda, which outline the temporal implications of reversibility and bring in the concept
of reversibility into policymaking.
On contingency, negation and noesis
On the triangulation of contingency, negation and noesis
The triangulation of contingency, dialectic negation and noesis suggests that all three are
to be regarded as ‘gleichursprünglich’ (‘co-original’, in a Habermasian sense; see
Habermas, 1994 [1968], 2008) for the understanding and analysis of politics. This
implies most importantly that they function as...
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