International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism , livre ebook

University of South Carolina Press - D. S. L. Jarvis

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

197 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Assesses current poststructural and postmodern theories and defends international relations as a discipline

Promising to stimulate discussion among both those who celebrate the arrival of the "Third Debate" and those who fear its colonialization and spread, D. S. L. Jarvis offers an innovative appraisal of the various postmodern and poststructural theories sweeping the discipline of international relations. Citing the work of Richard Ashley, Jarvis explores the lineage of postmodern theory, its importation into international relations, and its transformation from critical epistemology to subversive and deconstructive political program.

Inspired by a deep-seated concern that theory in international relations is becoming increasingly abstract and unrelated to the subject matter scholars strive to understand, Jarvis argues that much postmodern and poststructuraltheory has impoverished our theoretical understanding of global political relations, embroilling us in incommensurate discourses and research agendas driven by identity politics.

By developing a series of critical typologies to assess postmodern and poststructural theories, Jarvis mount a ringing defense of the discipline's exisiting research methods and epistemologies, and he suggests that more harm than good has come of the epistemological subversion occasioned by the Third Debate.

Sujets

International

General

Continental drift

International relations

General officer

International economics

Metatheory

POLITICAL SCIENCE

Informations

Publié par	University of South Carolina Press
Date de parution	24 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781643362892
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,2100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism
Studies in International Relations
Charles W. Kegley, Jr., and Donald J. Puchala, Series Editors
International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism
Defending the Discipline
D. S. L. Jarvis
University of South Carolina Press
2000 University of South Carolina
Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2000
Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2022
www.uscpress.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:
Jarvis, Darryl S. L., 1963-
International relations and the challenge of postmodernism : defending the discipline / Darryl S. L. Jarvis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57003-305-6 (cloth)
1. International relations-Philosophy. 2. Postmodernism-Political aspects. I. Title.
JZ1249 .J37 2000
327.1 01-dc21
99-6115
ISBN 978-1-64336-289-2 (ebook)
For Dad John Stuart Jarvis July 12, 1933-April 15, 1997 My Love Always
Contents
Preface
Chapter One
Theory and Metatheory in International Relations:
The Third Debate and the Challenge of Postmodernism
Chapter Two
Contemplating the Crisis in the Crisis of Contemplation:
Identity, Perception, and Derision in International Relations
Chapter Three
Sentinels of Dissidence:
A Typology of Postmodern Theory
Chapter Four
Richard K. Ashley and the Subversion of International Political Theory:
The Heroic Phase
Chapter Five
Continental Drift:
Ashley and Subversive Postmodernism
Chapter Six
Feminist Revisions of International Relations:
Identity Politics, Postmodern(isms), and Gender
Chapter Seven
In Defense of Theory:
Reaffirming Reason, Rearticulating Relevance
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Of the many thousands of words written about postmodernist perspectives and international theory, of the debates and disputes between the new converts to postmodernism and the defenders of modernity, Chris Brown s recent musing is perhaps the most informative, capturing the essence of this intellectual divide in a way that would seem to make stark the contrasts between them. Of postmodernism he writes, Those that like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like-those who do not, will not. 1 And this, perhaps, has been the extent of the Third Debate to date, an intellectual rift interspersed with ritual denunciations and affirmations of likes and dislikes. If the Third Debate were meant to bring clarity to a discipline otherwise congested with new approaches, issues areas and perspectives, then it has surely failed. The lexicon of postmodernism, its eclectic and discursive styles, has succeeded only in making more obtuse the issues, problems, and debates afoot in the discipline. For want of clarity the Third Debate has become little more than rehearsed statements of intransigence, spoken by those who announce and celebrate its arrival and those who would forestall its colonization and spread. Beyond such declarations, however, the Third Debate exists in name only, having been neither explored in terms of its consequences, nor appraised critically in terms of its offerings and contributions.
This study attempts such an appraisal by exploring critically the motifs of postmodern theory in International Relations. It does so out of a desire to make sense of the Third Debate and render it intelligible. Indeed, for many in the discipline the Third Debate and the subterfuge of postmodern theory have become somewhat of a malediction: a cumbersome exercise in semantic obfuscation that seems to cloud still further the subject of International Relations and lose it amid a continental vernacular. If only because of its abstruse nomenclature and penchant for interdisciplinary travels, many in International Relations remain perplexed by the new interpretivism and the challenges it poses to the discipline, its intellectual boundaries, and its theory. Critical assessments of postmodern theory and the Third Debate have therefore been few. Robert Gilpin, for example, can but lament the need for an English translation to such approaches and announce that, in the absence of one, he has no idea what it means. 2 Amid pronouncements of this new beginning and interpretive turn, among the debris of old theories and the invention of new ones, among new methodological perspectives, deconstructive strategies and postmodern theories, practitioners, theorists and students alike find themselves stumbling about with incertitude, lost in a discourse that prizes epistemological and ontological logomachy above clarity in communication. 3 This is a great debate like none the discipline has ever experienced before.
This book therefore aims to construct a baedeker to the Third Debate and postmodern theory in order that practitioners in the field might traverse the subterfuge of these debates and approaches and assess them critically for their utility to the study of international relations. In a sense this study might also be understood as an operating manual to the mechanics of postmodernist discourse, a means of glancing inside such theory to see its inner workings, suppositions, motivations, biases, aims, and objectives. I do so, however, not to celebrate the language deracination endemic to postmodern perspectives, but so as to bypass it and thereby make transparent the ontological and epistemological foundations on which postmodern theory is itself constructed. The originality of the study therefore lies in its attempt to expose the politics of postmodern theory in International Relations whereby certain varieties of postmodernist scholarship have been plundered and pillaged of particular motifs, imported into International Relations, and used in the pursuit of political ends. It is in this context that I also explore the unknown continent of postmodern scholarship generally, attempting to develop a series of heuristic typologies of postmodern theory in order that we might distinguish those varieties otherwise useful to International Relations from those that are not.
The rationale for this undertaking, however, is not purely pedagogical but stems from a deep-seated concern about the growing irrelevance and ethereality of theory in the discipline. The discourse of International Relations has moved to a plateau so incorporeal as to make its relevance to the actualities of international politics and the people whose lives and concerns are the real stuff of international relations extremely tenuous. Cries of crisis, disjuncture, theoretical perspectivism, and the umbrage of a dividing discipline would seem to be making meaningless those disciplinary boundaries that otherwise give us a sense of purpose or common project. 4 Theory in International Relations seems to be less about international politics than about metaphysical reflections of how it is that we have come to know of international relations. Arguably, the sociology of knowledge has become the defining motif of the Third Debate, causing us to lose sight of the subject we once used to study. This book is thus an attempt to regain sight of the subject of International Relations and a call to practitioners to return to theoretical endeavors that aim to explain and understand the phenomena of our subject matter.
More specifically, though, this book is also born of a suspicion of postmodernism, at least in the context of its importations into International Relations. The growing popularity of postmodernist perspectives in the discipline, the ready acceptance by many of the need to engage in deconstructive practices, the allegations of moral improprieties, and the imputation of disciplinary culpability in numerous horrors waged in the name of modernity and science reeks of a political witch hunt not before seen in the discipline. Theory, while always a powerful tool that can be used in the service of specific rationalities, seems increasingly to be a political instrument, hijacked for its destructive potential and wielded in accusatory and threatening fashion. This book is thus a defense of the edifice of theory as one of the crowning achievements of the past several centuries, of theory as an idea, as Nicholas Onuf puts it, of theory as an enterprise, theory as an economic statement of what we think we know about the world and ourselves, and of theory as the grounds for judgement. 5
Doubtless this study will prove unpopular with postmodernists. It neither compliments their work nor finds many saving graces that might recommend it to others. At the same time, though, this is a work inspired by postmodernism-albeit as a reaction against it. More accurately, it is a reaction against a particular motif evident in the majority of so-called postmodernist discourse operative in International Relations today. This should not be confused, however, with any derision toward the exercise of the Third Debate itself. Intellectual self-examinations are a necessary part of any disciplinary/intellectual endeavor and should be done periodically, although perhaps not perpetually. Rather, my concern is with a particular variety of postmodernism that, in International Relations, has come to dominate dissident scholarship to the exclusion of other postmodern perspectives. As Chapters 4 , 5 , and 6 will more fully elucidate, I target what I call subversive postmodernism, exemplified in the writings of Richard Ashley and Robert Walker and, more recently, in radical feminist postmodern writings for taking the discipline d