Sociology is
necessary to understand International Relations. How much do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer.
Barry Gilheany ©
In this essay I argue that insights from sociology,
specifically from historical sociology, are essential to the understanding of
International Relations. There has been
a surge in academic interest in the
application of sociology to International Relations (IR) due to the theoretical
deficiencies within the latter discipline which have become apparent to many. These relate particularly to its failure to
predict the end of the Cold War which prompted much soul-searching within the
discipline and the inability of contemporary International Relations generally
to explain the causes of the shifting sands in global politics since 1989. In my resume of the main corpus of IR theory,
I explain that the essential reductionism of IR analysis and practice has
necessitated a reorientation of IR towards more sociological accounts of
transnational relations
Nye defines International
Politics as politics in the absence of a common sovereign, politics among
entities with no ruler above them.
Consequently international politics is often called anarchic in the
sense that there is no higher government unlike domestic politics where the
government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Since international politics is the realm of
self-help lacking a Hobbesian sovereign or Leviathan, and some states are
stronger than others, there is always the danger of them resorting to force (Nye
Jr, 2005).
There are two main approaches to International
Politics: the realist and liberal with realism being historically
the dominant approach. For realists the
central problem of international politics is war in a world where life can be
‘nasty, brutish and short’, the central actors are states and the beginning and
the end of the international system is the individual state in interaction with
other states. Liberals envisage a global
society that functions alongside the states.
Trade crosses frontiers, people interact across borders and
international institutions such as the United Nations perform some
international governance functions (Nye Jr, 2005 p.5).
In the 1980s, “neorealist” scholars such as Kenneth
Waltz and “neoliberals” such as Robert Keohane developed structural models of
states as rational actors constrained by the international system. The Waltzian version of neorealism is
particularly problematic as Waltz claims that the international system is
essentially unchanging in which political forms (units) compete with each other
and that the domestic aspects or characters of states cannot affect the
international realm because all states conform to the logic of competitive
survival. He pointedly rejects any role
for sociological analysis in IR as such an approach would produce a picture of
constant international change, as opposed to continuity (Hobson, 2002)
This emphasis on states and international systems and
the concomitant relegation of domestic and human dimensions of decision-making
was a major contributory actor to the failure of IR specialists to see the end
of the Cold War coming (Gaddis, 1993).
In the post-Cold War world, international politics has been marked much
more by change than continuity. It went
through ‘one of those deep mutations’ (Hobson 2002, p.15). It is because of
this moment that historical sociology has a crucial role to play in the
reassessment of the study of IR.
In promoting the volume Historical Sociology of International Relations as a ‘kind of
historical sociology manifesto’ to be conveyed to the wider IR audience (Hobson,
2002 p.4) , Hobson states that it
provides new ways of explaining the emergence and development of the modern international
system in all its dimensions and refutes the ‘Westphalian’ moment of
territorially demarcated sovereign states operating in permanent anarchy which
has been valorized by IR realist scholars (Hobson 2002, pp.19-20). It is time now to briefly survey sociological
analyses of international politics.
Historical sociology has historicised social
relations, not only those of the state but other aspects of social life: the
family, economy, culture, power and social movements. Marx, Weber and Durkheim were above all
concerned with the impact of industrial modernity on those dimensions of social
life. Historicisation has also involved
the study of international and transnational developments: empires, wars,
geographical spaces and regions, and the relation of humanity to the
environment (Halliday, 2002)
Closely entwined with historicisation is the analysis
of the capacity of agency which IR realists have classically refuted and who
have stressed the dangers of any
attempt to improve the system.
Candidates for agency can be states, intergovernmental organisations,
NGOs, Multinational Corporations, social movements, anti-system movements and
individual leaders. The challenge of analysing
agency in IR is to identify where agency operates while recognising where
structure may be the catalyst of change and conflict. For example, to what extent can events in the
former Yugoslavia be attributed to structural change – the collapse of
communism and the rise of atavistic nationalism – and how much to the decisions
of individual parties and how much to the decisions of the international
community (Halliday, 2002 pp. 250-51).
IR also needs an account of the structural factors
that produce revolutionary or anti-system movements such as communism,
nationalism, feminism and religious fundamentalism and to locate them in their
transnational context. It must be
stressed that study of such movements cannot be separated from the formulation and impact of ideas something which
classical IR theory refused to do. Historical sociology has a key role in these
intellectual tasks (Halliday, 2002 pp.252-53)
The crisis of confidence in the IR discipline in the
wake of the end of the Cold War led to the emergence of the ‘constructivist’
school which took proper account of human consciousness and how lived
experience shapes each individual’s and
country’s perception of the world (Roberts, 2008). They draw upon different disciplines to
examine the processes by which leaders, people and cultures develop their
identities and learn new behaviour. For example they ask why now universally
abhorred practices such as apartheid and slavery used to be acceptable. Constructivists point out that concepts such
as “nation” and “sovereignty” are socially constructed, not just “out there” as
permanent reality (Nye Jr, 1995 pp.7-8).
Closely related to constructivist approaches is
critical theory in IR which it is analysis of gender, class, ethnicity and
religion (among other subjects) can provide necessary links between Historical
Sociology and IR (Kennedy-Pipe C, 2000).
In particular, feminist theories of IR critique notions of power and
what constituted the public sphere
during epochs like the Cold War, telling
stories of the skills of unpaid diplomatic wives as well as the
prostitute servicing military bases and the low grade workers in Third World
economies (Kennedy-Pipe C, 2000 p.753).
In conclusion, sociological insights provide a
necessary antidote to an IR discipline that has been ossified in the
reductionist and determinist paradigms around an unchanging international arena
in which sovereign states compete as units in isolation from domestic factors
and transnational actors. The collapse
of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the BRICS nations as potential axes of
power and the convulsions that have spread through the Arab worlds, to name
three contemporary global developments, provide excellent laboratories for
international sociologists to generate the material that will revitalise IR for
the 21st century.
Bibliography
Gaddis, J., Winter 1992-93: International Relations and the End of the Cold War. International
Security 17 (3), pp.5-58
Halliday, F. (2002) For an International Sociology in Hobden, S. and Hobson, J.M.
(eds.) Historical Sociology of
International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hobson, J.M. (2002) What’s at Stake in Bringing Sociology back into International Relations’?
Transcending ‘Chromofetishbism’ and ‘Tempocrentism’ in International Relations in
Hobden, S. and Hobson, J.M. (eds.) Historical
Sociology of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Kennedy-Pipe, C., (2000) International History and International Relations Theory: A Dialogue
beyond the Cold War. International Affairs, 76 (4), pp.741-754
Nye, J , Jr. (2005) Understanding International Conflicts.
An Introduction to Theory and History. Fifth Edition. Longman Classics
in Political Science. London: Pearson
Roberts , A (2008) International
Relations after the Cold War.
International Affairs 84(2), pp.335-350
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