The closing of the American mind
American School’ International Relations and the state of grand theory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6060630 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Deborah Levine (0000-0001-8364-0430, University of Alabama), Daniel J Levine (University of Alabama), Alexander D Barder (0000-0002-9914-923X, American University of Beirut, Lebanon) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 863-888 |
| Publication date | 2014-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of International Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1354-0661 • E-ISSN: 1460-3713 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066114530010 |
| OpenAlex | W2152905067 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 104 |
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
Epistemology · Functionalism (philosophy of mind) · Grand strategy · International relations · International relations theory · Liberalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Reification (Marxism) · Sociology · Technocracy · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy · Political Conflict and Governance · Political Science Research and Education
Realism and International Relations
Individual Psychology and Grand StrategyRomancing the State
Realism and International Relations
Time in International Relations Theory
Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics
Reasoning of State
Failing Is Not an Option, It Is the Only Option
Reification in IR
How Cognitive Frameworks Shape the American Approach to International Relations and Security Studies
Reclaiming Constructivism
International Relations Scholarship at 100
After tragedy
The conduct of history in International Relations
Dialectics and World Politics
Why Does Pluralism Matter When We Study Politics? A View from Contemporary International Relations
Rival Visions of Parsimony
Where Is International Relations Going? Evidence from Graduate Training
The question of truth
Deep theorizing in International Relations
Gender and bias in the International Relations curriculum
Psychology and aggregation in International Relations
From subjects to objects
Power, violence, and nuclear weapons
The Sociology of Philosophies
When Knowledge Is Power
Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World
The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations
When Knowledge Is Power
World-Systems Analysis
After Victory
The long twentieth century
Bounding Power
The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations
After Hegemony
Theories of European Integration
Big Questions in the Study of World Politics
Eclectic Theorizing in the Study and Practice of International Relations
Poststructuralism and International Relations
International Relations Scholarship Around the World
Critical Theory and World Politics
International Institutions
War and Change in World Politics
Recovering International Relations
Agents, Structures and International Relations
The “Problem of Values” and International Relations Scholarship: From Applied Reflexivity to Reflexivism
An American Social Science
A Liberal World Order in Crisis
Liberal Leviathan
International liberalism reconsidered
“The Metropolis and Mental Life”
Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress
The Politics of Exile
Democratic Peace
Autobiographical International Relations
Alienation
Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress
One-Dimensional Man
Reification
The politics of the philosophy of science
Liberal Internationalism 3.0
Contemporary “Dissidence” in American IR
Beyond the nation state
Social Forces, States and World Orders
IR Theory as International Practice/Agency
The World Is Too Much with Us’
Advancing a Reflexive International Relations
International Relations Theory
Pragmatic Constructivism and the Study of International Institutions
American Hegemony Comes Home
The assumption of anarchy in international relations theory
The ‘I’ in IR
Knowing and judging in International Relations theory
Functionalism
Tensions of EmpireColonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World
Beyond Paradigms
The uniting of Europe and the foundation of EU studies
The Uniting of Europe and the Uniting of Latin America
International Integration
Strategy as a vocation
Autobiographical international relations
After victory
International Relations
Ideology and the philosophy of science
Toward the Copernican Phase of Regional Integration Theory
Introduction
Politics and Paradigm Preferences
Beyond Dichotomy
Why “isms” Are Evil
The (S)pace of International Relations
International Institutions
De-Centering, Not Discarding, the “Isms”
The Renaissance of Security Studies
What Is Your Research Program? Some Feminist Answers to International Relations Methodological Questions
Is there a hole in the whole? Knowledge, technology, interdependence, and the construction of international regimes
Words can hurt you; or, who said what to whom about regimes
The Study of Regional Integration
Europe Before the Court
Transformations in World Politics
Political Science as a Vocation
Core, periphery and (neo)imperialist International Relations
Leaving theory behind
The ends of International Relations theory
In the beginning
Reflectivity, reflexivity, reflexivism
Beyond metatheory
Constructivism or the eternal return of universals in International Relations. Why returning to language is vital to prolonging the owl’s flight
You Just Don't Understand
Ideas and Foreign Policy
Orders of discourse
Rethinking reification
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,92 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2023 (10) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |