Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty

Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) have been at the forefront of a paradigm shift that sees space and agency as the result of associating humans and non-humans to form precarious wholes. This shift offers ways of rethinking the relations between power, politics and space from a more processual, socio-material perspective. After sketching and comparing the concepts of the assemblage and the actor-network, this paper reviews the current scholarship in human geography which clusters around the four themes of deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation; power; materials, objects and technologies; and topological space. Looking towards the future, it suggests that assemblage thinking and ANT would benefit from exploring links with other social theories, arguing for a more sustained engagement with issues of language and power, and affect and the body.

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Assemblages and Actor-networks: Rethinking Socio-material Power, Politics and Space

This article moves from deconstruction to reconstruction in research methodology+ It proposes pragmatism as a way to escape from epistemological dead- lock+ We first show that social scientists are mistaken in their hope to obtain war- ranted knowledge through traditional scientific methods+ We then show that pragmatism has grown from tacit commonsense to an explicit item on the agenda of the inter- national relations discipline+ We suggest that a coherent pragmatic approach consists of two elements: the recognition of knowledge generation as a social and discursive activity, and the orientation of research toward the generation of useful knowledge+ To offer a concrete example of what pragmatic methodology can look like, we pro- pose the research strategy of abduction+ We assess various forms of research design to further elucidate how pragmatic research works in practice+

On Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism Can Advance International Relations Research and Methodology

Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) have been at the forefront of a paradigm shift that sees space and agency as the result of associating humans and non-humans to form precarious wholes. This shift offers ways of rethinking the relations between power, politics and space from a more processual, socio-material perspective. After sketching and comparing the concepts of the assemblage and the actor-network, this paper reviews current scholarship in human geography employing them and clustering around the four themes of deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation; power; materials, objects and technologies; and topological space. Looking towards the future, it suggests that assemblage thinking and ANT would benefit from exploring links with other social theories, arguing for a more sustained engagement with issues of language and power, and affect and the body.

Assemblages and Actor-Networks: Rethinking Socio-Material Power, Politics and Space

The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous. What promises does international practice theory hold for the field? How does the kind of theorizing it produces differ from existing perspectives? What kind of research agenda does it produce? This article addresses these questions. Drawing on the work of Andreas Reckwitz, we show that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social relations. Practice theories argue against individualistic-interest and norm-based actor models. They situate knowledge in practice rather than “mental frames” or “discourse.” Practice approaches focus on how groups perform their practical activities in world politics to renew and reproduce social order. They therefore overcome familiar dualisms—agents and structures, subjects and objects, and ideational and material—that plague IR theory. Practice theories are a heterogeneous family, but, as we argue, share a range of core commitments. Realizing the promise of the practice turn requires considering the full spectrum of its approaches. However, the field primarily draws on trajectories in international practice theory that emphasize reproduction and hierarchies. It should pay greater attention to practice approaches rooted in pragmatism and that emphasize contingency and change. We conclude with an outline of core challenges that the future agenda of international practice theory must tackle.

The Play of International Practice

What does it take to be an international relations (IR) scholar? IR discourses have tackled this question with focus on very different problems: the role and function of IR scholars for policy; the (ir)relevance and impact of IR knowledge and expertise in world politics; disciplinary history; or in studying IR's institutions. We argue that all these “disciplinary sociology” debates struggle with the relation between an internal scientific IR world and an external social context (policy, society). We reject this distinction and argue that science studies can help us to address these problems more adequately by treating IR as a scientific practice that is closely tied to its social environment. The article sets out to explore science studies' possible contributions. Based on science studies key assumptions, we develop a heuristic by which the relations between IR and its environment can be grasped systematically. From this perspective, IR is pivotally a culture constituted by different domains of practice. Hence, understanding IR scholars in “doing IR” requires taking into account their daily and sometimes trivial practices. For instance, writing an article in IR means much more than only thinking theoretically at a desk. We systematize the different domains of practices as the articulation of knowledge claims, mobilizing the world, autonomy seeking, alliance building, and public representation. “Being an IR scholar” and “producing IR knowledge” depends inevitably on these sets of practices and IR is intrinsically interwoven with its environment through these.

Reassembling and Dissecting: International Relations Practice from a Science Studies Perspective

International Relations (IR) has cultivated the idea of a gap between the theory and the practice|[sol]|praxis of IR. This division into two different spheres of knowledge is related to the predominant objectivist conception of science in IR, where the scientist is said to be observing reality from a distance without affecting it. Poststructuralists have denied that this distinction is meaningful and have even argued that it is dangerous to be oblivious to the structuring effects science may have on the social world. This article sets out to avoid further cultivation of the so-called gap between theory and practice, and instead addresses the question of how the theories of IR relate empirically to the practices of world politics. We suggest a theoretical and empirical alternative based on practice theoretical thought. We argue that researchers' theories and policymakers practice |[lsquo]|hang together|[rsquo]| and require analytical attention. In order to give empirical flesh to the theoretical discussions and to demonstrate the difference a practice theory approach makes, we discuss the example of the democratic peace thesis. We lay out how US peace researchers, the Clinton government and NATO participated in weaving a |[lsquo]|web of democratic peace practice|[rsquo]| and stabilizing the thesis as a |[lsquo]|fact|[rsquo]|. We argue that |[lsquo]|ivory tower scientists|[rsquo]|, US foreign policymakers, and NATO politicians and bureaucrats hang together in this web and use each other as a resource. As a consequence, the academically certified version of the democratic peace led to a securitization of democracy. We conclude that one way to cope with the complexity of science–politics interactions is to foster reflexive empirical work on researchers' own practices.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.jird.1800136.pdf

Beyond the gap: relevance, fields of practice and the securitizing consequences of (democratic peace) research

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Praktisch gedacht! Praxistheoretischer Konstruktivismus in den Internationalen Beziehungen

The end of the cold war saw several security analysts pose the question of whether academic security analysis was ―actually part of the solution or part of the problem‖, contributing more to the manufacturing of insecurity and threats than it did to ‗de-securitizing‘ contemporary politics. A normative dilemma was formulated: ―how to write or speak about security, when security knowledge risks the production of what one tries to avoid, what one criticizes: that is, the securitization of migration, drugs, and so forth". Analysts have shown, for instance, how the discipline of strategic studies helped construct the language of nuclear politics and define its universe of the thinkable. 1990s constructivists sought to show that the end of the cold war was influenced by the proliferation of new strategic thought, and contemporary empirical studies stress how security professionals manufacture insecurity. Given this evidence it seems a dangerous business to do security research. The sharp distinction between theory and practice - which left theory in an ivory tower detached from the world of practice - is replaced by a ‗field of power‘ encompassing theory-practice-policy. In this field, questions of the potential political role of the analyst become central. But, how to be a security expert in the face of the ‗normative dilemma‘? Answers to this question have been almost absent from debates. Problematizations of the role of the analyst have become widespread, but solutions have been scarce. This paper tries to fill this gap by developing three positions/practices available to the security analyst ‗after securitization‘. These are; first, the notion of the ‗organic intellectual‘ based on (Neo-) Gramscian thought; second, the concept of the ‗collective intellectual‘ developed from the work of Bourdieu; and third, the vision of an ‗ironist‘ inspired by the work of Richard Rorty and John Dewey . The paper introduces the core dilemmas analysts face, and proceeds to discuss the different answers the three ideal types suggest. Equipped with these ideal types, the security intellectual will have tools to contemplate his/her position towards the world of practice and un-intended securitization may be minimized.

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Security Expertise after Securitization: Coping with Dilemmas of Engaging with Practice

One of the outcomes of the political struggles of widening and enlarging security has been a new consensus to understand security as ‘human security’. The intriguing feature of human security is that although it is consensual to some degree, it has not been naturalized and as such fixed security discourse. Instead, political struggles concerning the ‘what’, the ‘who’, and the ‘how’ of security continue. Why is the history of human security such a success story of institutionalization, although it apparently seems to be a useless, fraught or at least ambivalent concept? And how was it possible that new forms of transnational spaces (such as the Human Security Network) emerged around the concept of human security? In the paper I address these questions from the perspective of symbolic interactionism. I suggest understanding human security as a ‘boundary object’ that connects several ‘communities of security practice’, without anyone of them being able to attach a stable meaning to it. Understanding human security as a boundary object raises the question how this ‘new’ concept of security re-configures the landscape of communities of security practice, how it affects the identity of new (and old) communities, and in what way it constitutes new trading zones, or transforms earlier ones. I scrutinize firstly if human security qualifies as a boundary object, rather than as a fully ‘naturalized object’ or a ‘monster’. Secondly, I investigate, by drawing on some illustrative examples, how human security has reconfigured the landscape of communities of security practice, and in what way this goes along with the constitution of new global security arenas.

Christian Büger

Papers

Reassembling and Dissecting: International Relations Practice from a Science Studies Perspective

Beyond the gap: relevance, fields of practice and the securitizing consequences of (democratic peace) research

Praktisch gedacht! Praxistheoretischer Konstruktivismus in den Internationalen Beziehungen

Security Expertise after Securitization: Coping with Dilemmas of Engaging with Practice

Human Security - What's the use of it? On boundary objects and the constitution of new global spaces