The Play of International Practice
01 Sep 2015-International Studies Quarterly (Wiley/ Oxford University Press (OUP))-Vol. 59, Iss: 3, pp 449-460
TL;DR: The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous as discussed by the authors, and it is worth noting that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social relations, arguing against individualistic-interest and norm-based actor models.
Abstract: 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.
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16 Jul 2020TL;DR: The authors provides a rigorous, critical account of the making of the Civil War Regime, and illustrates the complex interplay of material, ideational, social and strategic factors in shaping these rules with important lessons for the making and unmaking of international law in a rapidly shifting international political, economic, and security environment.
Abstract: Civil war has been a fact of political life throughout recorded history. However, unlike inter-state wars, international law has not traditionally regulated such conflicts. How then can we explain the post-1945 emergence and evolution of international treaty rules regulating the conduct of internal armed conflict: the 'Civil War Regime'? Negotiating Civil War combines insights derived from Realist, Rationalist, Liberal, and Constructivist approaches to International Relations to answer this question, revisiting the negotiation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1977 Additional Protocols, and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This study provides a rigorous, critical account of the making of the Civil War Regime. Sophisticated and persuasive, it illustrates the complex interplay of material, ideational, social, and strategic factors in shaping these rules with important lessons for the making and unmaking of international law in a rapidly shifting international political, economic, and security environment.
14 citations
TL;DR: The contributors to this forum all draw significantly from pragmatist philosophy and social theory for making sense of international politics, and they affirm the value of pragmatic work beyond metatheory and methodology, both politically and epistemically.
Abstract:
The contributors to this forum all draw significantly from pragmatist philosophy and social theory for making sense of international politics. Collectively, we affirm the value of pragmatist work beyond metatheory and methodology, both politically and epistemically—that is, as both a moral project and an explanatory one. Indeed, we are especially united on the notion that pragmatism “bridges” the divide between these things, and several contributors focus their discussion on how. However, we differ in what exactly it means to offer a distinctly pragmatist explanation or a “substantive” pragmatist theory, as well as in how pragmatism allows us to navigate the analytical and ethical challenges of the field. Over ten years ago, an earlier forum in this journal helped establish that pragmatism had something to offer; with over a decade of scholarship and reflection since, we revisit and expand on the question of how to deliver on it.
13 citations
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the current calls for a practice turn in International Relations (IR) while positive in many respects, are problematic and potentially limiting because they are premised on a confused understanding of the role of philosophy and realist philosophy in particular and a restricted view of sociological investigation, and suggest that the problems that practice theorists point to should lead not to knee-jerk anti-realism but rather can motivate a reinvigorated conversation with realism.
Abstract: This paper argues that the current calls for a practice turn in International Relations (IR) while positive in many respects, are problematic and potentially limiting because they are premised on a confused understanding of the role of philosophy and realist philosophy in particular and a restricted view of the role of sociological investigation. This arises from the problematic tendency to lapse into advocacy of an anti-realist philosophical and sociological imagination. We suggest that the problems that practice theorists point to should lead not to knee-jerk anti-realism but rather can motivate a reinvigorated conversation with realism. This entails revisiting the role of philosophy, realism, and sociology in the study of practices. We argue that far from being antithetical to practice theory, a reconsideration of realist philosophy helps make sense of the role of practice and provides those advocating practice theory with better tools to deal with the challenges which motivated the development of these theoretical stances. Reconsidering realism entails, however, a reconsideration of a wider social ontology within which practice takes place, and openness to the role of philosophical and theoretical abstractions in teasing out the role of practice.
13 citations
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12 Mar 2020TL;DR: In this paper, Lynch argues that it is crucial to recognise the ethical precarity of decision-making and acting, especially in situations of violence and when encountering otherness, and contextualizes and examines ethical struggles and justifications that key figures and movements gave during the early modern period of missionary activity in the Americas.
Abstract: Contrary to charges of religious “dogma,” Christian actors in international politics often wrestle with the lack of a clear path in determining what to do and how to act, especially in situations of violence and when encountering otherness. Lynch argues that it is crucial to recognise the ethical precarity of decision-making and acting. This book contextualizes and examines ethical struggles and justifications that key figures and movements gave during the early modern period of missionary activity in the Americas; in the interwar debates about how to act vis-a-vis fascism, economic oppression and colonialism in a “secular” world; in liberation theology's debates about the use of violence against oppression and bloodshed; and in contemporary Christian humanitarian negotiations of religious pluralism and challenges to the assumptions of western Christianity. Lynch explores how the wrestling with God that took place in each of these periods reveals ethical tensions that continue to impact both Christianity and international relations.
13 citations
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TL;DR: Identity in practice, modes of belonging, participation and non-participation, and learning communities: a guide to understanding identity in practice.
Abstract: This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.
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Abstract: Introduction: How to Resume the Task of Tracing Associations PART I: HOW TO DEPLOY CONTROVERSIES ABOUT THE SOCIAL WORLD 1 Learning to Feed from Controversies 2 First Source of Uncertainty: No Group, Only Group Formation 3 Second Source of Uncertainty: Action is Overtaken 4 Third Source of Uncertainty: Objects Too Have Agency 5 Fourth Source of Uncertainty: Matters of Fact vs Matters of Concern 6 Fifth Source of Uncertainty: Writing Down Risky Accounts 7 On the Difficulty of Being an ANT - An Interlude in Form of a Dialog PART II: HOW TO RENDER ASSOCIATIONS TRACEABLE AGAIN 8 Why is it So Difficult to Trace the Social? 9 How to Keep the Social Flat 10 First Move: Localizing the Global 11 Second Move: Redistributing the Local 12 Third Move: Connecting Sites 13 Conclusion: From Society to Collective - Can the Social be Reassembled?
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Abstract: Part I * Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture Part II * The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man * The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind Part III * Religion As a Cultural System * Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols * Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example * Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali Part IV * Ideology As a Cultural System * After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States * The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States * The Politics of Meaning * Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology in Understanding the New States PART V * The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Lvi-Strauss * Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali * Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight
9,103 citations
5,646 citations
TL;DR: The main characteristics of practice theory, a type of social theory which has been sketched by such authors as Bourdieu, Giddens, Taylor, late Foucault and others, are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: This article works out the main characteristics of `practice theory', a type of social theory which has been sketched by such authors as Bourdieu, Giddens, Taylor, late Foucault and others. Practice theory is presented as a conceptual alternative to other forms of social and cultural theory, above all to culturalist mentalism, textualism and intersubjectivism. The article shows how practice theory and the three other cultural-theoretical vocabularies differ in their localization of the social and in their conceptualization of the body, mind, things, knowledge, discourse, structure/process and the agent.
4,669 citations