Realism

About: Realism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10799 publications have been published within this topic receiving 175785 citations.

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

Abstract: This volume is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of ongoing quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are in a sense necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, arguing that these figures represent two extreme, but ultimately complementary, possibilities in the shape such a project might take. Graeber breathes new life into the classic anthropological texts on exchange, value, and economy. He rethinks the cases of Iroquois wampum, Pacific kula exchanges, and the Kwakiutl potlatch within the flow of world historical processes, and recasts value as a model of human meaning-making, which far exceeds rationalist/reductive economist paradigms.

Drawing Valid Meaning from Qualitative Data: Toward a Shared Craft

Abstract: past year has contained a good deal of impassioned argument at the paradigmatic level (Eisner, 1983; Phillips, 1983; Smith, 1983b; Tuthill & Ashton, 1983). The debate turns around the claim that epistemologies and procedures such as logical empiricism, scientism, the hypothetico-deductive method, realism, experimentalism, and instrumentalism all go together and are inherently different from-in fact, incompatible with--contrasting epistemologies and procedures of phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, verstehen approaches, and artistic modes of knowing. It is argued (e.g., Norris, 1983, Smith, 1983b), that the quantitative and interpretive perspectives are irreconcilable; that claims of their complementary characteristics are unfounded; and that blending the two approaches will result in equivocal conclusions. This is a nontrivial battle, because it challenges the very foundations of the research enterprise, and particularly any given empirical study. But we are inclined to leave the battle to others, for several reasons. First, we continue to need working canons and procedures to judge the validity and usefulness of research in progress. Second, no one reasonably expects the dispute to be settled in any satisfactory way because it has come to rest on crystallized stances, each with its faithful, eager pack of recently-socialized disciples. Finally, if one looks carefully at the research actually conducted in the name of one or another epistemology, it seems that few working researchers are not blending the two perspectives.

A Confutation of Convergent Realism

Abstract: This essay contains a partial exploration of some key concepts associated with the epistemology of realist philosophies of science. It shows that neither reference nor approximate truth will do the explanatory jobs that realists expect of them. Equally, several widely-held realist theses about the nature of inter-theoretic relations and scientific progress are scrutinized and found wanting. Finally, it is argued that the history of science, far from confirming scientific realism, decisively confutes several extant versions of avowedly 'naturalistic' forms of scientific realism.

The Promise of Institutionalist Theory

Abstract: In his usual direct way, John J. Mearsheimer has sharpened the theoretical issues dividing realist from institutionalist theory, and for this service we are grateful. We are also pleased that he has read the institutionalist literature so thoroughly He correctly asserts that liberal institutionalists treat states as rational egoists operating in a world in which agreements cannot be hierarchically enforced, and that institutionalists only expect interstate cooperation to occur if states have significant common interests. Hence institutionalist heory does not espouse the Wilsonian concept of collective security-which Charles and Clifford Kupchan refer to as "ideal collective security"-critiqued so well by I.L. Claude thirty years ago.1 Nor does institutionalism embrace the aspirations to transform international relations put forward by some critical theorists. Like realism, institutionalist theory is utilitarian and rationalistic.2 However, Professor Mearsheimer's version of realism has some rather serious flaws. Among them are its penchant for assertions that turn out to be incorrect; its propensity to privilege its own viewpoint, so that in the absence of decisive evidence either way it invariably seems to prevail; its failure to explicate the conditions for the operation of its generalizations; and its logical contradictions, escaped only through verbal sleight-of-hand. We will begin by pointing out such errors from his own recent articles in this journal, then

Neorealism and its critics

Abstract: 1. Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Politics, by Robert O. Keohane2. Laws and Theories, by Kenneth N. Waltz3. Reductionist and Systemic Theories, by Kenneth N. Waltz4. Political Structures, by Kenneth N. Waltz5. Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power, by Kenneth N. Waltz6. Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis, by John Gerard Ruggie7. Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond, by Robert O. Keohane8. Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory, by Robert W. Cox9. The Poverty of Neorealism, by Richard K. Ashley10. The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism, by Robert G. Gilpin11. Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My Critics, by Kenneth N. Waltz