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Theories, Methodologies, and Levels of Analysis in the Study of World Politics Lucas M Hamline University DigitalCommons@Hamline Departmental Honors Projects College of Liberal Arts Fall 2014 Three Pluralisms: Theories, Methodologies, and Levels of Analysis in the Study of World Politics Lucas M. Dolan Hamline University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/dhp Part of the International Relations Commons, Philosophy of Science Commons, and the Political Theory Commons Recommended Citation Dolan, Lucas M., "Three Pluralisms: Theories, Methodologies, and Levels of Analysis in the Study of World Politics" (2014). Departmental Honors Projects. 27. https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/dhp/27 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts at DigitalCommons@Hamline. It has been accepted for inclusion in Departmental Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Hamline. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Three Pluralisms: Theories, Methodologies, and Levels of Analysis in the Study of World Politics Lucas M. Dolan An Honors Thesis Submitted for partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with honors in Political Science from Hamline University 12/01/2014 Abstract For much of its history, the discourse of International Relations (IR) has been characterized by clashes between paradigms, exclusion of non-positivist research methodologies, and the marginalization of various subfields. Since the fourth debate “pluralism” is rapidly becoming a buzzword within the literature, but without serious conceptual analysis “pluralism” risks becoming another intellectual fad given lip-service but not engaged with in a way that could produce positive change within the discipline. This paper examines three varieties of pluralism: theoretical, methodological, and pluralism of level of analysis. A brief intellectual history of pluralism in international relations is outlined, culminating in the works of Sil and Katzenstein (2010) and Jackson (2011). These works exemplify theoretical and methodological pluralism, respectively. The major novel contribution of this paper is in exploring the prospects of pluralism at the level of analysis. In many respects, a wall of separation still exists between the mainstream, structural approaches to IR and the actor-specific approach of foreign policy analysis (FPA). The paper presents evidence that much of the mutual animosity between FPA and IR is due to diverging understandings of the agent-structure problem. In particular, confused notions of influential IR scholar’s Kenneth Waltz’s views on this issue lead both IR and FPA scholars to misunderstand their relation to one another. This paper offers a way past “the specter of Waltz” and towards a more constructive and engaged relationship between IR and FPA. An attempt is then made at illustrating how the discussions of pluralism within the IR literature can be applied to FPA; indeed, many of these ideas have been floating around the FPA literature for several years. By advocating pluralism and resolving abstract, unnecessary, and unproductive debates, this paper aims to contribute to the task of building a framework for IR that is at once more theoretically rigorous and practically relevant. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter One: IR at the Crossroads ................................................................................................................................ 8 Great Debates ............................................................................................................................................................ 8 Development of Pluralism in IR .............................................................................................................................. 13 Pragmatism in International Relations .................................................................................................................... 19 Pluralism as a Philosophy ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter Two: Analytic Eclecticism as Theoretical Pluralism ..................................................................................... 30 Hopes Yet Unrealized ............................................................................................................................................. 30 Defining and Identifying Analytic Eclecticism ....................................................................................................... 32 A Bold New Landscape ........................................................................................................................................... 34 Fig 2.1 ................................................................................................................................................................. 39 Fig 2.2 ................................................................................................................................................................. 40 Analytic Eclecticism as an Expression of the “Pluralist Stance” ............................................................................ 44 Room to Expand Beyond Analytic Eclecticism ...................................................................................................... 46 Chapter Three: Methodological Pluralism in Jackson ................................................................................................. 48 Jackson’s Vocabulary, Typology, and the Meaning of “Science” .......................................................................... 48 Fig. 3.1 ................................................................................................................................................................ 49 Separating Paradigm and Methodology—A New Typology ................................................................................... 52 Fig. 3.2 ................................................................................................................................................................ 53 Fig. 3.3 ................................................................................................................................................................ 62 How Does This Stand With Eclecticism? Theory Integration and Religious Dialogue .......................................... 64 Chapter Four: Level of Analysis Pluralism and the IR-FPA Relationship .................................................................. 73 Valerie Hudson and the “Ground of IR” ................................................................................................................. 76 The Specter of Waltz ............................................................................................................................................... 81 Enter Beasley and Kaarbo: Towards a Sustainable IR-FPA Relationship .............................................................. 91 Prospects for Eclecticism and Methodological Pluralism ....................................................................................... 96 Chapter Five: Prospectus for Pluralism ..................................................................................................................... 113 The Three Pluralisms ............................................................................................................................................ 113 Implications for Teaching and Learning ............................................................................................................... 118 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................................... 123 3 Introduction “In this present hour I wish to illustrate the pragmatic method by one more application. I wish to turn its light upon the ancient problem of ’the one and the many.’ I suspect that in but few of you has this problem occasioned sleepless nights, and I should not be astonished if some of you told me it had never vexed you. I myself have come, by long brooding over it, to consider it the most central of all philosophic problems, central because so pregnant. I mean by this that if you know whether a man is a decided monist or a decided pluralist, you perhaps know more about the rest of his opinions than if you give him any other name ending in IST. To believe in the one or in the many, that is the classification with the maximum number of consequences.” -William James (1975). Like the subject matter it ostensibly studies, the history of the field of International Relations (IR) has been riddled with great power conflicts. While the conflicts under study are fought with tanks, planes, submarines, and drones on the battlefields of land, air, sea, and increasingly cyberspace—the conflicts within the study are fought with words, data, and ideas in the venues of tenure and promotion committees, editorial review boards, and meetings of professional organizations. While the conflicts IR studies occur primarily between sovereign nation-states, the conflicts within IR occur between theoretical paradigms and methodological stances. The major conflicts of the discipline of IR’s history are often referred to as the “great
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