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Dissertation Critical Realism: An Ethical Approach to Global Politics by Ming-Whey Christine Lee Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Peter Euben, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Chris Gelpi, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Tim Buthe ___________________________ Rom Coles Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 i v ABSTRACT Critical Realism: An Ethical Approach to Global Politics by Ming-Whey Christine Lee Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Peter Euben, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Chris Gelpi, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Tim Buthe ___________________________ Rom Coles An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 i v Copyright by Ming-Whey Christine Lee 2009 Abstract My dissertation, Critical Realism: An Ethical Approach to Global Politics, investigates two strands of modern political realism and their divergent ethics, politics, and modes of inquiry: the mid- to late 20th century realism of Hans Morgenthau and E.H. Carr and the scientific realism of contemporary International Relations scholarship. Beginning with the latter, I engage in (1) immanent analysis to show how scientific realism fails to meet its own explanatory protocol and (2) genealogy to recover the normative origins of the conceptual and analytical components of scientific realism. Against the backdrop of scientific realism’s empirical and normative shortcomings, I turn to Morgenthau and Carr to appraise what I term their critical realism. I map out the constellation of their political thought by reconstructing the interrelations between (1) the historical crises motivating their writings, (2) their philosophical and methodological criticisms and commitments, (3) their political prescriptions and ethics. My dissertation demonstrates how reading realist texts through the lens of contemporary methodological conventions decisively shapes our theoretical purview, empirical knowledge, and political judgments. Beyond illuminating the underappreciated radical, critical, and historical dimensions of political realism, my dissertation has implications for contemporary debates on international ethics and foreign policy as well as research in political science and political theory. iv Dedication To my parents and my brother. v Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... iv Dedication................................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................. ix Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................1 The Return of Realism........................................................................................................................................................................... 1 A Road Map ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Strategies of Exposition and Genealogies .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Relevance and Stakes ........................................................................................................................................................................... 21 1. Systematic Normativity in Scientific Realism: An Immanent Critique...............................................24 1.1 Neorealism as Value-Neutral Scientific Theory ........................................................................................................................ 25 1.2 Do Neorealists Meet Their Own Standards of Value-Neutral Social Science?.................................................................... 28 1.2.1 Aiming for Scientific Explanation… and Missing .......................................................................................................... 29 1.2.2 Neorealist Responses to Empirical Anomalies: Assessing the Claim of Value-Neutrality....................................... 36 1.2.3 Explanatory Theory, Value Judgments, and their Systematic Interrelations .............................................................. 60 1.3 From Failure to Exploration: A Call to Examine the Ethical and Political Judgments of Scientific Realism................. 66 2. The Normative Construction of Scientific Realism: A Genealogical Analysis ...................................73 2.1 Kenneth Waltz and the Levels of Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 74 2.2 From a Defense of Balancing Power to Balance of Power Theory: Reconsidering Waltz’s Man, the State, and War.. 77 2.2.1 The Politics of Ontology: What the Political World is Like… When It’s Convenient............................................. 85 2.2.2 From Prudence to Prediction: The Case of the Missing Rationality Assumption..................................................... 90 2.2.3 From Political Theory to Scientific Theory ..................................................................................................................... 93 2.2.4 Scientific Realism’s Circular Development: From Values to Ontology and Back Again ......................................... 96 2.3 The Normative Limitations of Scientific Realism..................................................................................................................... 99 3.3.1 Grounds for Moral Judgment ............................................................................................................................................ 99 3.3.2 Realism’s Exile from Political Theory.............................................................................................................................109 2.4 Beyond Ontological Realism ......................................................................................................................................................114 3. Historical Change and Crisis: Diagnosing 20th Century Political, Economic, and Social Disorder 119 vi 3.1 E.H. Carr’s Vision of Revolutionary Crisis..............................................................................................................................120 3.1.1 The Twenty Years’ Crisis: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century Crisis..........................................................120 3.1.2 Crisis of Laissez-Faire Economics...................................................................................................................................121 3.1.3 Crisis of (Liberal) Democracy ..........................................................................................................................................124 3.1.4 Crisis of Political Organization: Nationalism and Self-determination.......................................................................126 3.1.5 A Crisis of Moral Purpose ................................................................................................................................................130 3.2 Hans Morgenthau and the Changing Faces of Power in Transformative Times...............................................................131 3.2.1 The Crisis of Democracy in a Scientific Age: Technocracy and the Evisceration of Politics................................133 3.2.2 The Crisis of Democracy in a Capitalist Age: New Feudalism and New Despotism .............................................136 3.2.3 Crisis of Political Organization: The Nation-State System in a Nuclear Age...........................................................138 3.2.4 The Crisis of American Foreign Policy in the Post-World War Period ....................................................................145 3.2.5 The Loss of Transcendent and Objective Principles: Crisis of Moral Purpose .......................................................149 3.3 The Threat of the Old and the Promise of the New..............................................................................................................152 4. To Abate, Not to Abet: Modes of Inquiry in Times of Crisis............................................................ 154 4.1 Morgenthau’s Quest for a Science of Politics: The Ideology of Scientism and Political Science as Ideology Critique154 4.1.1 Scientism and the Rationalization of Politics.................................................................................................................155 4.1.2 The Moral Crisis of Scientism and the Political Danger of Value-Freedom ............................................................161 4.1.3 The Purpose and Orientation of Political Science Properly Conceived....................................................................166
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