Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconﬁguring Problems and Mechanisms Across Research Traditions

| | ⅜ Articles Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions Rudra Sil and Peter J. Katzenstein This article defines, operationalizes, and illustrates the value of analytic eclecticism in the social sciences, with a focus on the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Analytic eclecticism is not an alternative model of research or a means to displace or subsume existing modes of scholarship. It is an intellectual stance that supports efforts to complement, engage, and selectively utilize theoretical constructs embedded in contending research traditions to build complex arguments that bear on substantive problems of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Eclectic scholarship is marked by three general features. First, it is consistent with an ethos of pragmatism in seeking engagement with the world of policy and practice, downplaying unresolvable metaphysical divides and presumptions of incommensurability and encouraging a conception of inquiry marked by practical engagement, inclusive dialogue, and a spirit of fallibilism. Second, it formulates problems that are wider in scope than the more narrowly delimited problems posed by adherents of research traditions; as such, eclectic inquiry takes on problems that more closely approximate the messiness and complexity of concrete dilemmas facing “real world” actors. Third, in exploring these problems, eclectic approaches offer complex causal stories that extricate, translate, and selectively recombine analytic components—most notably,causal mechanisms— from explanatory theories, models, and narratives embedded in competing research traditions. The article includes a brief sampling ⅜ of studies that illustrate the combinatorial potential of analytic eclecticism as an intellectual exercise as well as its value in enhancing the possibilities of fruitful dialogue and pragmatic engagement within and beyond the academe. hree decades ago, Charles Lindblom and David they want to listen to.”1 Recent advances in theory and Cohen lamented that “suppliers and users of social method do not seem to have remedied the problem, at T research are dissatisfied, the former because they are least if we are to believe Ian Shapiro: “In discipline after not listened to, the latter because they do not hear much discipline . academics have all but lost sight of what Rudra Sil ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of to mention here, the authors would like to acknowledge Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Amel Ahmed, Jeffrey Checkel, Stephen Crowley, Michael author of Managing “Modernity”: Work, Community Doherty, Charlotte Epstein, Emiliano Grossman, Peter and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia Haas, Gunther Hellman, Adam Humphreys, Jeffrey Isaac, (University of Michigan Press, 2002) and co-editor (with Nicolas Jabko, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Robert Keohane, Dennis Galvan) of Reconfiguring Institutions Across David Laitin, James Mahoney, Bruce Mazlish, James Time and Space: Syncretic Responses to Challenges of Moskowitz, Ido Oren, Christian Reus-Smit, Srirupa Roy, Political and Economic Transformation (Palgrave 2007). Benjamin Schiff, Vivien Schmidt, Ian Shapiro, Kathleen Peter J. Katzenstein ([email protected]) is the Walter S. Thelen, Veljko Vujacic, Stephen Watts, Pan Wei, Alexander Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at Cornell Wendt, Cornelia Woll, Wang Yizhou, Brigitte Young, and University. He has served as the President of the American Ruizhuang Zhang, as well as three anonymous reviewers. Political Science Association (2008–2009). His most recent The authors are also grateful for suggestions provided by single-authored books include Rethinking Japanese Secu- participants at colloquia and workshops at various institu- rity: Internal and External Dimensions (Routledge, 2008) tions worldwide, including Beijing University, the Chinese and A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the Ameri- Academy of Social Sciences, Oberlin College, Oxford Uni- can Imperium (Cornell University Press, 2005). Numerous versity, Sciences-Po, Tianjin University, University of individuals and institutions have provided valuable feed- Frankfurt, and University of Massachusetts. In addition, back and support at various stages in the writing of this Emma Clarke, Stefan Heumann, and William Petti pro- article. With apologies to those whom they may have failed vided invaluable research assistance. doi:10.1017/S1537592710001179 June 2010 | Vol. 8/No. 2 411 ⅜ | | ⅜ Articles | Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics they claim is their object of study.”2 This article is moti- plifications” required to apply a single theoretical lens to vated by the suspicion that these concerns about academic grasp the manifold complexities on the ground.6 scholarship are at least partially valid, and that a part of As far as programmatic statements go, these views are all the problem is the lack of adequate space in social science consistent with the spirit of analytic eclecticism. Whether disciplines for what we call analytic eclecticism. these positions are readily evident in research practice, how- Analytic eclecticism does not constitute an alternative ever, is quite another matter. For the most part, social sci- model of research. It is an intellectual stance a researcher entific research is still organized around particular research can adopt when pursuing research that engages, but does traditions or scholarly communities, each marked by its own not fit neatly within, established research traditions in a epistemic commitments, its own theoretical vocabulary, its given discipline or field. We identify analytic eclecticism own standards, and its own conceptions of “progress.” A in terms of three characteristics that distinguish it from more effective case for eclectic scholarship requires more conventional scholarship embedded in research tradi- than statements embracing intellectual pluralism or multi- tions. First, it proceeds at least implicitly on the basis of a causal explanation. It requires an alternative understand- pragmatist ethos, manifested concretely in the search for ing of research practice that is coherent enough to be middle-range theoretical arguments that potentially speak distinguishable from conventional scholarship and yet flex- to concrete issues of policy and practice. Second, it addresses ible enough to accommodate a wide range of problems, con- problems of wide scope that, in contrast to more narrowly cepts, methods, and causal arguments. We have sought to parsed research puzzles designed to test theories or fill in systematically articulate such an understanding in the form gaps within research traditions, incorporate more of the of “analytic eclecticism,” emphasizing its pragmatist ethos, complexity and messiness of particular real-world situa- its orientation towards preexisting styles and schools of tions. Third, in constructing substantive arguments related research, and its distinctive value added in relating aca- to these problems, analytic eclecticism generates complex demic debates to concrete matters of policy and practice. causal stories that forgo parsimony in order to capture the Below, we first offer a brief discussion of the benefits interactions among different types of causal mechanisms and limitations of research traditions and consider how normally analyzed in isolation from each other within analytic eclecticism complements existing traditions by separate research traditions. seeking to leverage and integrate conceptual and theoret- ⅜ This is not the first call for something resembling eclec- ical elements in multiple traditions. In the next three sec- ticism. In addition to Lindblom and Cohen, numerous tions, we elaborate on three distinguishing features of scholars have issued pleas for a more practically useful eclectic scholarship: its pragmatist ethos; its open-ended social science—or, following Aristotle, a “phronetic” social approach to identifying problems; and its expansive under- science—oriented more toward social commentary and standing of causal mechanisms and their complex inter- political action than toward inter-paradigm debates.3 In actions in diverse contexts. We then consider a small sample international relations, prominent scholars, some even iden- of work in comparative politics and international rela- tified with particular research traditions, have acknowl- tions that illustrates the combinatorial potential of eclec- edged the need for incorporating elements from other tic scholarship. The conclusion considers the risks and approaches in order to fashion more usable and more com- costs of analytic eclecticism, but views these as acceptable prehensive forms of knowledge. For example, Kenneth in light of the potential gains of accommodating eclectic Waltz, whose name would become synonymous with neo- approaches that complement and engage tradition-bound realism, argued in his earlier work: “The prescriptions research in the social sciences.7 directly derived from a single image [of international relations] are incomplete because they are based upon partial analyses. The partial quality of each image sets up a ten- Research Traditions in the Social sion that drives one toward inclusion of the others . Sciences One is led to search for the inclusive nexus of causes.”4 An The evolution of fields and disciplines in the social sci- ardent critic of realist theory, Andrew Moravcsik, would ences has been accompanied by

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