Forget 'Post-Positivist' IR!: The Legacy of IR Theory as the Locus for a Pragmatist Turn

In: Cooperation and conflict: journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, Band 40, Heft 2, S. 147-177

Abstract

The relationship between critical international relations (IR) and the conventional mainstream or alleged 'orthodoxy' needs to be better articulated. Without connecting to previous theory it cannot logically seek to introduce new 'turns' for disciplinary development, and intellectual movement remains isolated choreography contributing to a field that is global only in the scope of its dispersion. Proceeding from this argument, the article undertakes some of the 'groundwork' so often neglected in the interests of coming up with new theory and approaches or of presenting the 'next stage' for disciplinary discussion. A reexamination of 'post-positivism' as a corporate self-definition of critical IR produces an identification of the disciplinary mainstream that highlights the legacy of IR theory in theory-centred approaches and universal taxonomy, thereby providing a locus for a pragmatist turn in the study of IR. Although pragmatist approaches have already won a place in the field, the challenge remains of transcending the dichotomies of the episteme that leaves this research at the margins of the mainstream. Pragmatism is a way of inquiry opposed to dogmatism and can facilitate communication through which a more global discipline can be created. The way proposed by the author combines Deweyan ethics with C. S. Peirce's logic of the sign.