Suchergebnisse

Realist International Relations thinkers often intervene in political debates and criticize their governments' policies even as they pride themselves on theorizing politics as it "really" is. They rarely reflect on the following contradictions between their theory and their practice: if there is a "real world" impervious to political thought, why bother to try to influence it? And, is realist theory not putatively disconfirmed by the fact that realist thinkers have so often opposed existing foreign policies (e.g., the wars in Vietnam and Iraq)? I argue that these contradictions are not inherent in realism per se so much as in the commitment of contemporary realists to naturalistic methodological and epistemological postulates. I show that Hans Morgenthau and especially E. H. Carr, far from being naïve "traditionalists," have grappled with these questions in a sophisticated manner; they have adopted non-naturalistic methodological and epistemological stances that minimize the tension between realist theory and the realities of realists' public activism. I conclude with a call for contemporary realists to adjust their theory to their practice by trading the dualism underlying their approach—subject-object; science-politics; purpose-analysis—for E. H. Carr's dictum that "political thought is itself a form of political action."

American political science has long aspired to emulate both the objective research methods of the natural sciences & their practical successes in controlling their objects of study. Regrettably, the putative tension between these two ambitions is rarely discussed. This essay seeks to touch off such a discussion by illuminating a significant problem that produces tension between objective knowledge accumulation & practical control of politics, but not of nature: self-disconfirming analysis. The problem is that in some situations, successful realization of the normative implications of political analysis may create new political patterns that are no longer consistent with the law-like regularities uncovered by that analysis. I demonstrate how this problem is manifest in the work of Robert Putnam, whose career exhibits a commitment to (naturalistic) scientific rigor as well as a passion for sociopolitical change. If the agenda implied by Putnam's scientific research were to be implemented, some of the causal claims established by that research would be removed from actual operation. I argue that the failure of political science to realize its naturalistic aspirations is at least partly attributable to this problem.