After Postpositivism the Promises of Critical Realism

After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical RealismAuthor(s): Heikki Patomaki and Colin WightSource: International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Jun., 2000), pp. 213-237Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The International Studies AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3013996Accessed: 15/12/2010 00:14

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International Studies Quarterly (2000) 44, 213-237.

After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism

HEIKKI PATOMAKI

Nottingham Trent University

AND

COLIN WIGHT

University of Wales, Aberystwyth

This article argues that the current self-understanding of IR theory is misconceived and that it is time to move beyond the stagnant positivism/ postpositivism debate. We argue that the attempt to occupy a middle ground compromise position between positivism and postpositivism is untenable because these two positions share much in common. In this sense a middle ground position between two problematic positions does not produce a less problematic position. What is needed is a metatheoretical analysis of the two extreme positions. We attempt to show how both positivism and postpositivism are embedded in a discourse of philosophical anti-realism. This anti-realism occurs as a result of what we call the post-Kantian-Humean "problem-field" of international relations from which most contemporary positivist, constructivist, and post- structuralist IR approaches stem. We then try to overcome this "problem- field" by means of radically reclaiming reality through a critical realist philosophy. Once outlined we try to show how this critical realist philosophy can help transcend some of the antinomies currently faced by IR scholars.

Introduction: Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right For at least a decade now the positivist orthodoxy has been under a sustained challenge from what are variously labelled reflectivist or postpositivist theories. For many postpositivists, positivism is not only epistemologically and ontologically flawed; it is also co-responsible for many of the social ills and political catastrophes of the modern world. Yet, for many positivists the postpositivist assault amounts to advocating subjectivism, irresponsible relativism and lack of standards, which work against conducting proper research and the effort to

Authors' note: This article has benefited from the advice and comments of many people, none of whom might wish to agree with all or any of the arguments. As such, ultimate responsibility, as always, rests with the authors. The article has been greatly improved by the critical, yet encouraging, comments from the editors of International Studies Quarterly and the anonymous reviewers. Numerous individuals have also commented on the work. A few in particular require mention (apologies for any omissions): Stephen Chan, Thomas Forsberg, Ronen Palan, Magnus Ryner, Ian Clarke, Michael Williams, Steve Smith, and Tim Dunne. We should also thank the participants of the BISA panel "After the State and Beyond Constructivism" on 15 December 1998, at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, for a stimulating discussion on the themes of the paper.

( 2000 International Studies Association. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK.

214 After Postpositivism?

make the human condition better. We think that, at least in many cases, both suspicions carry some weight.

The typical solution in this kind of situation is to try to find a compromise position, which would enable a constructive synthesis of the main points of both positions. Indeed, it seems that in IR "constructivism," in various guises, is rap- idly emerging as a kind of a new middle ground (Adler, 1997). We find Waever's (1992:186; 1996:165-169; 1997:18-23) schemes, summarized (and slightly modified) in Figure 1, particularly helpful in understanding the current situation and mainstream self-understanding in IR. The triangle in the middle is a variation of the (already anachronistic) "inter-paradigm debate."

In the 1980s the main movements seemed to be towards a synthesis of neo- liberalism and neo-realism (the neo-neo debate spot in Figure 1) and the fading away of Marxism as the third position. The main challenge that emerged in the 1980s, however, was that of the epistemological radicals (postpositivists of all sorts). If the new radicals were radical enough (like Ashley and Walker, 1990a; b), they exceeded, according to Waver, the "boundary of negativity" (dotted line on the epistemological axis); and if the neo-neo scholars were too positivist (like the work of mathematical model builders or the Correlates of War project), they exceeded the "boundary of boredom" (the other dotted line on the epistemological axis). The happy face that has seemingly avoided all these pitfalls and has found, by the late 1990s, a position in the middle of everything, is constructivism (cf. Adler, 1997).

As a story, illustrated by a nice picture, this may augur well for constructivism, and other middle ground positions, particularly if we take for granted the widespread de facto aversion against following strictly positivist, scientific methods ("the boundary of boredom") and against being too "radical" either politically or epistemologically ("the boundary of negativity") (S0rensen, 1998). The problem is that, as it stands, this very loose category of the "middle ground" does not really resolve any of the underlying problems. The dilemma is that where the "middle ground" is deemed to be is a function of where one draws the boundaries. In this respect, the attractiveness of the middle ground for IR scholars is a direct corollary of a particular understanding of the boundaries-an understanding we intend to challenge.

With the boundaries as currently conceptualized the middle ground does indeed appear attractive. Although prima facie an appealing position, Max Weber provides a damning indictment of this kind of "middle-groundism." Weber held that we should "struggle relentlessly against the self-deception which asserts that through the synthesis of several party points of view ... practical norms of

Positivism

w X / ,S 1 Politic#realism ..........~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~....................................

. Construc- tiv-ism

, .. ... ... .. . SE g \ .................. i,., ,, S~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . Ne,o-neo debate

......................................... ........ /m

Liberalism Socialism Deconstructionism

(Leftist radicalism) /

FIG. 1. IR debates in the 1980s and l1990s

HEIKKI PATOMAKI AND COLIN WIGHT 215

scientific validity can be arrived at" (Weber, 1904:58). Weber was here opposing the naive idea that simply because positions differ from one another, a "mid- point" synthesis that steers a line among them is somehow more objective and less partisan. This is the position we fear that the current attempt to occupy the "middle ground" in IR is in danger of articulating. A synthesis based on two problematic metaphysical systems produces only a synthesis of two problematic metaphysical positions-not an improved metaphysical position.

The problem is how to move forward? How do we move beyond a sterile and debilitating debate where one side chastises the other for its naive belief in a world "out there," while the other berates its mirror image for making the world "all in here" and all the while a third position claims legitimacy in terms of its "middle-groundedness." Given that the debate, as currently framed, tends to be primarily epistemological perhaps a more ontological focus could facilitate a move forward. This is not to say that ontological considerations do not play a role in current understandings, but we argue that where they have played a role these ontological issues have been based on epistemological considerations. In this respect we want to reverse a long-standing Western philosophical dogma; that of the privileging of epistemological questions over ontological ones. Indeed, we think that when viewed from an ontological perspective current understandings of IR take on an altogether different hue.

Any attempt to locate oneself in the centre of current epistemological debates without considering the ontological problematic risks duplicating the worst of both extremes. It is not simply a scientific ontology we mean here, as in theoretical disagreements over whether states are the most important actors, for example. What we mean by ontology is a philosophical ontology; an inquiry into which is logically prior to the development of any scientific or social ontology (Bunge, 1996).

It is here that we think that the philosophy known as critical realism can be of benefit to IR scholars (for some of the key texts see Archer et al., 1998).1 We suggest that critical realism can incorporate many of the recent epistemological developments and at the same time move the debate forward due to its focus on ontological matters. Critical realism highlights the conditions of possibility for a resolution of many of the theoretical, methodological, and praxiological cul-de- sacs international relations theory currently finds itself in. From a critical realist perspective and contrary to the dominant understandings within IR theory, the boundaries of negativity and boredom are not diametrically opposed, but share much in common.

The key to any move forward is not simply to take the middle ground, but to engage with and challenge the extremities that constitute the conditions of possibility for a certain understanding of the middle ground. This can only be achieved through an examination of the boundaries of boredom and negativity, or better, the theory "problem-field" within which they are constituted. Here lies one of the benefits of metatheoretical inquiry to IR. In this piece we wish to engage in just such a metatheoretical investigation in the hope of throwing some light on some of the important contemporary problems facing IR scholars.

First, we locate a common structure to both the boundary of boredom and the boundary of negativity. In this section we aim to show how both are embedded upon a discourse of philosophical anti-realism. Second, we attempt to show, through the philosophies of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, how this anti- realism constitutes what we call the "problem-field" of IR, a "problem-field" that, we argue, serves to construct a particular understanding of IR theory with a very particular and restricted understanding of its own possibilities. Third, we develop

1Critical realism is a position within the philosophy of scien-ce an-d social science. It has nlo relationship to political realism. In fact we will argue that political realism rests upon an implicit philosophical anti-realism.


a very brief account of our proposed alternative, critical realism. And fourth, we try to show the difference that critical realism might make to a more ontologically attuned IR. In this section we argue against the incommensurability thesis and in favor of epistemological pluralism and opportunism. We try to revive causal theorizing by redefining causality in realist terms and by arguing that both meaningful reasons and social structures are causally efficacious. Drawing on this analysis we discuss the agent-structure problem and suggest how the social world can be decomposed into causal and ontological elements. We also challenge what we consider to be the misleading manner in which IR theory currently understands the levels of analysis problem. Finally, we indicate how critical realism has also normative implications for the study of IR.

Realism and Anti-Realism

Given the widespread acceptance of the view that positivism and postpositivism stand as binary opposites the claim that they share much in common will likely strike many IR scholars as perverse. Within the philosophy of science and social science, however, such a claim would not appear at all controversial. Larry Laudan, for example, has explored the common structure of assumptions they share (Laudan, 1996). Foucault openly admitted his empiricism and Peter Dews has even gone as far as to label him a positivist (Dews, 1987:184; Foucault, 1988:106).2 One could quite easily point to many of these shared assumptions; the fascination with language, for example, which is hardly in doubt as far as postmodernism is concerned, but the fact that the more radical of the logical positivists attempted to reduce philosophy, and to an extent also science, to the systematic analysis of language, seen as logical state- ments, seems to have been lost on IR scholars (Feyerabend, 1995; see also Carnap, 1972).

The attack on the Cartesian subject, again so energetically pursued by postmodern writers, was carried out in an equally vigorous manner by positivists in their attempt to purge the residues of subjectivity from their epistemology (Kola- kowski, 1969; Copjec, 1994). Even in the relationship between facts and values one can find evidence of a common structure, with many of those beyond the boundary of negativity echoing the positivist injunction that one can never move from facts to values; that value positions are simply divorced from factual considerations (Campbell, 1999). One could, as Laudan and others have done, provide additional examples such as these, but we think there is a more fundamental issue that unites these seemingly opposed positions, that of their anti-realism; whether explicit or implicit.

A common postpositivist critique of mainstream IR (for this read positivist) is that of the supposed naive belief in a "world out there" (George, 1994:11, 21). Indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that for some postpositivists, Jim George for example, positivism is nothing other than a belief in a "world out there" (George, 1994). The paradox of George's position is that he sees only too clearly that positivism, as a philosophical position, is anti-realist. There is, as George puts it, "no logical basis, even in positivism's own terms, for the proposition that knowledge of reality is directly derived from an independent world 'out there"' (George, 1994:53).3 Martin Hollis has likewise claimed that empiricist theories of knowledge (upon which positivism is based) are "anti- realist at bottom" (Hollis, 1996:303-304). George notes that this issue has never been raised in a serious way anywhere in IR (George, 1994:53). We raise it now,

2We think it is important here not to lapse into a facile rejection of positivism where the function of the term is simply to label a body of work one disagrees with. Although we fun-damentally disagree with positivism we view it as an important, although flawed, body of thought within philosophy.

3 The issue of a common anti-realism has also been noted by Alexander Wendt. See Wendt, 1999.


but draw different conclusions than those of George. Because having noted the implicit anti-realism of positivism it is paradoxical that George adopts such a position himself.

According to George (who might be considered by some to be beyond the boundary of negativity) the objects and subjects of reality "are sociolinguistically constructed" (George, 1994:156). Compare just how close this position comes to that of Kenneth Waltz, considered by many postpositivist writers to be beyond the boundary of boredom. For Waltz, "what we think of as reality is itself an elaborate conception constructed and reconstructed through the ages. Reality emerges from our selection and organisation of materials that are available in infinite quantity" (Waltz, 1979:5).

From an ontologically orientated perspective both the positivists and the postpositivists share a common metaphysical structure. For positivists the real is defined in terms of the experienced (esse est percipi) and for many postpositivists in terms of language/discourse (esse est dictum esse). What can be considered real always bears the mark, or insignia, of some human attribute; in effect, an anthro- pocentric philosophy (Bhaskar, 1989:147). We argue that this anthropocentrism is problematic, tying, as it does, existence to its being experienced or being spoken. Yet "to be" means more than "to be experienced" or "to be spoken." A world prior to the emergence of humanity is a condition of possibility for that emergence. Even the term construction, employed by both George and Waltz, implies a set of materials, whether social or natural, out of which this so-called reality is constructed and which have to exist prior to the construction.

But does this latent anti-realism make any difference? After all, even though many (though not all) postpositivists claim that "nothing exists outside of discourse" (Campbell, 1998:24-25), they continue to refer to it (Wight, 1999). And positivists, despite dismissing talk of an independently existing reality as metaphysical, still construct theories that treat nonobservable theoretical entities "as if" they existed. We think, however, that an explicit commitment to ontological realism has real consequences.

On the boundary of negativity, in terms of epistemology, the denial of objects existing independently of the discourses that construct them as objects seems unable to differentiate between competing truth claims (Norris, 1996). If discourses construct the objects to which the discourses refer, then the discourse itself can never be wrong about the existence of its objects, in any meaningful or methodologically interesting way. Nor can an alternative discourse possibly critique another discourse, since the objects of a given discourse exist if the discourse says they exist. External criticism of the existential claims of discourses seems impossible. Ontologically, if discourses do construct their own objects, then what constructed the discourses themselves? There is, of course, a long and venerable philosophical tradition of overt idealism that attempts to answer just this question. For example, for Berkeley it was God, for Hegel, Geist. We are unconvinced by these arguments, but if IR scholars want to adopt idealist positions then let us at least have the arguments in the open where they might be assessed. Methodologically, and despite the rhetoric of the "new," we see little change in the manner of research practices beyond the boundary of negativity. Arguments are still advanced and assessed, evidence offered, and independently existing objects, whether created in the discourse or not, are still referred to.

Those beyond the boundary of boredom fare little better. Epistemology and ontology become tied together (what Bhaskar calls the epistemic fallacy); what is known is what can be experienced and/or observed and what "is" is what can be known. Nonobservable theoretical entities are treated instrumentally. They are "mere fictions," useful perhaps but in no sense can they be considered real. Note also that this empiricist metaphysics can never achieve the flight from subjectivity and hence the objectivity it so desires. The tying of existence to experience


implies a subject capable of experiencing. There can be no experience without someone to experience. The world "out there" is inextricably tied to the world "in here." Methodologically, the useful little fictions become not just useful but indispensable and even the arch-Dadist Paul Feyerabend declared realism far superior to instrumentalism (Feyerabend, 1985).

There are two further reasons why a more explicit acceptance of realism is de- sirable. First, as noted above, and despite denials to the contrary, the commitment to realism is a condition of possibility for science and one that all parties adhere to; for positivists, sense-experience is real; for postpositivists, discourses or intersubjectivity is real. Hence the question becomes not whether one should be a realist, but of what kind? But realism comes in many forms and the depth realism advo- cated by critical realism plays a crucial role in defending the very idea of inquiry itself-in effect science. For beyond the boundary of negativity, if objects are constructed in discourses then there is simply nothing more to discover. Everything that is an object of discourse would be said to exist, that which is not an object of discourse would not exist. Science, at least as currently practised, would come to an end. A recent example of this comes from Sherry Turkle, who argues that in our postmodern world "the search for depth and mechanism is futile, that it is more realistic to explore the world of shifting surfaces than to embark on a search for origins and structure . .. the future does not lie in this 'really, really' question. It lies in taking things at interface value" (Turkle, 1999).

Beyond the boundary of boredom, on the other hand, if it works on the pre- sumption of "as if" they existed, then why continue an inquiry into whether or not they really exist and have whatever form? There is simply no need to go beyond the appearances and inquire into the nature of things, in effect, the same position as Turkle advocates. Science would come to an end when we could "save the appearances." David Hume provides a less contemporary example, but one that graphi- cally illuminates the affinities between those beyond both boundaries:

tis still certain we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pre- tends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical.... When we see that we have arrived at the utmost extent of human reason, we sit down contented. (Hume, 1967:88-89)

The depth realism we advocate, on the other hand, challenges both of these positions. We argue that part of the rationale for science is the attempt to know whether or not things are really as described, and what it is that makes them appear as such. Science on this account never comes to an end. No claim is ever immune from challenge. Discourses can be, and often are wrong about their objects, and the assumption of "as if" they exist is at best a short-term solution. The world is real and science is dependent upon the making of existential hypotheses. This is not, however, to advocate a blind allegiance to science, for as Bhaskar puts it, science is not

a supreme or overriding value, but only one among others to be balanced (in a balance that cannot be wholly judged by science) in ergonic, emancipatory and eudaimonistic activity. Nor do I think the objects of science exhaust reality. On the contrary, they afford only particular angle or slant of reality, picked out precisely for its explanatory scope and power. (Bhaskar, 1993:15)

In this manner, scientific outputs, understood simply as knowledge that attempts to explain, still require social evaluation.4 The above arguments provide com-

4 Examples of this process are the public debates over genetically modified food an-d human clon-ing.


pelling arguments for taking critical realism seriously. But before turning to outline some of the differences critical realism might make to IR, we want to provide a sketch of how it is that IR, in common with other social sciences, finds itself in the two boundaries and middle ground position and that the manner in which this latent anti-realism helps construct such an understanding.5 Our main target here will be the anti-realism and deep scepticism that plays a major role in the construction of the boundaries of both boredom and negativity.

Hume, Kant, and the Loss of the World We will try to show in this section that the postpositivist reaction to positivism is embedded within the same background discourse and is derived from a long philosophical tradition of anti-realism/scepticism. We do not mean to suggest that we identify philosophical irrealism as the single master-source of all contemporary problems in IR theory. But we do suggest that a more explicit and attentive explication of the issue of realism is a necessary condition in order for IR to move beyond the two boundaries given that anti-realism is fundamental to both.

Every problem, whether practical-political or theoretical, has a set of in-built presuppositions. Put together-to the extent that there is some consistency- these presuppositions form what Bhaskar calls a theory/problem solution field (henceforth a "problem-field"). Our argument is that those beyond the boundaries of boredom and negativity share the same "problem-field" despite the surface rhetoric that separates them.6

Leaving aside the crucially important socioeconomic and political context of the emergence of this "problem-field" (but see Toulmin, 1990:13-22) it emanates from a number of metaphysical presuppositions. Although many philosophers- such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke-were quite explicit about the atomism, rationalism, dualisms and empiricism on which they were grounding their political theories, it was the much more secular and anti-theological eighteenth century philosopher David Hume who most clearly articulated and developed the implications of this modern metaphysics.7

Hume's importance to the "problem-field" we identify is multifaceted, but given the limitations of space we will focus on his influential account of causation, which is accepted by those beyond both boundaries, and which, crucially, is derived from his thoroughgoing scepticism and anti-realism. Hume was radically sceptical about the persistence and existence of reality outside the human mind and perceptions. For Hume, there are only perceptions based upon Impressions, and Ideas, which, if they are justified can only be legitimated on the basis of experience. That is, he claimed that there is nothing outside an individual's perceptions/experience. In common with most forms of scepticism Hume was deriving ontological arguments from epistemological ones. Since we can never know whether there is an external reality, the only reality we can legitimately refer to is that which can be experienced. Hume's scepticism constituted the ground upon which empiricist theories of knowledge are based.

Since experience could not be divorced from a subject which experiences, Hume concluded that the "science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences" (Hume, 1967/1739:88). And the basis of this science of man can only be that of experience and observation (Hume, 1967/1739:88).

5On this issue see Wight, 1998. 6 By a "theory/problem solution field we mean the set of unchallenged theoretical assumptions and the

inevitable solutions such assumptions generate" (Bhaskar, 1994:10). The following argument will be outlined in more detail in (forthcoming).

7 Our reading of Hume and Kant and their importance is in many ways informed by Bhaskar, 1986:224-308.


As with most sceptics, and despite his denial of reality, Hume, in practice, adhered to a form of empirical realism. But in limiting what can be meaningfully said of the world to what could be experienced, Hume faced a difficult problem vis-a-vis causation. Hume noted that a common-sense understanding of causality involves the notion of force through which the cause somehow produces the effect; in essence a necessary connection. But, and as a result of his scepticism, Hume argued that since no such force or necessary connection can be empiri- cally verified (experienced), such a common-sense understanding is in error. For Hume, causation is just one of the three "bonds that unite our thoughts together" (Hume, 1975/1777:50). All we ever observe, he argued, is the constant conjunction of events. This account of causation has been hugely influential and even among those scholars who reject causal talk in terms of the social world, the account of causation being rejected is generally that of Hume (e.g., see Hollis and Smith, 1994).

But Hume's scepticism also played a role in the formation of his political thinking. His radical scepticism implied the view that nothing can ever change and that although things were co-joined (in the human mind) they were never really connected.8 It is thereby no surprise that in his study on the balance of power, Hume concludes:

In short the maxim of preserving the balance of power is founded so much on common sense and obvious reasoning, that it is impossible it could altogether have escaped antiquity, where we find, in other particulars, so many marks of deep penetration and discernment. (Hume, 1950/1825:107)

Although Hume presupposed the modern political theoretical problem of order (see Hirschman, 1977), he taught that there has always been a balance of power politics. This belief is driven by his metaphysical conviction that there have been no real changes and that there can be none. Since "when we say that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connexion in our thought" (Hume, 1975/1777:76), the balance of power is itself a construct of the mind. Little wonder that Hume thought that it has always existed and always will, at least insofar as there are minds. It is also telling how Hume argues that the balance of power has no practical effect. In Hume's view statesmen are driven by their passions, not by rational considerations or the external world (which of course he denies); again a condition that does not change and one at least consistent with his radical scepticism. In terms of morality Hume's scepticism served to ground a form of self-interest far more radical than that of Hobbes. Consistent with his scepticism Hume famously declared that "it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger" (quoted in Bhaskar, 1994:192). However, although Hume was a seminal influence in the construction of the "problem-field" of IR, it was Kant who finally put all the pieces together and gave the familiar shape IR confronts today.

Awoken from his "dogmatic slumbers" by Hume's scepticism, Kant systemat- ically collected the pieces of the "problem-field" together. Kant was concerned to refute Hume's scepticism of an external reality and, in a widely influential solution, posited two worlds-that of phenomena/noumena. At the level of phenomena-the world we experience-Kant's world is ultimately Humean. But this phenomenal world we inhabit was not the real world for Kant. As a tran- scendental idealist, Kant also introduced the noumenal world-the site of reason and morality. Yes, there was a real world but we could know nothing of it. The only world we could meaningfully speak of was that which we could know;

8 Again, this argument was also advanced by Hobbes (1909:19-21).


the phenomenal world. If there is indubitable scientific knowledge of, and an objective order to, this phenomenal world, argued Kant, then it emanates from the universal categories of understanding-not the nature of the world itself. Time, space, form, content, meaning, and hence causation, in effect the world we confront, were all categories of the mind. Again, as with Hume, the practical effect of giving priority to the epistemological question of what we can know over the ontological question of what there is to know is an impoverished ontology. Kant's answer to Hume's scepticism was achieved through the cutting of his ontological cloth to fit his epistemological givens.

Kant's world is dualistic; there is no way that noumena (moral reasons) could have any causal impact on phenomena (determinist causal processes of the world). For Kant, freedom was defined as "spontaneity" and in no way could an act be considered free if it was in any way caused. Hence, the noumenal world was cut off from the determinist world of causal phenomena. Science could hope to understand the phenomenal world where all events and processes can, in principle, be subsumed under a causal order, but the noumenal world-the site of reason-could not be explained causally. As Kant himself puts it, "we are dealing with two kinds of causality conceivable by us; causality according to nature or that which arises from freedom" (Kant, 1934:253-268). And there is simply no way to link these two worlds, because freedom is defined "as a state of spontaneity ... [s]uch causality will not, therefore, itself stand under another cause determining it in time, as required by the law of nature" (Kant, 1934:253- 268). Nor can reason bring about any change in the causal order of things since "no action begins in this active being itself" (Kant, 1934:257).

International relations develops under the shadow of this dualistic "problem- field" and the following is meant to be only suggestive of this development (see Patomaki, forthcoming). For Hegel, Kant's solution represented an act of cowardice. It was cowardice because, at the end of the day, it had to turn to other- worldly solutions in its search for morality and rationality.9 Hegel wanted to show that the existing world is already rational by uniting Kant's two worlds into one through Geist; itself manifested through the state-the Divine Idea on Earth.10

It was in this intellectual context that the term Realpolitik was coined in Ger- many after the unsuccessful revolutionary year of 1848. Generally, ideas of Real- politik were developed by the disillusioned liberals who drew the conclusion that liberal thinkers should denounce their ambitious programs of change (Palonen, 1987:99-102). Realpolitik can be understood as a reaction to Kant's idealist noumena and the "rationalist" Enlightenment thinking. After all, what use was a world in which we could do nothing and know nothing of? Far better, is it not, to deal only with the phenomenal world which we inhabit?

The other key figure in the development of this "problem-field" is Max Weber (about the centrality of Weber to the twentieth century IR, see for instance Smith, 1986). Weber was a synthetic thinker who combined ideas from Hume, Kant, Hegel, romantic and hermeneutical thinkers (themselves drawing on Kant) such as Schleiermacher, Realpolitik pessimists such as Nietzsche, as well as turn- of-the-century positivists. In domestic politics, Weber was a liberal, a sceptical and sometimes critical believer in modernization (and rationalization and secu- larization) as progress. Sometimes he was simply fatalistic and in terms of international relations he articulated a vision that denied the possibility of progress and emancipation. Weber thought that outside of modern nations, there are no

9 To rescue his moral convictions, Kant resorted to a speculative theory of possible historical development, and ultimately, to his faith in Providence. Although Kant's theory of possible history is not without merits, it does not resolve the ontological problem. See Kant, 1983/1783, and 1983/1784.

10 On the relationship between Hegel and critical realism see Bhaskar, 1993.


shared values, only the quasi-Nietzschean struggle of wills-to-power of different charismatic national leaders.

Hans Morgenthau brought this German Realpolitik discourse to the U.S. Here in his most Nietzschean moment, contrasting idealizations of "scientific man" to the brute "realities of power politics," and through his appeal to Hume implicitly invoking Kant's dualistic world view:

Aristotle anticipated this modern problem, as so many others, when he remarked in the Nicomachean Ethics: "Intellect itself, however, moves nothing." When rationalism was reaping its philosophic triumph, Hume could say: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." (Morgenthau, 1946:154)

The Morgenthau of Scientific Man vs. Power Politics was extremely sceptical about finding any scientific knowledge about the world, because, ultimately, the world is romantically tragic and Nietzschean. Interestingly, Nietzsche also relied upon the Humean account of the phenomenal world; he believed that Hume's ("English petit bourgeois") scepticism could be rewritten in terms of the metaphysical voluntarism of "will-to-power." Some postmodernists are very close to repeating this pattern (on the close links between the Humean notion of causality, scepticism, Nietzsche, and many forms of deconstruction, see Culler, 1983:86-87). And, finally, we have the Unhappy Consciousness of the Christian "realists" such as Niebuhr, and early Butterfield and Wight, who saw the origin of world historical tragedies to lie in the original sin of humankind, and thought that the salvation must be other-wordly, too. Many of these sceptical and anti-Enlightenment IR thinkers took for granted the Kantian dualism between the phenomenal world of Humean causality and the noumenal world of reason and meanings. On the other hand, Humean and Nietzschean tenets notwithstanding, the founding role of anti-realism and scepticism was gradually forgotten, particularly in the scientistic U.S. American discourse attempting to deal with the world "as it is."

Note that all the classical IR debates are within this same "problem-field." This holds obviously true for idealism vs. realism, but also for the "great" methodological debate of the 1960s, which was a dispute between the scientists and the advocates of a more hermeneutically orientated IR. And the so-called Third debate between positivism and postpositivism is within the same "problem-field," with many Nietzschean deconstructionists and hermeneuticists relying upon the Kantian dichotomy between reasons and causal phenomena. What typically goes unnoticed is the role played by scepticism and anti-realism in structuring these debates.

And it is here that the importance of Hume, Kant, and the implicit anti- realism of empiricist theories of knowledge cannot be overstated. Kant, who articulated the IR "problem-field," relied upon a Humean ontology. The ontology of Kant's phenomenal world is essentially that of Hume. The existence of another world (Kant's noumenal world) opens up the possibility of transcending Hume, but Kant closes off this possibility by divorcing the world of reason from that of causation. In effect, Kant forces a sharp separation between the material and ideational. And what has been ripped apart in this manner is very difficult, if not impossible, to reunite. Scholars operating in the shadow of this "problem- field" are now faced with two alternatives; either accept the phenomenal world as it is and with it Hume's atomistic and deterministic individualism, or divorce the world of reason from that of physical causation and perhaps even causation itself. Explanation vs. Understanding, Rationalism vs. Reflectivism, Positivism vs. Post- positivism are all embedded within the same "problem-field."

We argue that a rethinking of this "problem-field" requires a substantially different understanding of the ontological problematic, one that reverses the


long-standing prioritising of epistemological matters over ontological ones. Crit- ical realism, we argue, is suggestive of potential solutions to these problems, because of its radical break with both Humean scepticism and Kantian transcen- dental idealism. Critical realism provides an alternative "problem-field" which embeds the social within the material without reducing one to the other.

Critical Realism

Every theory of knowledge must also logically presuppose a theory of what the world is like (ontology) for knowledge (epistemology) to be possible. Or as Bhaskar, inverting a Hegelian aphorism, puts it, "all philosophies, cognitive discourses and practical activities presuppose a realism-in the sense of some ontology or general account, of the world-of one kind or another" (Bhaskar, 1989:2). The question is not of whether to be a realist, but of what kind of realist to be. We have attempted to show how the boundaries of both negativity and boredom share a common "problem-field," which is structured by various forms of anti- realism/scepticism. We have also argued that those beyond the boundary of boredom tend to be empirical realists and those beyond the boundary of negativity tend towards linguistic realism. We want to now situate a different "problem- field": one that takes the possibility of a deeper realism to be a condition of possibility for both empirical and linguistic realism. The form of realism we advocate can be called critical realism (for essential readings, see Archer et al., 1998).

There are two distinct ways in which critical realism differs from empirical and linguistic realism. First, according to critical realism the world is composed not only of events, states of affairs, experiences, impressions, and discourses, but also of underlying structures, powers, and tendencies that exist, whether or not detected or known through experience and/or discourse. For critical realists this underlying reality provides the conditions of possibility for actual events and perceived and/or experienced phenomena. According to critical realists, empirical and linguistic realists collapse what are, in effect, different levels of reality into one (Bhaskar, 1975:56). For both the underlying reality that makes experience possible and the course of events that is not experienced/spoken are reduced to what can be experienced or become an object of discourse.

Second, for critical realism the different levels may be out of phase with each other. What we mean is that although the underlying level may possess certain powers and tendencies, these are not always manifest in experience, or even for that matter realized. A nuclear arsenal has the power to bring about vast destruction and this power exists irrespective of being actualized. Moreover, this power is itself based on more than that which we directly experience. The conception we are proposing is that of a world composed, in part, of complex things (including systems and complexly structured situations) that, by virtue of their structures, possess certain powers, potentials, and capacities to act in certain ways even if those capacities are not always realized. The world on this view consists of more than the actual course of events and experiences and/or discourses about them.

Science, in this view, is not a deductive process that attempts to seek out constant event conjunctions, but one that aims at identifying and illuminating the structures, powers, and tendencies that structure the course of events. A significant part of what constitutes science is the attempt to identify the relatively enduring structures, powers, and tendencies, and to understand their character- istic ways of acting. Explanation entails providing an account of those structures, powers and tendencies that have contributed to, or facilitated, some already identified phenomenon of interest. It is important to note that the mode of inference implied by critical realism is neither deduction nor induction, but


retroduction. This consists in the movement, on the basis of analogy and metaphor amongst other things, from a conception of some phenomenon of interest to the development of a model of some totally different type of thing, structure, or condition that, at least in part, is responsible for the given phenomenon.

From this perspective there can be no a priori assumption that the scientific endeavour could ever come to an end. For as one phenomenon is explained by a deeper level, that deeper level itself becomes a new phenomenon that requires explanation. Equally, as deeper layers are revealed and understood, the knowledge we gain of them may necessitate that we revise our understandings of the original phenomenon. Science is seen to proceed through a constant spiral of discovery and understanding, further discovery, and revision, and hopefully more adequate, understanding. Note also that in this view there can be no such thing as "the scientific method." Such an ontologically oriented perspective implies, given the commitment to a structured and differentiated reality, that each science will require its own methods of inquiry. But equally, each science, insofar as it attempts to explain, will still be a science.

Critical realism, then, differs from empirical and linguistic realism in viewing the world as, in part, composed of objects, including causal laws which are structured and, to adopt Bhaskar's term, are "intransitive" to those that would wish to come to know them. This intransitive dimension to the world is irreduc- ible to events and their patterns and it is these structures, powers, and tendencies that are designated in causal laws, not Humean constant conjunctions.

This intransitive dimension to science, however, is, of course, only one side of the equation. As is already implied in the rejection of the idea that this deeper level of reality is immediately given in experience, another dimension to science is necessary in order to make sense of knowledge production. Rejecting, for the sake of intelligibility, that knowledge of these underlying structures emerges ex nihilo, it would seem that it must come about through a transformation of pre-existing knowledge; a set of antecedent materials, what Bhaskar calls transitive objects-theories, paradigms, models, facts, speculations, linguistic conven- tions, beliefs, hunches, hypotheses, guesses, symbolic gestures, and so on. Knowledge, then, is a social product, actively produced by means of antecedent social products-albeit on the basis of a continual engagement, or interaction, with its (intransitive) object. That is, widely different theories can interpret the same, unchanging world in radically different ways. However, because it is knowledge of an independently existing reality, knowledge is not totally arbitrary and some claims about the nature of this reality may provide better accounts than others.

In summary, the critical realist "problem-field" we advocate can be said to be committed to ontological realism (that there is a reality, which is differentiated, structured, and layered, and independent of mind), epistemological relativism (that all beliefs are socially produced and hence potentially fallible), and judg- mental rationalism (that despite epistemological relativism, it is still possible, in principle, to provide justifiable grounds for preferring one theory over another).

But can this new "problem-field" be applied to the study of the social world? In the social world, are things not radically different, because the specific material structure of the social world-its institutions, social relations, and practices- are dependent upon social meanings in numerous ways? Thus, as part of the object, the ideas, beliefs, concepts, and knowledge held by people in societies must be understood. In studying social objects, such as war, nationality, and gender, we must interpret what these and other relevant social objects mean for the subjects whose practices constitute these objects. In a sense the study of the social world requires that the subject become part of its object. This necessitates an essential critical component to all properly conceived social sciences. For any given social object will necessarily be constituted by, inter alia, a set of practices


(themselves concept dependent) and a number of ideas about those practices. Insofar as some of the ideas and beliefs circulating within social groups about a given set of practices may be incorrect, a social scientist who identifies these incorrect beliefs must necessarily be critical of them. And if this sociological account contradicts the participants' understanding of the situation it must necessarily be critical of these understandings.

This constitutes a radical difference between the study of the social world and the natural world, but it does not, in our opinion, violate the intransitive nature of social phenomena in relation to those minds or persons who would wish to come to know it. The social world certainly depends upon the concepts that the agents acting in it possess, but it cannot be the case that any given social phenomenon requires the existence of a social scientist to conceptualise it before it can come into being. Equally, the deep ontology suggested by critical realism also foregrounds a stark contrast to positivist and postpositivist ontologies deeply embedded with the "problem-field" of IR. On a critical realist reading, the social world cannot be reduced either to its experiential moment or to its intersubjective elements. That the social world consists of more than can be experienced is self-evident from the importance of ideas, beliefs, concepts, and knowledge to the social world.

Some of those beyond the boundaries of boredom, behavioralists, for example, attempt to deny the validity of this notion of depth to the social world by taking only observable behaviors as worthy of inquiry and it should be obvious how impoverished this ontology is. But as one would expect from approaches deriving from a common "problem-field," many of those beyond the boundary of negativity and even some attempting to occupy the middle ground tend to define society solely in terms of intersubjectivity or practices (Doty, 1997). Alex- ander Wendt, for example, seems to view the difference between the individual and society as that between the subjective and the intersubjective, hence his claim that the social world is "ideas all the way down" (Wendt, 1992).? Society, for Wendt, is intersubjectivity. But what is lost with this definition?

To critical realism the intersubjective merely represents one important and necessary part of the social. Yet, important as intersubjective meanings and relations are, they do not exhaust the social world. According to Bhaskar (1979:152- 205) intersubjective relations typically represent only the immediate appearance of the social relations that constitute society, even if they are also necessary for the (re)production of all social relations. Thus for Bhaskar, the surface appearance of intersubjectivity, although possessing causal power, is typically distinct from its underlying-and potentially hidden, reified, or mystified-essential relations.

Putting Critical Realism to Work in IR

The Incommensurability Thesis Critical realism shares with postpositivist approaches a commitment to methodological and epistemological pluralism. Yet the incommensurability thesis threat- ens any nascent multi-paradigmatic approach.12 If incommensurability entails that meaningful communication across paradigms is, in principle, impossible, then any form of multi-paradigmatic inquiry would seem to be futile. In effect, although incommensurability seems to provide the rationale to keep the con-

" Although it should be noted that Wendt has recently added a question mark to this assertion (Wendt, 1999). However, according to critical realism the social world can no more be ideas all the way down than it can be materiality all the way down.

12 For a more detailed refutation of the incommensurability thesis and its attendant problems see Wight, 1996.


versation going, no "real" conversation takes place. Within international relations the argument for incommensurability is generally attributed to Thomas Kuhn (1970a). Although superficially a liberating position, Kuhn's thesis quickly legitimates a stagnant conservatism (Guzzini, 1993:446; Wight, 1996). For Kuhn, normal science represents that phase when problems are solved, but crucially, it also describes a situation in which one paradigm dominates.

Given the complexity and open nature of the social world, however, it is hardly possible that one paradigm could ever dominate. Taking a complex social ontology seriously requires a commitment to a multi-paradigmatic approach. But if the incommensurability thesis holds then any attempt to put a multi- paradigmatic approach into practice is doomed to failure. The incommensurability thesis legitimates apartheid for paradigms where proponents of competing paradigms assume that they alone know (epistemological incommensurability) the truth of the world they have created (ontological incommensurability). Incom- mensurability buttresses competing approaches from criticism from alternative approaches-a situation we find deplorable since we consider all claims should, at least potentially, be open to challenge. But what are the arguments for incommensurability?

Incommensurability signifies the idea that there is no common measure among paradigms of inquiry.13 It can take either an ontological or epistemological form. The ontological argument is actually a non sequitur. For if two theories/ paradigms have different objects, then they cannot be said to clash. In order for theories to clash they must clash over something. Einstein's theory of relativity does not clash with Darwin's theory of evolution. Strictly speaking, the idea that theories of different parts of reality are incommensurable is true, but uninteresting. Of course, theories can clash and posit different ontologies in their attempt to explain some phenomenon. Note, however, that in order to be interesting, and to be said to clash, some aspects of the phenomenon remain constant and what changes/clashes are the explanations of the phenomenon.

All theories that attempt to explain the end of the Cold War accept that certain important episodes and changes took place, which require explanation. It is obvious that theories understand the Cold War and its end in different ways-and many of them misidentify both badly (see Patomaki, 1992a). But they accept that they are referring to at least partially same real phenomenon. If they did not we could not know that they were clashing. Admittedly, in the attempt to explain, some events will be privileged over others, and it may be the case that some events undergo a comprehensive redescription such that they are no lon- ger recognizable under the old descriptions. But even in these situations it is rare for there to be no overlap among phenomena. For if there were no ontological overlap in what sense could we say the accounts clashed? In this sense, critical realism's refocusing of ontological questions escapes the "problem-field" of IR and directs our attention to the question of "ontological overlap" between theories.14 Put simply, if there is no ontological overlap then there is little point in trying to compare theories, or bemoaning the fact that we can't.

The epistemological argument for incommensurability is altogether more interesting, although, we think, no more convincing. This epistemological argument suggests that since different theories/paradigms have different epistemological

13 It seems to us that the argument that there is no "neutral" metalanguage with which to compare competing theories is basically sound. However, this does not mean that communication/translation across theories/paradigms is impossible. If one is translating from one language into another one does not first have to learn a neutral third language in order to communicate. Interestingly, Kuhn was keen to distance himself from some of the more radical interpretations of the incommensurability thesis that have emerged (see Kuhn, 1970b, 1982, 1990).

14 For how this kind of analysis is done in the context of explaining the Economic and Monetary Union, see Patomaki, 1997.


criteria then there is simply no way to compare them; the evidence accepted by one may be rejected by the other. Yet the epistemological argument rests upon the fallacious assumption that paradigms are embedded in one, and only one, epistemological outlook, and are hermetically sealed. We find this assumption wholly implausible.

For example, Martin Hollis and Steve Smith suggest that "explanatory" accounts and "interpretive" accounts necessitate different epistemologies (Hollis and Smith, 1991, 1994). It seems to us that Hollis and Smith are confusing epistemologies with methodologies. Given that the social world constitutes a different kind of object compared to atoms, for example, it is hardly surprising that its study will require a different set of methods, but methods are not epistemologies. This Explanation vs. Understanding controversy is embedded within the IR "problem- field." Yet what can it mean to talk of an "interpretative epistemology"? Or an explanatory epistemology? The reduction of Explanation and Understanding to one and only one epistemology does violence to the many disputes that have shaped and formed debates within these traditions. Explanations (taken to mean a commitment to scientific methods) can be empiricist, rationalist, pragmatist, and/or conventionalist in epistemological outlook. And of course, these epistemologies should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.

The more appropriate epistemological stance is one of "epistemological opportunism": anything goes, as far as there are good reasons for it and it gives the promise of advancing our knowledge (cf. Feyerabend, 1995:123). Equally, epistemological speculation in an ontological vacuum is at best arbitrary and invariably leads to debilitating disputes over epistemological "turf." Obvi- ously, these good reasons are contested and should be discussed also in the context of concrete research puzzles. Critical realism nonetheless suggests that the plausibility of existential hypotheses and the explanatory power and origi- nality of models are crucial. But so is the capability to incorporate different perspectives.

The rejection of ontological and epistemological incommensurability, however, does not demonstrate how communication between different approaches might be achieved in practice. What it does demonstrate is that such communication is, in principle, possible.

Ontologically the social world is composed of a fragmented interplay of practices based on various partial, relational perspectives, and a more comprehensive perspective is achieved by transcending and adapting these partial perspectives and synthesising them into a broader, non-reductive perspective capable of incor- porating the strengths of all. Note, however, that this does not imply the destruction of competing perspectives. The synthesis we advocate does not imply a grand theory of everything. This, we think, is the real methodological import of Nietzschean perspectivism (Nietzsche, 1989:119). What is important to realize is that this process is continual. No synthesis can ever be absolute and final: reality is constantly changing, and so there can only be a "dynamic" synthesis that is constantly being reformulated.

The dynamic synthesis that we advocate can be achieved only if the relativity and the partial nature of all perspectives is recognized, appreciated, and incor- porated into a more comprehensive account, and if we challenge the unnoticed assumptions of the "problem-field" into which these problems are embedded. This will require a rethinking of these partial perspectives; a rethinking that fundamentally challenges them and reformulates them.

Causality

Outside the strictly positivist camp there has been very little talk about causality in IR. In general this is because those that reject the applicability of causal talk


in the social still presume the Humean account of it. When based on this positivist-Humean account of cause, scientific explanations are essentially deductive in form. According to this view the explanandum (the event to be explained) is the logical conclusion of a general law and the occurrence of a set of initial conditions, which together constitute the explanans (that which does the explaining). This model of explanation is generally known as the D-N, or "covering law" model. To get a clearer picture of what this model entails, suppose that events A and B are related by the general law, "if event A occurs then event B must occur." 15 The following schema exemplifies the D-N model:

If event A occurs, then event B must occur. (the covering law) Event A has occurred

Therefore event B must (had to) occur

The D-N model implies that the role of an empirical science is to uncover general laws (covering laws) that can then be used as the premises of deductive arguments. This model implies the symmetry of explanation and prediction: if one has knowledge to explain B, one could have also predicted it. It also implies the parity of explanation, prediction, and falsification, in that a failed prediction falsifies (Bhaskar, 1994:20). But what are the key problems with this model?

First and foremost, based as it is solely at the level of co-joined events, it does not really constitute an explanation at all. To say that "this acid turns litmus paper red, or this metal conducts electricity because all do is hardly explanatory" (Bhaskar, 1994:20). Moreover, the model cannot sustain the distinction between a necessary and an accidental sequence of events. There may well be a correla- tion between democracies and peace, but is there a connection? The Humean model also cannot account for the fundamental common-sense experience of trying to do something we are unable to do, and failing (Gerwin, 1987). The world resists all attempts to reduce it to our ideas.

The question that critical realists pose for this model is: Is the noted constant conjunction, i.e., the principle of empirical invariance, either necessary, or sufficient for explanation? The answer is no. For constant conjunctions (empirical regularities) in general only obtain under experimentally controlled conditions. That is, under closure. Given that the social world is open not closed, then it is hardly surprising that no laws have yet been discovered. Both the ontology (perception or sense-realism and the implicit assumption that social systems are closed) and the related theory of causality are false and misleading.

Among the recent and most systematic attempts to tackle the problem of causality in IR is that of Suganami's On the Causes of War (1996). With a simple analysis of causes as necessary and/or sufficient conditions, Suganami (1996:48- 53) is able to demonstrate the implausibility of the Waltzian notion of international anarchy as an explanation of war. He also shows how the claim that liberal states have not fought against each other is also without an adequate account of the historical mechanisms that would explain this alleged statistical invariance. In general, as admitted even by the main advocates of the thesis, dyadic liberalism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for peace (Suganami, 1996:70-74 and also Chapter 3, particularly 101-112). This is explained by Suganami:

15 Note that this is a simplification to the extreme. The "covering law" model does not, in general, presuppose that there is a unique A, which is a sufficient condition for B. Moreover, even within positivist approaches, causal relations can be conditional, multistage, and allow for alternative causation of the same phenomena, thus allowing for more appropriate construction of "models of some fragments of 'historical reality"' (see Nowak, 1960).

HEIKKI PATOMXKI AND COLIN WIGHT 229

A number of different explanations can coexist for the phenomenon of inter- liberal peace as a whole, but this point seems mostly unnoticed by Doyle, his supporters, and his critics.... [T]here is no guarantee that only one of the above theses [about the causes for peace] will hold true consistently with respect to all instances of inter-liberal peace. Indeed, there is no guarantee even that the cause of peace between any two liberal states remains the same throughout different historical periods. (Suganami, 1996:104, 107)

This explanation points in the right direction. In open systems, outcomes might be the result of many different causes and the same cause might lead to different outcomes. Moreover, Suganami correctly pays attention to the ambivalent for- mulations Hempel employed-are the alleged laws known or are they existing in the world, whether known or not? He nonetheless only wants to "considerably dilute," at least in the first phase of his argument, the Humean account of causality (see Suganami, 1996:119-128).

Yet because of his ontological coyness Suganami assumes that further elabo- ration on the notion of causality would not lead us anywhere, and that the basic ambivalences and ambiguities of the deductive-hypothetical model of explanation would remain. Yet in rejecting a strict positivism Suganami moves to an ontological idealism similar to many forms of postpositivism, and gives up the idea of an independent-ontological-notion of causality entirely and argues for a narrative as the fundamental basis for explanation. This is a paradigmatic example of the manner in which the "problem-field" of IR limits the possibilities of theoretical advance.

A narrative account renders the outbreak of the war more intelligible to us than before, the sequence of events thus narrated constituting the cause of the war. (Sug- anami, 1996:140; italics in original)

Obviously, Suganami has an important point here, but its nature is epistemological, not ontological. Social scientists do tell stories about temporal sequences of events and processes. However, the ontological status of the sequence of events is unclear in his account. Are these narrative sequences projections of the narrative themselves, or are they real causal complexes which brought about the war independent of the narrative?

Explanations are indeed interpretative (narrative) attempts to make explanandum intelligible to us (whoever the "we" are), but they must include existential and causal hypotheses about the real world. Events, episodes, and processual tendencies are caused by the causal powers existing in the world (within which we dwell as a very small part of it and possibly incapable of understanding large parts of it), not by our stories and scientific texts. For instance, however we tell the story about the three World Wars of this century, we cannot change their existence or causes any more than we can change the geo-historical processes of the formation of the planet Earth and the evolution of the life-forms on it. Stories about world politics presuppose and contain existential and causal hypotheses about the tensed, processual real world, which-to the extent that we are talking about the past, and to a large extent also if we are talking about the present and the future-exists, existed, and to a contingent extent will exist, quite independently of our stories about it, whoever the "we" are (given that there are always multiple, structurally positioned actors playing a role in world history).

In order to provide causal explanation we need theories about what it is that brings about changes in the world outside of the texts we are writing ourselves; that is, an account of causal powers of different structured mechanisms or complexes at different layers of the world. Positivists and postpositivists alike, embed-


ded in the "problem-field" of IR, have difficulties in explaining anything happening outside their own sense perceptions and texts.

According to critical realism, there are different layers of world, each being able to influence each other causally. These layers include ecological, biological, and social worlds. Now, it is a central critical realist argument that, at the social layer, reasons for actions by social beings are among the causally powerful elements of the real world. For instance, the Cold War ended because a multiplicity of actors contributed to it in a causally efficacious manner in the context of worldwide state diplomacy between 1985 and 1991. These actors included amongst others, the Reagan administration, Western peace movements, parties, and gov- ernments, Soviet thinks tanks, Gorbachev himself, nationalists of different Soviet states, and Soviet and Eastern European dissidents. Many of these participants were also constituted (in part) by the concepts and political theories circulated in and disseminated from the West (some of them articulated for instance in the CSCE Final Act, even if only in a compromise form). These kinds of existential- and related causal-hypotheses presuppose, in turn, the pre-existence (the reality) of a differentiated, layered, and structured world with real causal powers, upon which these agents draw.

Agency/Structure

The fundamental issue in the agent-structure problem (ASP) is enshrined by the pithy yet compelling truism articulated by Marx. Men (sic) do indeed make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing. Within the commu- nity of international relations scholars the ASP has tended to be subsumed under the guise of the level-of-analysis problem. Explicit recognition of the agent-structure problem came with Alexander Wendt's influential 1987 article, although Ashley (1984) had already discussed it. Following this, interventions by David Dessler (1989), Martin Hollis and Steve Smith (1990, 1992, 1994), and Walter Carlsnaes (1992), to name but a few, have served to highlight the importance of this debate to IR scholars and have separated this problem from the "level-of-analysis" problem.

At heart the agent-structure problem is an ontological problem concerning the constitutive elements of the social world and their interrelationships. From this ontological problem epistemological and methodological problems arise. The approach we advocate rejects both individualism (however the individuals are defined-generally states) and holism. We argue that every social act, event, or phenomenon is only possible insofar as the conditions for action exist as well as the agents which act; conditions which, we argue, are real and not reducible to the discourses and/or experiences of the agents. Ontologically, the social world can only be understood as a processual flow that is intrinsically open and subject to multiple and at times contradictory causal processes. In this view, the issue is not how to integrate agents and structures into one account, but how they could ever be separated. Even when such a separation becomes necessary on analytical grounds, as in the abstracting of agency from structure in order to study structure, it is vital to remember that this is only an analytical separation and not an ontological one.

Agents cannot be separated from structures for at least three reasons. First, agents cannot easily be separated from the social situations in which they are routinely embedded. This should not be taken to imply a denial of an individual's sense of identity, personality, and perception of the social world as these things are experienced and/or influenced by her, or his, social experience. Individual selves, however, are rhythmically developing, stratified beings, and a critical realist account would necessarily reject extreme psychological explanations that view the individual as a separate unit possessing a fixed inner core or


essence. In this sense critical realism puts the realm of individual deliberation (Kant's noumenal realm) firmly in the realm of phenomena.

Second is the fact that all social activity is, as Derek Layder has called it, situated activity (Layder, 1993:80-89). This highlights the dynamic nature of the social world and draws attention to the dynamics of interaction itself. Social activity generally occurs in gatherings of, or encounters between, several individuals and can tend to produce outcomes and properties that are a result of the interchange of communication between the group as a whole rather than the behaviour of the individuals viewed singly. That is to say, situated activity displays emergent properties that are the result of the way in which individuals interact and coalesce and which could never have been understood or explained through an analysis of the individuals themselves.

And third, all social activity is dependent upon antecedent structural materials and takes place in a context. Selves and situated activity exist within a wider and deeper relational context. All social reproduction and/or transformation takes place under conditions and relations inherited from the past. These conditions and relations represent the already established character of social forms that have been reproduced and/or transformed in the past and which confront new generations of individuals as obdurate structural contexts which constitute actors and action-possibilities as well as inspire, encourage, and reward certain forms of behaviour and dishearten, discourage, and punish others. As such, these structural contexts entail relations of power and authority, which constitute and influence social activity in these settings and the wider contexts within which these settings are embedded.

Context, however, has to be viewed as a complex concept, thus there are many contextual circles. The gendered nature of state occupations, such as the army, for example, has to be seen in the wider context of gender social relations that locate women in certain kinds of occupation. It is only in this context, and in the even wider one of the power and control implicated in patriarchal relations in society in general, that we can begin to understand, for instance, phenomena such as mass rape in war (Stiglmayer, 1989).

As this particular example makes clear, the question becomes not one of how to integrate agents and structures into one coherent account, but of how it could ever be possible to consider methodological individualism or methodological structuralism as viable alternatives. That is, it is always difficult, if not impossible, to separate out the relations and effects of the immediate setting of (often face-to-face) interaction from the wider and deeper relations such as patriarchal power relations, or class relations. Similarly, it is impossible to understand the way in which these wider and deeper structures are reproduced over time unless we understand how they are reproduced and sometimes transformed in the course of face-to-face (or, nowadays, more and more often technologically mediated) spatio-temporal episodes between individual selves.

The example of gender relations and a state occupation such as soldiering is a good one since it highlights the manner in which the immediate settings of activity (the barracks, or the battleground) are firmly connected to increasingly remote and mediated relations of domination and subordination in the wider social fabric (Enloe, 1989). In this sense, global processes feed into local activity "here and now" and in some way make it possible, while the situated activity itself reproduces these wider social relations and co-constitute the related processes.

To summarise: In the social world, there are beings that possess causal powers that can make a difference by changing the course of the flow of events that would have otherwise taken place. Equally, the existence and exercise of these causal powers presuppose the intentionality of agency. Intentions ("I am about to do X") are reasoned (". . . in order to"; and also, at another level, ". . . because"), and in general reasons are causally efficacious, even if the actors themselves


might be confused about the role, nature, and origin of their reasons for, and rationalisation of, actions. By doing things agents bring about changes of states of affairs even when those actions amount to the mere reproduction of already existing social relations and positioned practices (there are states of affairs that would be otherwise without agents' actions).

Equally, every social act, event, or phenomenon is only possible insofar as the conditions for activity exist. Agents, their intentions, and the reasons for these intentions, however, are not enough to account for social causality. Although reasons are causes for actions, social structures are real conditions (in different senses, but also always necessary conditions) for both these reasons and their causal efficaciousness. The real question is thus: how should we decompose the internally and externally related elements of social settings and contexts? And our general, even if (always) tentative answer is: there are (i) historically constructed, yet also idiosyncratic corporeal (bodily) actors, who are both internally and externally related to each other; (ii) intentional action, the meanings of which are socio-historically structured; (iii) regulative and constitutive rules implicated in every action and constitution of actors; (iv) resources as competencies and facil- ities, bringing about also productive and destructive capabilities; and (v) relational and positioned practices, which might be organised in a manner of accomplishing collective identities and actors, and which are often-also in other cases-(inter) dependent.

Moreover, social systems are open systems, that is, susceptible to external influences and internal, qualitative change and emergence. Spaces and times intersect and overlap and overlapping, elongated, truncated, spatio-temporalities may and do coalesce. Different tendential causes can bring about similar episodes and trends and the same (kinds of) tendential causes can bring about different (kinds of) events, episodes, and trends, depending on the totality of relevant (open-systemic) causal complexes and processes.

Levels of Analysis

Before Wendt's (1987) article, individualism and holism were discussed in IR in terms of "levels of analysis." Even after that article, there seems to have been confusion about the relationship between ASP and the levels-of-analysis problem (cf. Hollis and Smith, 1991, 1992; Wendt, 1991, 1992). It is our contention that the discipline of IR should fundamentally rethink its understanding of the levels- of-analysis problem. As presently formulated it confuses and misleads much more than illuminates (Walker, 1993:131-140; Patomaiki, 1996; Wight, 2000).

In general, the metaphor of level is widely used in realist theories of science, and for good reasons (Bunge, 1963:36-48). There are different ontological layers in the world, and the social world is itself a causally efficacious emergent level. Given the empirical realism and linguistic realism adhered to by those of either boundary, then the best that can be said of levels is that we treat them "as if" they existed (beyond the boundary of boredom), or deny the notion of depth altogether (beyond the boundary of negativity). Contrary to these positions we suggest that it is a question of building substantial theories and models that attempt to resolve exactly where the layers are to be located and their interrelationships. Moreover, we would also wish to talk about levels and depth within social worlds. We suggest at least two directions of depth, that is, of movements towards deeper levels.

First is the ontological stratification of agency and discourses, which are closely interrelated, but not reducible to each other. Language and discourse, for example, are closely connected to, but not reducible to the unconscious level. And in both of these levels there can be interrelated mechanisms that could co-explain reasoning for, and rationalisation of, actions. Here the image


is of two levels interacting to produce outcomes, not one level determinate in the last instance.

Second, there are also ontological layers conceived in terms of emergence in time. In this sense, the institutionalised meanings and practices sedimented in the longue dur&e of world history-such as the institutions of diplomacy; international law; sovereignty (all of which are embedded in potentially contradictory discourses)-form a deeper layer of social realities.

In both cases, however, we can make no a priori assumptions about the deeper strata or layers being causally more "powerful" (whatever that would mean) or less susceptible to change in the future. Nor can we assume that institutions such as diplomacy and international law would have a context-independent identity that has remained unchanged throughout centuries of the history. More concrete, relational identifications and locations of these deeper elements would most likely show their manifold transformations as well.

Now, even if we can find-in addition to analytical depth in our own explanations-ontological depth in the real social worlds, there is little sense talking about individual/sub-state, state, and international levels of analysis. Again, the critical realist focus on ontology plays a role here. The causal powers of relational social phenomena cannot be grouped in different artificial "factors" which are then located at "different levels" "as if" things were as described. As the above discussion of the agent-structure problem demonstrates, ontologically speaking, state activities occur in the course of, and due to, gatherings of, or encounters between, several individual actors and manifold structural contexts. These gatherings and encounters produce outcomes and properties that are a result of the interchange of communication between the group of actors positioned in foreign policy-making practices of a state.

The point about decomposing social worlds-both situated activity and its wider and deeper context-into elements of causal complexes is that whatever the contextual and tendential phenomenon we want to explain, we should be looking for the same kinds of elements at all levels: actors, actions, rules, resources, and practices, all forming together a spatio-temporally situated relational whole, or totality. It makes no sense, and this is the key error, to treat the levels of the state and the international system as related as agents to structures.

There is also a further sense why the levels-of-analysis talk is so misleading: it re- ifies collective actors and social relations. Social research, given the hermeneutically saturated nature of the social world, should proceed bottom-up. The first stage is to hermeneutically understand, and familiarize oneself with the meanings held by the concrete actors in spatio-temporally and contextually situated activities.16 That is to understand how the social phenomena under scrutiny are constituted. We need to discover what happened before we can ask why. The second stage is to proceed to reconstructing interactive action episodes on that basis. Building iconic models of the wider and deeper relational contexts and their inherent, real causal tendencies should follow this (Patomaki, 1992b: chap. 4).

Fact and Values

We think that in this respect critical realism seems the most radical of all approaches. A reconsideration of the theory/problem field of IR can demonstrate this point. To positivists facts are distinct from values. The genesis of this distinction comes from Hume, but is filtered through Kant's dualistic world outlook. This distinction has been vigorously challenged by postpositivists, yet

16 In this rather limited methodological sense, hermeneuticists such as Winch (1958) have been on the right track. But the price of the Kantian dichotomy between phenomena and noumena has been the disappearance of causes and, ultimately, social structures.


devoid of the metaphysical means to unite Kant's two worlds, postpositivism treats facts as nothing other than disguised values. This situation mirrors that of the interwar dispute between idealists and realists, with the realists accusing the idealists of speculative idealism and the idealists accusing the realists of moral vacuity. This debate resonates through current exchanges with many of the postpositivists claiming the moral high ground, but in line with positivists also rejecting the idea that epistemological issues have any bearing on ethico-political ones (Campbell, 1999). Outside of this repetitious theory/problem solution field critical realism is suggestive of a radical insight.

For critical realism, reality is differentiated yet interconnected. So, although facts are not merely values and vice versa, they are mutually implicating. Facts are always value-laden, because at the transitive dimension of science truth is a positive value and truth as correspondence to the world is a regulative metaphor guiding scientific and other practices. But this is the radical move. For if facts are always in this sense value-laden, then values must in a sense be factually embedded. Nietzsche captures nicely what is at stake here arguing, "Let us articulate this new demand: we need a critique of moral values. The value of these values themselves must first be called into question-and for that there is needed a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances under which they grew, under which they evolved and changed" (Nietzsche, 1989:6).

The implication of this point is clear. We can move from facts to values. Indeed, we must in order to explain those values themselves. No doubt this will appall both positivists and many postpositivists. For positivists this move is inadmis- sible, and for many postpositivists unnecessary (values simply being contingent preferences). Critical realism, on the other hand, situates a genuinely critical moment at the heart of analysis; a moment that depends at once upon values being factually explained and facts being subject to evaluation. The implication is an account of emancipatory practice embedded within a general account of knowledge construction able to identify the possibility of a transition from an unwanted, unnecessary, and oppressive situation to a wanted and/or needed and empowering or more flourishing situation (see Bhaskar, 1994: chaps. 6 and 7). And this because critical realism rejects the "problem-field" of IR and locates agency, and the knowledge upon which such agency is based, in this world not another.

Conclusion

We have argued for an approach that makes its commitment to realism explicit as opposed to secreting an implicit realism. Through such a recovery of realism the "problem-field" of IR may be transcended. The positivism/postpositivism dichotomy that replaced the interparadigm debate seems so natural now. It is as if we have always thought in this way and always will. Yet this debate itself is a construct of those engaged in it and is a product of the "problem-field" of IR. Mapped onto the "problem-field" of IR this divide mirrors Kant's dualistic world view. The positivists concern themselves with Kant's phenomenal realm and the postpositivists with the noumenal. Critical realism suggests a different theory/ problem solution field. One, no doubt, that will contain the seeds of its own destruction, for we make no claims to finitude or ahistorical knowledge.

The "problem-field" of IR constitutes the present-day conditions of possibility for thinking about, hence acting in, the realm of international relations. And as such it blocks the development of a more ethically and politically aware body of scholarship oriented towards emancipation. For, as Margaret Archer has put it,

we would betray ourselves, as well as our readers, by offering any form of social scientism with "laws" which are held to be unaffected by the uses and abuses we

HEIKKI PATOMXKI AND COLIN WIGHT 235

make of our freedoms, for this renders moral responsibility meaningless and political action worthless and self-reflection pointless. Equally, we delude one another by the pretence that society is simply what we choose to make it and make of it. (Archer, 1995:2)

Critical realism provides a potential (and partial) way out of this "problem-field." Critical realism highlights the disconnected nature of Kant's two-world outlook and the manner in which this dichotomy provides the ground for all the key debates and category distinctions that constitute international relations; in thought and deed. Critical realism sees society as an emergent entity with material and ideational aspects and hence makes any attempt at an easy separation problematic. Critical realism suggests that the material and ideational have to be viewed as a whole. A whole that it is necessary to investigate as an integral system with all its necessary interconnections, not as isolated fragments torn out of context. Things, even social things, have to be seen in their movement and interconnections. The parts cannot be correctly understood apart from their relationship with the whole. Critical realism also reconnects the world of ethical deliberation with the world of real causal processes and highlights the manner in which we act in this world as a result of the knowledge we possess of that which we value and that which we can do. And what we can do is much more than reject this reality, accept this reality, or retreat from this reality. It is in this emancipatory sense that we need to reclaim reality from where it has been lost in the "problem- field" of IR.

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After Postpositivism the Promises of Critical Realism

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