International Relations and the ÔProblem of...

115

____________________

This paper was initially prepared for the Critical and Cultural Politics WorkingGroup Department of International Politics University of Wales Aberystwythin October 2004 A revised version was presented at the Department of PoliticalScience University of Copenhagen in May 2005 Thanks are due to Dan BulleyJenny Edkins Patrick Finney Peter Jackson Luke Jeavons Hidemi Suganamitwo anonymous referees and the Editors of Millennium for detailed and oftenchallenging comments on earlier drafts

1 Throughout the article I follow the convention of using capital letters to dis-tinguish between International Relations (IR) and History as academic disci-plines on the one hand and international relations and history as subject matteron the other

2 Stephen Hobden lsquoHistorical Sociology Back to the Future of InternationalRelationsrsquo in Historical Sociology of International Relations eds Stephen Hobdenand John Hobson (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2002) 50

International Relations and thelsquoProblem of Historyrsquo

Nick Vaughan-Williams

The recent emergence of the discourse of the lsquohistorical turnrsquo inInternational Relations (IR) suggests that the discipline shows greatersensitivity to history However despite the ubiquity of morehistorically informed research mainstream IR has failed to takeaccount of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo as highlighted by on-going debatesbetween traditional historians and critical historiographers Accordingto Jacques Derrida the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo is not problematic in theconventional sense rather it is precisely because we can never arriveat a closed historical interpretation that there is historicity in the firstplace Therefore with its continued refusal of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquothe extent to which IR has turned historical must be questioned Thisarticle draws on Derridarsquos work in order to argue for an alternativeapproach to the way we look at the past one that embraces rather thanside-steps the radical indeterminacy of historical meaning in order tobring historicity into analyses of world politics

ndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndash

According to the familiar narrative of the trajectory of post-1945International Relations (IR)1 in which the so-called lsquobehaviouralistrevolutionrsquo of the 1950s and 1960s features prominently2 structure andspace gradually became privileged over time and context in analyses of

copy Millennium Journal of International Studies 2005 ISSN 0305-8298 Vol34 No1 pp 115-136

116

world politics3 This development exemplified by iconic neorealisttexts4 focused on the supposedly timeless regularities of the state andstates system instead of the contingencies of life Given the enduringhegemony of this paradigmatic view as Stephen Hobden and JohnHobson have pointed out history has long been considered exogenousif not superfluous to IR at best a quarry to be mined in support oftheories of the present5 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita sums up thischaracterisation when he writes lsquofor the social scientist the events ofhistory are a laboratory to test their theoretical propositions aboutcausationrsquo6 Over twenty years ago Christopher Thorne suggested thatClio the muse of history was IRrsquos lsquocall-girlrsquo7 Today however as well asan aversion to such potentially sexist remarks there seems to be anemerging consensus that history is taken far more seriously within thediscipline

Over the past two or three decades there has been a push in IR tohistoricise the theories logics and concepts with which internationalrelations are studied This push is often characterised as yet anotherlsquoturnrsquo within what has become a highly contorted field For exampleBenno Teschke refers to the lsquohistorical turnrsquo8 Duncan Bell to thelsquohistoriographical turnrsquo9 whilst Stephen Hobden mindful of earlierdiplomatic histories prefers lsquohistorical returnrsquo10 On the basis of thesecharacterisations it might seem history has been well and truly broughtback in And on the one hand there is much evidence to support Bellrsquosassertion that history now occupies a lsquocentre-stagersquo role in IR11 On theother hand however it is not necessarily the case that a greater output ofhistorically informed research constitutes a turn towards history per se

Indeed as pedantic as it might sound the veracity of Bellrsquos

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____________________

3 R B J Walker lsquoHistory and Structure in the Theory of InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 18 no 2 (1989) 171

4 The most obvious example being Kenneth Waltz Theory of InternationalPolitics (Boston McGraw Hill 1979)

5 Hobden and Hobson Historical Sociology 4-56 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita lsquoThe Benefits of a Social-Scientific Approachrsquo in

Contending Approaches to International Politics eds Klaus Knorr and James NRosenau (Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1996) 53

7 Christopher Thorne lsquoInternational Relations and the Promptings ofHistoryrsquo in Review of International Studies 9 (1983) 123

8 Benno Teschke The Myth of 1648 Class Geopolitics and the Making of ModernInternational Relations (London and New York Verso 2003) 1-2

9 Duncan S A Bell lsquoInternational Relations the Dawn of a HistoriographicalTurnrsquo British Journal of Politics and International Relations 3 no 1 (2001) 115-126

10 Hobden lsquoBack to the Futurersquo 5611 Bell lsquoHistoriographical Turnrsquo 123

117

assertion depends entirely on what is meant by lsquohistoryrsquo in the firstplace Interestingly despite the ubiquity of appeals to the historicalthere is a sense in which this key theme ndash What do we mean when werefer to history in IR ndash remains somewhat starved of critical reflection12

In many ways this is perhaps surprising especially given that at thevery moment IR has supposedly turned to history historians seem tohave turned on themselves when it comes to the lsquoWhat is historyrsquoquestion13

The debate waged over the past twenty or so years between so-called lsquotraditionalist historiansrsquo (such as Arthur Marwick LawrenceStone Richard J Evans) and lsquocritical historiographersrsquo (such as AlunMunslow Keith Jenkins and Hayden White) though notunproblematic as we shall go on to see usefully highlights thecontestability of the concept of history Yet even after the various turnsto history to which Teschke Hobden and Bell refer mainstream IR hasnot fully taken account of this debate or the thorny issues it raises

This is to the detriment of the discipline It leaves the lsquoproblem ofhistoryrsquo in other words the impossibility of getting historicalinterpretation one hundred percent right14 glossed over if not ignoredentirely Instead of projecting the radical uncertainty of historicalmeaning into its object of study the preference in IR is to impose a formof interpretive closure on the historical record lsquoa [form of]representation that arrests ambiguity and controls the proliferation ofmeaning by imposing a standard and a standpoint of interpretation thatis taken to be fixed and independent of the time it representsrsquo15

The imposition of such a standard and standpoint of interpretationimplies the necessity (and possibility) of a stance outside of both history

IR and the lsquoProblem of Historyrsquo

____________________

12 There are however notable exceptions See for example Richard K AshleylsquoLiving on Border Lines Man Post-Structuralism and Warrsquo inInternationalIntertextual Relations Postmodern Readings of World Politics edsJames Der Derian and Michael J Shapiro (New York Lexington Books 1989)David Campbell lsquoMetaBosnia Narratives of the Bosnian Warrsquo Review ofInternational Studies 24 (1998) 261-81 Patrick Finney lsquoStill Marking Time TextDiscourse and Truth in International Historyrsquo Review of International Studies 27(2001) 291-308 Jonathan Isacoff lsquoOn the Historical Imagination of InternationalRelations the Case for a Deweyan Reconstructionrsquo Millennium Journal ofInternational Studies 31 no 3 (2002) 603-626 and Thomas Smith History andInternational Relations (London and New York Routledge 1999)

13 Robert Berkhofer Beyond the Great Story History as Text and Discourse(Cambridge MA and London Harvard University Press 1995) ix

14 Peter Novick That Noble Dream the Objectivity Question and the AmericanHistorical Profession (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988) 1

15 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 263

118

and politics from which it is possible to arrive at a singularunderstanding of what is often referred to as historicity lsquodispersaldifference and alterity across time and spacersquo16 Such a stance is of coursefantastical More importantly still however an imposition of this kindhas particularly important implications for IR since any attempt to stiflethe lsquoequivocity of historyrsquo17 constitutes a violent dehistoricisation whichin turn may have significant political ramifications

The over-arching aim of this article is to emphasise the need tobring not just history but specifically the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo into ourstudy of international relations It proceeds along primarily conceptualrather than empirical lines by interrogating what is at stake in allowingthe history in the lsquohistorical turnrsquo to continue to go unnoticed as anunproblematic given

There are three main sections to the argument The first offers a tourdrsquohorizon of the key issues raised by the debate between traditionalisthistorians and critical historiographers What emerges from thisdiscussion is certainly a strong sense of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo largelyelided by mainstream IR However taking up Gabrielle Spiegelrsquos point18

the section notes that this historiographical debate is itself hampered bya degree of intellectual parochialism Each lsquosidersquo has tended to rely uponsomewhat caricatured understandings of the other and consequentlyan unhelpful impasse has been reached traditional historians standaccused of theoretical naivety whilst critical historiographers are castaside as ahistorical or even anti-historical An appreciation of the debatecan thus only be considered a first step in bringing the lsquoproblem ofhistoryrsquo into IR

Seeking to move beyond the parameters of this debate the secondsection then draws on the work of Jacques Derrida in order to show howthe lsquoproblem of historyrsquo is perhaps best understood not as a problem inthe traditional sense that is it is not a problem that can be resolvedRather the problem of history must be considered as a necessarycondition for any attempt to deal with context and time

The third section relates this argument back to IR more explicitlyOn the basis of the Derridean reconfiguration of history I suggest thatIRrsquos alleged historical turn represents a movement away from the very

Millennium

____________________

16 Alan Feldman Formations of Violence the Narrative of the Body and PoliticalTerror in Northern Ireland (Chicago and London University of Chicago Press1991) 17

17 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 26218 Gabrielle Spiegel lsquoHistory and Post-modernismrsquo Past and Present 131

(1991) 194-208

119

historicity it purports to embrace From there I urge an alternativeapproach to the historicisation of analyses of world politics one whichdoes not refuse the problem of history but one that allows the problemof history to remain precisely as a problem to be continually engaged

(Re-)Visiting the Historiographical Debate

The venerable tradition of thought that has dealt with the questionlsquoWhat is historyrsquo looms large over this article However it is not myintention to offer an exegesis of the main strands of the philosophy ofhistory Rather I want to limit the present discussion to the recent debatebetween traditionalist historians and critical historiographers and thekey aspects of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo their exchange highlights Thisdebate has raged within History journals without spilling over into theIR literature to any significant extent

The first sub-section sets out the main arguments of criticalhistoriographers such as Alun Munslow Keith Jenkins and HaydenWhite The second then surveys the traditionalist backlash epitomisedby the work of Lawrence Stone Arthur Marwick and Richard J EvansAnd the third argues that whilst the debate opens up new ground forour consideration of the past in IR it nevertheless frames the problemsomewhat problematically

Critical Interventions

Mainstream historical studies according to Alun Munslow havetraditionally rested upon six core principles firstly the past isconsidered lsquorealrsquo and lsquotruthrsquo relates to reality through referentiality andinference secondly so-called lsquofactsrsquo derived from evidence are a prioridistinct from interpretation thirdly lsquofactrsquo and lsquovaluersquo are clearlyseparable fourthly lsquohistoryrsquo and lsquofictionrsquo can and must bedifferentiated fifthly the knower is removed from what is known andsixthly lsquotruthrsquo is not perspectival19 These dichotomies ndash between lsquotruthrsquoand lsquofalsehoodrsquo lsquofactrsquo and lsquofictionrsquo lsquoobserverrsquo and lsquoobservedrsquo ndash aredeemed highly problematic by Munslow and other criticalhistoriographers Such distinctions they argue are often much moredifficult to maintain than advocates of traditional historicalmethodology are usually willing to admit20


____________________

19 Alun Munslow Deconstructing History (London and New York Routledge1997) 38

20 See for example Arthur Marwick The Nature of History (London andBasingstoke Macmillan 1970) 132

120

Keith Jenkins raises this point in relation to the common separationbetween primary and secondary sources

[I]f you refer to sources as primary and if you sometimes replaceprimary by original (original and thus underlyingfundamentalsource) this suggests that if you go to the originals then becauseoriginals seem genuine (as opposed to secondarysecond-handtraces) genuine (truedeep) knowledge can be gained This prioritisesthe original source fetishises documents and distorts the whole workingprocess of making history21

Jenkins does not wish to collapse the distinction between primary andsecondary sources On the contrary he acknowledges that as lsquotraces of thepastrsquo primary sources are fundamentally lsquodifferentrsquo from secondarysources22 Yet at the same time Jenkinsrsquos concern is that the importance ofthis difference should not be exaggerated as it typically is Suchexaggeration reifies a particular view of history as lsquothe search for truthrsquo23

when for Jenkins lsquowe can never really know the past there are nocentres there are no lsquodeeperrsquo sources (no subtext) to draw upon to getthings right all is on the surfacersquo24 The crux of the critical historiographersrsquointervention then as suggested within the lengthy quotation of Jenkins isthat history is lsquomadersquo25 by historians rather than discovered throughevidence-based methodology On this basis therefore Jenkins insists thatat its most basic level the concept discipline and practice of history needsfundamental lsquorethinkingrsquo26 and lsquorefiguringrsquo27

Prima facie the rise of revisionist historiography suggests thathistorians working against very different empirical contexts alreadyappreciate nuance debate and therefore the underlying ambiguities oftheir subject matter Thus for example traditionalist accounts of theEnglish Reformation28 have been superseded by more sophisticatedunderstandings ndash incorporating rival interpretations and contradictoryimperatives ndash of the English Reformations29 However Jenkins argues

Millennium

____________________

21 Keith Jenkins Rethinking History 2nd ed (London and New YorkRoutledge 2003) 57-8

22 Ibid 5723 G Elton The Practice of History (London Fontana 1969) 7024 Jenkins Rethinking History 57 my emphasis25 Ibid 5826 Jenkins Rethinking History27 Keith Jenkins Refiguring History New Thoughts on an Old Discipline

(London and New York Routledge 2003)28 Notably A G Dickens The English Reformation (London Fontana 1973)29 See Christopher Haigh The English Reformations Religion Politics and

Society under the Tudors (Oxford Clarendon Press 1993)

121

defiantly that we are not all lsquopost-modernistsrsquo now30 lsquoNo matter howmany ldquodiffering interpretationsrdquo they may admit torsquo he claims lsquomostmainstream historians still continue to strive for ldquoreal historicalknowledgerdquo for objectivity for the evidentially-based synoptic accountand for truth-at-the-end-of-enquiry in other words what are effectivelyinterpretive closuresrsquo31

On Jenkinsrsquos view interpretive closures are hugely problematic Thispoint deserves closer attention It is important to note that from hisperspective every account of the past is mediated by languageFurthermore language is said to be indeterminably unstable its referenceto a concrete object cannot be fixed Consequently lsquoevery discourseincluding history built as they are on and with language must be perpetually open toorsquo32 Movements towards closure it could be arguedare somewhat inexorable this is how the past becomes imbued withmeaning Yet Jenkinsrsquos point is that since lsquothe past contains nothing ofintrinsic value nothing we have to be loyal to no truths we have torespectrsquo33 these closures are ideologically34 loaded lsquohistory is never foritself it is always for someonersquo35 This of course is reminiscent of RobertCoxrsquos axiom lsquotheory is always for someone and for some purposersquo36 Thehistorianrsquos task therefore is not to search for the truth so to speak but toexpose and then analyse the way in which some knowledge comes to beaccepted as true over other knowledge37 In this regard Jenkins stresses lsquoarelativist perspective need not lead to despair but to the beginning of ageneral recognition of how things seem to operatersquo38

The preoccupation of many critical historiographers in particularHayden White has been to demonstrate precisely how narrative (re)-presentations of the past operate and are embedded in and reinforceparticular matrices of power knowledge ethics and politics According


____________________

30 Jenkins Refiguring History 1531 Ibid 332 Ibid 1933 Ibid 2934 Though as Foucault points out the concept of lsquoideologyrsquo is not unprob-

lematic lsquobecause it always stands in virtual opposition to something else whichis supposed to count as truthrsquo Michel Foucault PowerKnowledge SelectedInterviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 trans and ed Colin Gordon (PadstowThe Harvester Press Ltd 1980) 118

35 Jenkins Rethinking History 2136 Robert Cox Approaches to World Order (Cambridge Cambridge University

Press 1995) 8537 See Michel Foucault Society Must Be Defended Lectures at the Collegravege de

France 1975-6 (London Penguin 2003)38 Jenkins Rethinking History 31

122

to White classical historiography largely an invention of Herodotusurged the historian to uncover facts and then rearrange them asnarratives39 The legacy of this school of thought has endured Croceargued that lsquowhere there is no narrative there is no historyrsquo Similarlyfor Kant lsquohistorical narratives without analysis are empty whilehistorical analyses without narrative are blindrsquo Therefore according tothe established doxa lsquoevents must be narrated that is to sayldquorevealedrdquo as possessing a structure an order of meaning that they donot possess as mere sequencersquo40 In the view of the traditionalistanything falling short of this golden mean is deemed something otherthan proper history Hence the modern view of the annalist (whosimply lists events chronologically) and the chronicler (who does notoffer conclusions but typically stories that merely terminate) is highlycritical if not disdainful

White however questions this modern historiographicalconvention which leaves the concept of the narrative unproblematisedas some sort of natural medium

Narrative is not merely a neutral discursive form that may or maynot be used to represent real events in their aspect as developmentalprocesses but rather entails ontological and epistemic choices withdistinct ideological and even specifically political implications41

On this alternative view narrative is not some sort of empty form ofdiscourse that may be filled up with different types of content its formhas a content of its own This content provides a centre in relation towhich otherwise disparate phenomena may be mutually emplaced andunderstood Narrative offers a plot It draws arbitrary borders in order tohelp us forget what is knowingly or unknowingly left out Gaps arefilled The narrative itself cultivates lsquocontinuity coherency and meaningin place of the fantasies of emptiness need and frustrated desire thatinhabit our nightmares about the destructive power of timersquo42

Importantly the closure that we crave when we turn to the narrative formis exactly that which is lacking in the way events present themselves tous in lsquorealrsquo life We try to make sense of the nonsensical of lsquo911rsquo of alottery win of someone telling us that they love us but cannot be with usWhen we realise we are not able to make sense of these happenings we

Millennium

____________________

39 Hayden White The Content of the Form Narrative Discourse and HistoricalRepresentation (Baltimore and London Johns Hopkins University Press 1987) x

40 Ibid 541 Ibid ix42 Ibid 11

123


create narratives And although we may be aware of the infinite numberof narratives we are able to construct this infinity somehow still feels lessdaunting than the alternative lsquoin shaping the formless ooze intolsquorecorded historyrsquo we are simply seeking an antidote to the lsquoprimitiveterrorrsquo we feel in the face of the real meaninglessness of the fluxrsquo43

Narrative is not problematic per se However it is one of manyconcepts relating to the way we think about the past that often gouninterrogated especially in discourses of IR The force of the criticalhistoriographersrsquo interventions though far from homogenous orindeed unproblematic (in the conventional sense) prompts us toremember that history occupies far more contestable troublesome andvalue-laden terrain than most IR literature invoking the realm of thehistorical would suggest

The Traditionalist Backlash

Many traditionalist historiographers however have sought to resist thecritical historiographersrsquo battle cry44 Among the most notable is ArthurMarwick who in a famous exchange with Hayden White argued thatlsquoideas about language and the ldquosubjectrdquo make for exciting novels but theyare a menace to serious historical studyrsquo45 The central accusation is thatthe work of Munslow Jenkins and White ndash inspired by Foucault DerridaLacan and other lsquoLeft Bank intellectualsrsquo46 ndash is fundamentally ahistorical ifnot anti-historical47 On this traditionalist view to impose theory andorinterpretation on lsquothe evidencersquo is to read erroneously the past throughpresentist lenses48 Hence for example Stone complains lsquotexts becomea mere hall of mirrors reflecting nothing but each otherrsquo49

____________________

43 David Roberts Nothing But History Reconstruction and Extremity afterMetaphysics (Berkley Los Angeles and London University of California Press1995) 5

44 See for example Lawrence Stone lsquoHistory and Post-Modernismrsquo Past andPresent 131 (1991) 217-8

45 Arthur Marwick lsquoTwo Approaches to Historical Study the Metaphysical(Including Post-Modernism) and the Historicalrsquo Journal of Contemporary History30 no 1 (1995) 29 my emphasis

46 Though for Marwick lsquoat least Derrida had a charming playfulness abouthimrsquo ibid 17

47 See for example Frank Lentricchia After the New Criticism (ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Press 1980) 4 Perry Anderson In the Tracks of HistoricalMaterialism (London Verso 1983) 48 and Terry Eagleton Literary Theory AnIntroduction (Oxford Blackwell 1983) 150 and The Function of Criticism From rsquotheSpeculatorrsquo to Post-Structuralism (London Verso 1984) 96

48 Finney lsquoStill Marking Timersquo 29649 Stone lsquoHistory and Post-Modernismrsquo 217

124

Discourse analysis and other allegedly obfuscatory concepts are damnedbecause according to Marwick they deny that past events actuallyhappened Such extreme textualism leads to hyper-relativism which itis claimed leads to utter despair and total irresponsibility Supposedlyfollowing Richard J Evans one only has to look to the holocaustlsquoAuschwitz was not a discourse It trivialises mass murder to see it as atext The gas chambers were not a piece of rhetoric Auschwitz wasindeed inherently a tragedy and cannot be seen as either a comedy or afarcersquo50 This argument as Patrick Finney points out is something of alsquotrump cardrsquo51 it closes off the possibility of serious debate by accusinglsquocritical historiographyrsquo of serving fascist ends Instead it encouragesall-guns-blazing responses like that of Keith Jenkins whose polemicsinvite the mainstream criticism that critical historiographers cannot betaken seriously As Finney quips lsquoit is easy to see why many historiansregard Jenkins as the Darth Vader of postmodernismrsquos evil empirersquo52 Atthis juncture the debate breaks down

The Limits of the Debate

The debate between Munslow Jenkins and White on the one hand andMarwick Stone and Evans on the other leaves the reader feelingsomewhat frustrated Whilst as I have suggested their exchangesusefully highlight aspects of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo so often glossedover ignored or necessarily forgotten in IR in many ways the frame ofthis debate obscures the problem Ultimately the two sides talk past eachother as both rely on caricatured notions of the otherrsquos position in orderto maintain their own53 Thus traditionalists often make outlandishclaims about the historical poverty of critical historiography in order todefend themselves against the charge they are theoretically naiumlveEqually the likes of Keith Jenkins then retort with deliberatelyprovocative counter-claims which tend to tarnish the overall impact ofmany of the insights or potential insights of more critical scholarship

In the next section I want to move away from this debate byexamining the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo more specifically in light of the workof Jacques Derrida A Derridean approach is neither ahistorical or anti-historical Rather as I hope to demonstrate it attempts to reconfigure theway we think about history away from the past as such towards the

Millennium

____________________

50 Richard J Evans In Defence of History 2nd ed (London Granta Books2000) 124

51 Finney lsquoStill Marking Timersquo 29652 Patrick Finney lsquoBeyond the Postmodern Momentrsquo (unpublished article

under review) 2553 This point is made by Spiegel in lsquoHistory and Post-Modernismrsquo

125

future towards a future-oriented history what I call a lsquohistory to comersquoin order to allow for historicity or the very history-ness of history

Towards a Future-Oriented History

Derridarsquos infamous remark lsquoIl nrsquo ya pas de hors-textrsquo (lsquothere is nothingoutside the textrsquo or lsquothere is no outside-textrsquo)54 is often seized upon bydetractors of deconstruction to claim that deconstruction leads us intosome sort of bizarre purely textual realm within which anything goes55

It is usually on this basis as we have already seen that many writersbaulk at Derridean thought as a whole However Derridarsquos argumentsdo not reduce everything to a book56 Rather the concept of thegeneralised or limitless text stresses that nothing can be brought intobeing or comprehended except through discursive practices This is trueof historical events as much as anything else To stress the importance oflanguage does not somehow deny as Evansrsquos argument about theholocaust suggests the trauma of the direst situations On the contraryit allows for an appreciation of the implications of any attempt to(re)present these situations which as I will show assists rather thanimpedes our understanding of what is at stake in any given historicalcontext

The House that Jacques Built57

According to Derrida the history of the structure of Western thoughtsince Plato is effectively a history of binary oppositions for examplelsquoheavenrsquo and lsquohellrsquo lsquogoodrsquo and lsquobadrsquo lsquomanrsquo and lsquowomanrsquo and so onHowever he argues that these conceptual couplets are not true oppositessince one of the two is always privileged over the other lsquoLogocentrismrsquorefers to the privileging of terms in this way The superior term assumesa degree of naturalness and is referred to as the centre origin or sourceConsequently Western thought built upon and reflected by suchstructures is not neutral Thus a kind of deconstructive strategyDerrida suggests lsquois to avoid both simply neutralising the binary


____________________

54 Jacques Derrida Of Grammatology trans Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore andLondon The Johns Hopkins University Press 1976) 158

55 See Russell Berman lsquoTroping to Pretoria the Rise and Fall ofDeconstructionrsquo Telos 85 (1990)

56 Jacques Derrida lsquoFollowing Theory Jacques Derridarsquo in lifeaftertheoryeds Michael Payne and John Schad (London and New York Continuum 2003)

57 This phrase is borrowed from Richard Wolin The Terms of CulturalCriticism the Frankfurt School Existentialism and Post-Structuralism (New YorkColumbia University Press 1992)

126

oppositions of metaphysics and simply residing within the closed fieldof these oppositions thereby confirming itrsquo58

Derrida is notoriously hesitant to define deconstruction59 Yet heinsists that it must involve a double gesture On the one hand havingrecognised that lsquoin a philosophical opposition we are not dealing withthe peaceful coexistence of vis-agrave-vis but rather with a violent hierarchyrsquoit is necessary to lsquooverturn [that] hierarchyrsquo at a given moment 60 Thismove identifies a conflictual and subordinating structure of theopposition But on the other hand to remain in this phase is to remainwithin the confines of the former system Therefore Derrida insists uponanother simultaneous move lsquoWe must also mark the interval betweeninversion which brings low what was high and the irruptive emergenceof a new ldquoconceptrdquo a concept that can no longer be and could never beincluded in the previous regimersquo61

Derrida refers to this interval as the lsquoundecidablersquo that which can nolonger be contained within the binary opposition lsquobut which howeverinhabit[s] [it] without ever constituting a third termrsquo62 In Positions thelsquoundecidablersquo is described by way of analogy it is like the pharmakon(neither a remedy nor a poison) the supplement (neither a plus nor aminus) and the hymen (neither the inside nor the outside) among others63

The resisting and disorganising quality of undecidability denies thepossibility that any term within an alleged binary opposition can be pureDeconstruction professes to unpack binary logic in order to demonstratethat the terms within such a supposed opposition are not mutuallyexclusive but mutually interdependent mutually contaminated

The Limits of Metaphysical Thought Language Meaning and lsquoDifferancersquo

Binary oppositions the bedrock of Western metaphysics according toDerrida presuppose a fixed notion of difference Thus lsquoheavenrsquo can besaid to rely upon lsquohellrsquo in order to be identified as such However fromthe Derridean perspective language is not as stable as this structureimplies meaning is always already on the move constantly referring

Millennium

____________________

58 Jacques Derrida Positions trans Alan Bass (Chicago and London theUniversity of Chicago Press 1981) 41

59 See for example Jacques Derrida lsquordquoWhat deconstruction is notEverything of course What is deconstruction Nothing of courserdquo Letter to aJapanese Friendrsquo in Derrida and Difference eds Robert Bernasconi and DavidWood (Coventry Parousia Press 1985)

60 Derrida Positions 4161 Ibid 4262 Ibid 4363 Ibid

127

differentiating and deferring As such there is no fixed point accordingto which concrete conceptual definitions can be made Derrida capturesthis restless and relentless play with the neologism differance64 Thisstrange term demands closer attention

The difference between differance and difference is not audible inFrench whenever we say differance it is unclear or lsquoundecidablersquo whetheror not we are referring to differance or merely saying the French word forlsquodifferencersquo65 The difference between the two terms is only everdiscernible in the written form66 But the difference between differanceand difference is symptomatic of something more than merely thesubstitution of one letter for another Of course lsquoersquo does differ from lsquoarsquoYet Derridarsquos point is that this difference is not one between staticcoherent self-present elements In other words the difference is notproduced between lsquothisrsquo (eg lsquoersquo) and lsquothatrsquo (eg lsquoarsquo)67 Rather it is onlybecause of differance in the first place that there is a difference betweenlsquothisrsquo and lsquothatrsquo it is only because there is no-thing outside of the field ofspatio-temporal differences in which every-thing acquires a meaningthat we can speak of differences between lsquothisrsquo and lsquothatrsquo

Differance then refers to the lsquosystematic play of differences oftraces of differences of the spacing by means of which elements arerelated to each otherrsquo68 It lsquoisrsquo lsquoliterally neither a word nor a conceptrsquo69

Differance does not stand for this or that but rather this and that70 Itsmeaning is constantly deferred (the French word differer translates as lsquotodeferrsquo as well as lsquoto differrsquo) and as a result it is never within grasp Assoon as moves are made to identify the lsquomeaningrsquo of differance we fallback into the logocentric trap lsquo[Differance] cannot be defined within asystem of logic that is within the logocentric system of philosophyrsquo71

One might well think so what But as Niall Lucy quips in light ofdifferance lsquosomething like the entire history of metaphysics is put atriskrsquo72 In his book Nothing But History Reconstruction and Extremity after


____________________

64 See Jacques Derrida lsquoDifferancersquo in Margins of Philosophy trans Alan Bass(Chicago the University of Chicago Press 1982)

65 Martin McQuillan ed Deconstruction A Reader (Edinburgh EdinburghUniversity Press 2000) 16

66 This point of course also calls into question the veracity of the metaphys-ical tendency to privilege lsquospeechrsquo over lsquowritingrsquo as if it were somehow moredirect unmediated pure or self-present

67 Niall Lucy A Derrida Dictionary (Oxford Blackwell Publishing 2004) 2668 Derrida Positions 2469 Derrida lsquoDifferancersquo 370 Derrida Positions 11071 Ibid 11172 Lucy A Derrida Dictionary 26

128

Metaphysics David Roberts is more precise On his view Derrida revealshow the Western philosophical tradition has effectively hidden from itsown historicity differance spotlights the way in which dominantmetaphysical thought is wound around contingency and circumstancedespite its resolve to believe itself somehow pure or suprahistorical73

Traditionally it has been assumed that there is a certain way things areand that language merely reflects this state of affairs However asRoberts highlights Derridean philosophy shows language not to be asynchronic system but a diachronic chain of disruptions and deferrals

Meaning is an endless web each part of which depends on and refersto others so that we never get a full final grasp of what is beingreferred to Meaning is always deferred there is always furtherdifferance When we seek the level of settled meaning or certaininterpretation we find no stopping place but only lsquotracesrsquo or earliertraces as sequences linkages referring us back back endlesslyback74

On this basis the aim becomes to show how something is what it is ratherthan why it is what it is75 Our attention is diverted away from the searchfor ultimate causes towards an analysis of different representations inany given context

Differance and Historical lsquoTruthrsquo in Post-Metaphysical Thought

So what are the implications of differance for the way we think abouthistory Despite his reliance on a certain Nietzschean playfulness it mustbe emphasised that Derrida does not abandon the idea of referencealtogether lsquothere is no language that is not referential in a certain wayrsquo76

In other words and contrary to the primary charge of his mostvociferous detractors Derrida is not an lsquoout-and-out textualistrsquo77 Forexample a Derridean approach does not fully collapse the distinctionbetween historical narrative and fictional narrative to do so would belsquosillyrsquo78 As Roberts points out this is symptomatic of the way in whichDerrida parts company with Nietzsche the former does not completelyabandon the notion of truth whereas for the latter there are only lies or

Millennium

____________________

73 Roberts Nothing But History 19474 Ibid 19675 David Campbell National Deconstruction Violence Identity and Justice in

Bosnia (London and Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 1998) 576 Derrida in Payne and Schad lifeaftertheory 2777 Ibid 21 78 Ibid 27

129

fictions79 In an interview not long before he died Derrida statedcategorically

I am attached to truth but I simply recall that for the truth to be trueand for the meaning to be meaningful the possibility of amisunderstanding or lie or something else must remain structurallyalways open Thatrsquos the condition for truth to be the truth and forsincerity to be sincere80

This may come as a shock to some critics of deconstruction who haveequated it with an lsquoanything goesrsquo approach Here of course Derrida isnot advocating a return to an Eltonian view of history as the search forthe truth Rather as this article will go on to demonstrate deconstructioncalls for an approach to history that is itself open to history a historicalperspective that from the outset takes on board the undecidable infinityof possible truths as its object of analysis If there is nothing beyond thesystem of differences that constitutes meaning ndash in other words if thereis nothing beyond differance ndash then history or historical truths can be seenas complex patterns of forward and recursive loops81 Thereforedifferance is not somehow antithetical to history On the contrary themovement of differance as argued by Caroline Williams conditions lsquothevery possibility and function of every sign and meaning every subjectand every movement of historyrsquo82 To paraphrase the title of Robertsrsquosbook there has never been anything but differance without differancethere would be no history differance provides the condition of thepossibility of history

The lsquoProblem of Historyrsquo as Differance

Temporal delay as Hugh Rayment-Pickard points out is at the heart ofa Derridean understanding of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo in terms ofdifferance lsquomeaning is always deferred the self-erasing traces of historyalways lose and gain something in transmissionrsquo83 Another Derridean


____________________

79 Roberts Nothing But History 19680 Payne and Schad lifeaftertheory 4481 Tony Bennett lsquoTexts in History the Determinations of Readings and Their

Textsrsquo in Post-Structuralism and the Question of History eds Derek AttridgeGeoffrey Bennington and Robert Young (Cambridge Cambridge UniversityPress 1987) 109

82 Caroline Williams in Politics and Post-structuralism an Introduction edsAlan Finlayson and Jeremy Valentine (Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press2002) 33

83 Hugh Rayment-Pickard lsquoDerrida and Fidelity to Historyrsquo History ofEuropean Ideas 28 (2002) 16

130

analogy is the sending and receiving of a postcard The lag betweensending and receiving distorts ndash or makes ambiguous ndash intendedmeaning No matter how many times the receiver reads the postcard heor she can never be one hundred percent certain that they have graspedlsquothe meaningrsquo of the text This is because on Derridarsquos view there is nosingular meaning to grasp there are always polyphonic and sometimescontradictory voices to be heard Communication then is always openor in other words liable to confuse84 Derrida argues that it is preciselythis radical undecidability of meaning that dominant Westernmetaphysical conceptions of history cannot cope with

What we must be wary of I repeat is the metaphysical concept ofhistory This is the concept of history as the history of meaning the history of meaning developing itself producing itself fulfillingitself And doing so linearly in a straight or circular line Wemust first overturn the traditional concept of history but at the sametime mark the interval take care that by virtue of the overturningand by the simple fact of conceptualisation that the interval not bereappropriated85

On this basis a Derridean perspective does not call for the lsquoend ofhistoryrsquo but rather a reorientation of our approach to history that resiststhe logocentric traps of metaphysics We are to proceed according toRayment-Pickard as if historical truth were available whilst at the sametime reckoning with its infinite undecidability lsquoBeing open in faith to thetruth of a text requires being-open to meanings other than the ldquorationalrdquoones Indeed to close down the idea of truth merely to what is rational is an act of infidelity to other possibilities of meaningrsquo86 Theimplication of understanding history as differance is that we can neverfully master history In this context Derrida cites Jan Patoc karsquos aphorismlsquothe problem of history cannot be resolved it must remain a problemrsquo87

This problematisation of history as a problem is not howeverlsquoproblematicrsquo in the conventional sense Rather it is precisely becausethere is a lsquoproblemrsquo concerning historical meaning ndash ie that we cannever arrive at a closed interpretation ndash that there is such a thing ashistoricity or history-ness in the first place

Attempts to close off this radical indeterminacy of historicalmeaning ndash consistent with dominant metaphysical approaches to historyaccording to Derrida ndash totalise this infinite openness Deconstruction

Millennium

84 Ibid 1885 Derrida Positions 56-986 Rayment-Pickard lsquoDerrida and Fidelityrsquo 1887 Jacques Derrida The Gift of Death (Chicago and London The University of

Chicago Press 1995) 5

131

faces up to the history-ness of history whereas a metaphysicalconception of history shuns this historicity in favour of an ahistorical ndasheven anti-historical ndash search for certainty security and surety ininterpretive closure A Derridean approach emphasises that historicalmeaning is always open forever differing and deferring it perpetuallyremains just out of reach

History lsquoto Comersquo

Deconstruction is motivated by a certain historical openness it aims todisturb dislocate displace disarticulate or put lsquoout of jointrsquo theauthority of an approach to history that claims something lsquoisrsquosomething88 A deconstructive strategy then constantly problematisesaccepted theories or practices and above all else refuses to accept ndash orallow to solidify ndash notions of lsquothe way things really werersquo89 History onthis view must remain oriented towards the future rather than beingabsolutised stabilised or in any sense closed off For Derrida thisseemingly paradoxical future orientation is figured in the concept of thearchive90 At first archives seem to point backwards in time Derridaargues however that in another sense the question of the archive isnever a question of the past91

It is a question of the future the question of the future itself the questionof a response of a promise and of a responsibility for tomorrow Thearchive if we want to know what that will have meant we will onlyknow in times to come Perhaps Not tomorrow but in times to comelater on or perhaps never A spectral messianicity is at work in theconcept of the archive and ties it like religion like history likescience itself to a very singular experience of the promise92

The archivist lsquoalways produces more archiversquo93 in this way for Derridathe concept of the archive is about unfinished business It lsquoopens out ofthe futurersquo94 This future however is not merely some present-in-the-future or future-present but rather a future that is perpetually to come


____________________

88 Jacques Derrida lsquoThe Time is Out of Jointrsquo in Deconstruction isin Americaed Anselm Haverkamp (New York New York University Press 1995) 25

89 David Carroll ed The States of lsquoTheoryrsquo History Art and Critical Discourse(New York and Oxford Columbia University Press 1990) 11

90 Jacques Derrida Archive Fever A Freudian Impression (Chicago andLondon University of Chicago Press 1996) 29

91 Ibid 34-592 Ibid 36 emphasis added93 Derrida Archive Fever 6894 Ibid 68

132

a horizon-less un-circumscribed radically undecidable future As suchlsquonothing is less reliablersquo insists Derrida or lsquoless clear than the archiversquo95 Every archive with its indeterminate meaning poses aproblem for translation But it is precisely because there is suchunreliability lack of clarity and indeterminacy that translation of thearchive ndash or historical interpretation ndash is possible in the first place

In this sense then the lsquoproblem of the archiversquo ndash the lsquoproblem ofhistoryrsquo itself ndash is constitutive of its own (im)possibility On this basis aDerridean approach appeals for a reconfiguration of the realm of thehistorical not as something closed and abiding but as always alreadyopen a history to come

Resisting the lsquoHistorical Turnrsquo in IR Bringing the lsquoProblem ofHistoryrsquo In

Historical imagination within IR as Jonathan Isacoff has argued issomewhat limited96 To a large extent it has been fettered by the lingeringhegemony of scientific positivism although this has begun to wane sincethe 1990s certainly in the UK if perhaps less so in the US97 Thedevelopment of the discipline along the lines of scientific positivismfostered a privileging of research methods and design over questionsabout history98 Thus according to Thomas Smith although IR is in manyways a lsquochild of [the discipline of] Historyrsquo it has nevertheless lsquotried todistance itself from historical discussionrsquo99 Superficially the variousturns identified by Teschke Bell and Hobden suggest that with itsrecently increased attention to the historical record IR is now moresensitive to history Yet on the basis of our discussion of criticalhistoriography and more significantly still the work of Jacques DerridaI want to argue for the need to exercise caution here

The stunning lack of reflection on what is meant by history in thediscourse of the historical turn in IR implies that a particular view of thepast is presupposed the traditionalist lsquotruth at the end of enquiryrsquoapproach both critical historiographers and Derrida though often indifferent ways warn against Obviously as Finney is quick to point outall generalisations about how history might or might not be perceived inthe field of IR are lsquoperilous and contestablersquo100 However one does not

Millennium

____________________

95 Ibid 9096 Isacoff lsquoHistorical Imaginationrsquo97 S Burchill ed Theories of International Relations 2nd ed (Hampshire and

New York Palgrave 1996) 6-798 Smith History 1199 Ibid 1100 Finney lsquoStill Marking Timersquo 293

133

have to look far to find instances of this traditionalism even if writersare not out to defend it in quite the same way as Marwick Stone andEvans have done For example in the introduction to one of the mostsignificant contributions to the literature concerned with the relationshipbetween History and IR Colin and Miriam Elman note that lsquothehistorians represented in this volume would share the internationalrelations theoristsrsquo commitment to uncovering an objectively knowablepastrsquo101

This quotation reflects the way in which a traditionalist view ofhistory can be said to prevail in both disciplines This view of history aswe have already seen is hugely problematic its enduring but misplacedcommitment to the possibility of lsquouncovering an objectively knowablepastrsquo sidesteps the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo by resting on an lsquounexaminedmetaphysical faith in its [historyrsquos] capacity to speak a sovereign voice ofsuprahistorical truthrsquo102 The worry is that the discourse of the historicalturn in IR perpetuates rather than displaces the tendency to privilegestructure and space over context and time in our analyses of worldpolitics In other words by glossing over the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo thediscourse of the historical turn actually runs the risk of facilitating thecontinued hegemony of an ahistorical or at worst anti-historical researchculture in IR This historical turn must therefore be resisted if thediscipline of IR is to be faithful to the historicity of history

Drawing on the work of Derrida it is possible to envisage suchresistance what it might consist of and how it could have hugeimplications for the way we think about the past in our study ofinternational relations Many scholars of both History and IR havetypically responded to the challenge of what they tend to call post-structuralist103 thought with lsquovarying degrees of scepticism antagonismor horrorrsquo104 To a large extent especially in the context of the relationshipbetween history and IR this response is part of the wider perception thattheory (especially so-called lsquoleft-bank theoryrsquo) and history do not mixRecognising the need to alter this perception for instance provides the


____________________

101 Colin Elman and Miriam Elman eds Bridges and Boundaries HistoriansPolitical Scientists and the Study of International Relations (Cambridge MA andLondon The MIT Press 2001) 27 emphasis added

102 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 264103 Of course this term is fraught with difficulties not least that most writers

with whom it most commonly associated would deny its salience Derrida forexample is lsquoeager to maintain [the concept of lsquopost-structuralismrsquo] as suspectand problematicrsquo Jacques Derrida lsquoDeconstruction The Im-Possiblersquo in FrenchTheory in America eds Sylvere Lotringer and Sande Cohen (New York andLondon Routledge 2001) 16

104 Finney rsquoStill Marking Timersquo 292

134

rationale for Elman and Elmanrsquos volume The book is very much writtenin the spirit of bringing theory (though not lsquoleft-bank theoryrsquo) andhistory together But there is a sense in which the problem here is theeditorial starting point the problematic separation between history andtheory to begin with This separation is commonly made within allquarters of IR For example even Richard Ashley makes the distinctionwhen he calls for the re-privileging of history over theory105 The concernhere is that by seeing history and theory as occupying fundamentallydifferent terrains we end up reproducing the impression that lsquotheoristsrsquowonrsquot docanrsquot do history and that lsquohistoriansrsquo wonrsquot docanrsquot dotheory Immediately we are back within the confines of thehistoriographical debate between Munslow Jenkins and White on theone hand and Marwick Stone and Evans on the other Deconstructionin contrast refuses to draw this line between lsquothe historicalrsquo and lsquothetheoreticalrsquo Rather as Sergei Prozorov notes deconstructive politicalcriticism is lsquoipso facto historicalrsquo106

For Derrida lsquodeconstruction resists theoryrsquo107 Contra Ashleyrsquossuggestion that lsquopost-structuralist discourse remains theoreticaldiscoursersquo108 deconstruction does not resemble a coherent system oftheory insofar as lsquoit demonstrates the impossibility of closure of theclosure of an ensemble or totality or an organised network of theoremslaws rules [and] methodsrsquo109 Rather a deconstructive strategy can beconsidered as a sort of lsquojettyrsquo110 from which forms of closure ortotalisation may be resisted This resistance furthermore is resistancenot only against theory but approaches to the past that ignore or feignto have solved the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo Hence Derrida argues

The deconstructive jetty is throughout motivated set into motion by aconcern with history even if it leads to destabilising certain conceptsof history the absolutising or hypostasing concept of a neo-Hegelianor Marxist kind the Husserlian concept of history and even theHeideggerian concept of historical epochality111

Millennium

____________________

105 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 279106 Sergei Prozorov lsquoXXs Prolegomena Towards a General Theory of the

Exceptionrsquo paper presented at the Beyond the State Conference Department ofPolitical Science University of Copenhagen 27-30 October 2004 20

107 Jacques Derrida lsquoSome Statements and Truisms about NeologismsNewisms Postisms Parasitisms and Other Small Seismismsrsquo in States oflsquoTheoryrsquo 85-6

108 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 279109 Derrida lsquoStatements and Truismsrsquo 85-6110 Ibid 68111 Ibid 92 emphasis added

135

The traditionalist conception of history ndash the primary basis for historicalapproaches within IR as well as History ndash abandons the openness ofhistorical meaning in favour of interpretive closure It imposes borderswithin and between texts which ultimately wereare never there Adeconstructive perspective exposes and then lsquodislocates [these] bordersthe framing of texts everything which should preserve their immanenceand make possible an internal readingrsquo112 in order to bring in thefundamental indeterminacy of history and recover historicity On thisbasis an understanding of history in terms of differance calls forresistance against those approaches feigning to historicise IR under thedeceptive banner of the lsquohistorical turnrsquo in favour of an opennesstowards historicity as history to come

The Derridean treatment of lsquothe problem of historyrsquo as differance isnot abstract or theoretical or even obscure or occult as some detractorsof deconstruction would have us believe On the contrary the problem itresists ndash the problem of side-stepping the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo ndash is at playwithin concrete practices in both academic and non-academic lifeMoreover as writers such as David Campbell113 and Alan Feldman114

have shown against empirical backdrops as diverse as Bosnia andNorthern Ireland this refusal of the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo for the sake ofsimplistic diagnoses of conflict production and solution all too oftenhave significant ethico-political ramifications that go unnoticed Thechallenge following Derridarsquos reconfiguration of the way we look at thepast is to insist that historicity or the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo is brought tothe centre of our analyses of aspects of world politics This involves asCampbell puts it privileging an ethos of lsquocontinual contestationrsquo ininterpretations of historical phenomena over faulty lsquoaspirations ofsynthesis and totalityrsquo115

Conclusions History and lsquothe Problem of InternationalRelationsrsquo

Prima facie the recent emergence of the discourse of the lsquohistorical turnrsquosuggests that IR has shrugged off its pseudo-scientific pretensions infavour of greater sensitivity to history Yet despite an increasingpropensity for writers to turn to the historical record there has been littlecritical reflection on what view of the past is presupposed in mainstreamIR The debate over the past two or three decades between so-called


____________________

112 Ibid 92-3113 Campbell National Deconstruction114 Feldman Formations of Violence115 Campbell lsquoMetaBosniarsquo 281

136

lsquotraditionalist historiansrsquo and lsquocritical historiographersrsquo though as wehave seen not unproblematic highlights the intrinsic lsquoproblem ofhistoryrsquo so often glossed over or ignored in the IR literature116 Here thelsquoproblem of historyrsquo refers to the impossibility of arriving at a closedinterpretation of the meaning of history in any given context even whenattempts at such closure are made Drawing on the work of JacquesDerrida however it has been argued that it is precisely because there is alsquoproblemrsquo concerning historical meaning that there is such a thing ashistoricity in the first place

The upshot of this over-arching argument is that it is better to thinkof the problem here (that is lsquoproblemrsquo in the conventional sense astumbling block) not as history but rather the way in which mainstreamIR continues to refuse lsquothe problem of historyrsquo This continued refusalcasts doubt on whether Bell Teschke Hobden and other contemporarysurveyors of the disciplinary landscape are justified in referring to a turnto history Rather in leading students of IR to believe their discipline isnow historical the discourse of the historical turn merely reifies aparticular view of the past one that predicated upon interpretiveclosure denies respect for the intrinsic undecidability of historicalmeaning by fixing it according to a suprahistorical lsquosovereign voice ofapocalyptic objectivityrsquo117

On this basis I have argued that the historical turn must be resistedIn order to historicise the concepts logics and theories with which westudy international relations it is necessary not to bring lsquohistoryrsquo butmore specifically the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo into the discipline Adeconstructive approach with its attentiveness to undecidability andopenness and its denial of fixity and closure takes the radicalindeterminacy of historical meaning as the object of its analysis ratherthan something to be side-stepped Such an approach it must beemphasised does not seek nor purport to solve the lsquoproblem of historyrsquoin IR to which Smith refers on the contrary following Patocka itdemands that the lsquoproblem of historyrsquo must be seen to be and remainprecisely as a problem in our analyses of world politics

Nick Vaughan-Williams is a Doctoral Candidate at the Department ofInternational Politics University of Wales Aberystwyth


Millennium

____________________

116 Smith History 11117 Ashley lsquoBorder Linesrsquo 274

116

world politics3 This development exemplified by iconic neorealisttexts4 focused on the supposedly timeless regularities of the state andstates system instead of the contingencies of life Given the enduringhegemony of this paradigmatic view as Stephen Hobden and JohnHobson have pointed out history has long been considered exogenousif not superfluous to IR at best a quarry to be mined in support oftheories of the present5 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita sums up thischaracterisation when he writes lsquofor the social scientist the events ofhistory are a laboratory to test their theoretical propositions aboutcausationrsquo6 Over twenty years ago Christopher Thorne suggested thatClio the muse of history was IRrsquos lsquocall-girlrsquo7 Today however as well asan aversion to such potentially sexist remarks there seems to be anemerging consensus that history is taken far more seriously within thediscipline

Over the past two or three decades there has been a push in IR tohistoricise the theories logics and concepts with which internationalrelations are studied This push is often characterised as yet anotherlsquoturnrsquo within what has become a highly contorted field For exampleBenno Teschke refers to the lsquohistorical turnrsquo8 Duncan Bell to thelsquohistoriographical turnrsquo9 whilst Stephen Hobden mindful of earlierdiplomatic histories prefers lsquohistorical returnrsquo10 On the basis of thesecharacterisations it might seem history has been well and truly broughtback in And on the one hand there is much evidence to support Bellrsquosassertion that history now occupies a lsquocentre-stagersquo role in IR11 On theother hand however it is not necessarily the case that a greater output ofhistorically informed research constitutes a turn towards history per se

Indeed as pedantic as it might sound the veracity of Bellrsquos

Millennium

____________________

3 R B J Walker lsquoHistory and Structure in the Theory of InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 18 no 2 (1989) 171

4 The most obvious example being Kenneth Waltz Theory of InternationalPolitics (Boston McGraw Hill 1979)

5 Hobden and Hobson Historical Sociology 4-56 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita lsquoThe Benefits of a Social-Scientific Approachrsquo in

Contending Approaches to International Politics eds Klaus Knorr and James NRosenau (Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1996) 53

7 Christopher Thorne lsquoInternational Relations and the Promptings ofHistoryrsquo in Review of International Studies 9 (1983) 123

8 Benno Teschke The Myth of 1648 Class Geopolitics and the Making of ModernInternational Relations (London and New York Verso 2003) 1-2

9 Duncan S A Bell lsquoInternational Relations the Dawn of a HistoriographicalTurnrsquo British Journal of Politics and International Relations 3 no 1 (2001) 115-126

10 Hobden lsquoBack to the Futurersquo 5611 Bell lsquoHistoriographical Turnrsquo 123

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(1991) 194-208

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(1991) 194-208

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(1991) 194-208

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International Relations and the ÔProblem of...

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Transcript of International Relations and the ÔProblem of...