International Relations Theory Part Two – Expansion Pack Chapter 20 The ‘Isms' Are Evil All Hail The ‘Isms'! (Alex Prichard)

145 International Relations Theory 20 The Are Evil . All Hail the ! ALEX In this concluding chapter I want to explore some of the problems that come with classifying IR theory in the way we do . I want to open up a problem . Why is it we call theories of world politics theories and not ideologies ?

To answer this question I will engage in a bit of that is , theory about theory to expose some of the complexities and problems that emerge once we think a little more deeply about how the can and ought to be used . The point of this chapter is to help you to think theoretically about how the previous chapters in this book hang together . In other words , while you might have already spotted shared characteristics of the various ' in this chapter I want to give you the tools to understand why those commonalities exist at all . In short , the argument is that IR theories should be understood not only as theories but also as ideologies . The proximity and difference between theories and ideologies will become clearer as we progress , but the key point I want to make is that when we understand the ideological element in IR theory , we are better able to think critically about the enterprise of dividing IR up as a set of in the first place . The chapter starts with a quick overview of the rise and fall of the in political studies and IR theory . Funnily enough , for many people we live in a age , and the fact IR theorists talk about theories and not ideologies is manifest evidence of that . I then discuss some reasons we should reject the as a way of philosophical thinking in IR , and show how concept analysis and ideology critique are good natives . But I close by arguing that we need ideologies and our not only to help frame explanations of world politics but also as raw material for

The Are Evil . All Hail the ! 146 exposing the political and moral assumptions scholars work with . Hopefully , this final chapter should encourage you to be both playful and experimental with IR theory . An ism is a suffix that denotes a more or less systematic set of beliefs , opinions , andlor values about the world . The suffix is added when something moves from being quite specific to encompassing more expansive or general views , beliefs and attitudes . For example , Philippines president Rodrigo may have general views that are unique to him , but until he or anyone else them into a coherent worldview , we are unlikely to start talking about in the same way we would of for example . The become even more expansive when more than one person contributes to or develops the initial set of views . Contemporary incorporates a vast array of ideas and theories , approaches , and . Indeed , other add a large measure of to their own too , mainly to distinguish them from other . For example , there can be both orthodox or heterodox or liberal feminism and Marxist feminism , and so forth . In short , in political science the generally denote ideologies and their refinements . In IR , however , we think of the as theories , not ideologies , which is odd . Why do we call a theory in IR , but an ideology in political science ?

This is not just a semantic issue . In fact it goes to the core of what IR thought of itself in the period in which it emerged as a social science at the turn of the twentieth century . The reason IR scholars spoke of theory rather than ideology at this time was that it was generally held that international relations were not amenable to the visions of the good life that we find elaborated in the architecture of the main ideologies ( Wight 1966 ) Realists prided themselves on their ability to cut through the moral haze of world politics to the perennial problems of world politics . Realism was not an ideology , but increasingly came to be seen as a simple set of universal truths about politics . This tendency to distinguish IR theory from ideologies was cemented at the end of the Cold War when almost everyone else also became ideological . This had a number of core features . The end of the Cold War galvanised a widespread consensus that liberalism was no longer an ideology , but was instead given in the structures of history , which , according to Francis ( 1989 ) were now coming to fruition signifying an end of history . The Soviet Union , the power that offered the only existing alternative to Western liberalism , had fallen . For many , such as , this meant that we were entering a age , an age in

147 International Relations Theory which the dominance of liberalism and the demise of its main challengers fascism and communism meant there simply were no other ideologies around , making liberalism the truth revealed at the end of history . Part of this account of liberalism , however , involved a very particular conception of human rationality , one in which maximising your was said to be both rational and a universal feature of the human psyche . Institutionalism , methodological individualism and rationalism are all concepts . These are concepts that just do a job , words that have little invested in them politically , at least on the face of it . Those who deploy such words usually pride themselves on their approach to theory development , proposing that concepts like these are scientific tools instead . These tools cut through the fluff of ideology to see what really motivates people . By these rationalist accounts , it was not communism but that motivated the Soviets . Furthermore , it was not a global genuflection before this or that ideology that would bring order to the world , as the conflict between the Communists and Capitalists suggested , but the rather more mundane claim that institutions matter ( and Martin 1995 ) in helping interests align ( 2009 ) One might think that the left would have persisted in its critique of the covering up of the ideological content of liberal science , but oddly enough , large parts of the left also adopted their own variation of thinking , around the same time . theory took off at the end of the Cold War . One of the most significant criticisms of ideologies developed by cast them as visions of the world and history that were more significant as modes of power than descriptively accurate statements about the world and its history . Liberalism , and , were described as modes of ( governance rather than explanations of how the world worked . Once we accept assumptions about rationality we become the person the theory was only supposed to describe . Ideologies produce political subjects . In this way , ideologies came to be seen as inherently regulative and dominating they were not descriptions of the world , but ways of making us act in it . By the late these contesting philosophical and world historical changes had broken ashore in International Relations . Here , ideologies were described as theories , the details of which you can access in the preceding pages of this book . Few if any of the contributors speak of their various theories as ideological . To do so would be to invite all sorts of criticism . To recap only the criticisms above , ideologies are seen to be unscientific , dominating , In a word . Theories , by contrast , are , somewhat testable , at least nominally , and lack the world

The Ar Evil . All Hail the ! 148 historical and visions of the good life we usually associate with ideologies . But , in IR , each ism has developed a cottage industry of its own , with its own specialist journals and degree programmes . In spite of this ( perhaps because of it , who knows ) almost no one debates between the theories any more . The great debates that were central to the discipline in the past seem to have faded , though there is increasing evidence that they were never really debates , let alone great ( Wilson 1998 ) Ironically , the we are dealing with in this book have never been more entrenched in the field , but nor have they been so little used as weapons by their various protagonists . We have , according to one recent view , come to the end of IR theory ( Dunne , Hansen and Wight 2013 ) If we are not talking about ideologies in IR theory , what are we talking about ?

For David Lake ( 2011 ) we are talking about academic sects that have developed around each of the . These sects demand advanced students ( usually those embarking on studies ) put themselves into a box , adopt an ism for life and then continue to specialise in the rituals and of these . Eventually , the ability of advanced scholars to think beyond or across and between the simply falls away . In our attempt to update each ism to meet the demands of the latest real world event , the become all the more narrowly defined , or stretched to become so broadly defined as to make them practically ideologies . Either way , they become unhooked from the historical , social and geopolitical context in which they emerged . We then start repeating phrases like institutions matter without understanding how they mattered during the Cold War and might matter in different ways today . This is known as reification . However , Lake understood theory in a way that made a categorical distinction between ideologies , and theory . For Lake , the are far broader categories of thought than theories . Theories posit the between variables and generate testable hypotheses , while traditions are messier , unsystematic of ideas that people need to straighten out in order to pull out those hypotheses . For example , both liberalism and realism come from wider , more standing ideological traditions , but to make them theories of IR some core principles had to be identified . In this case , both traditions share the view that anarchy and material interests are key features of world politics , but they add additional variables to generate different theories . In pursuing this general pattern of ) elaborating general assumption , positing the relations of theoretical concepts , generating testable hypotheses , there is no question that what counts as theory , what counts as evidence and what counts as viable IR subject matter narrows exponentially . Lake assumes that IR theories

149 International Relations Theory aspire to be scientific in a very narrow sense of that word ( Lake 2011 , 470 ) and then he says that those that do are not really appropriate for IR . theoretical questions ( again , theory about theory ) such as whether history has an end point or whether history is shaped by material forces or by ideas are unscientific questions that are without final answers . Rather , we should focus on what he calls theory that is , hypotheses that can be tested against the empirical evidence questions like , which institutions best limit violence ?

This is how Lake thinks we will come to understand how the world actually works , not through speculative philosophy . This request for IR theory to ask what appear to be simpler questions is somewhat problematic . Lake solution asks us to ignore the deeply ideological nature of the concepts we use routinely in theories . Because we can no longer ask speculative questions about the coherence of ground assumptions and concepts , like what is capitalism , for example , we end up treating the already existing stock of IR theory as the extent of the material we might need from which to draw testable hypotheses . The fact that there is little consensus on what the state is , let alone whether it is the best institution to constrain violence , is hugely significant . Paradoxically then , Lake criticisms make IR theories , particularly the more esoteric ones , sound very much like ideologies , but the point is that all theories are ideologies . What he is unwilling to countenance is that his preferred approach is itself deeply infused with a standard notion of science that is also itself ideological positivism ( another ism ) By this account , true knowledge is knowledge that is empirically verifiable , and only what we can experience counts as true evidence . But we could not know this about Lake unless we had a broad understanding of scientific ideologies too , like positivism and empiricism , such that we would be tooled to expose his underlying assumptions ( Jackson 2011 ) Nothing is gained by exercising the sleight of hand so common in contemporary IR of everything but science to be ideological . Before proposing a way out of this problem , let us quickly survey some of the problems that emerge when students do not think clearly about what are and what we are using the for . One might assume from the above that IR is better off without its and in some respects that is probably right . There is nothing to be gained for students or researchers by thinking that the are hypothesis generators . Nor should we welcome theories that purport to be able to explain everything , offering remedies to fix the world as general conclusions . I think anyone would be rightly suspicious of this . But there is a real problem with thinking about in this way in the first place and we do have to .

The Evil . All Hail the ! 150 What if we change what we think ideologies are ?

Would this help us rethink the in IR too ?

Ideologies are wondrous , porous , complex and evolving things that give us a unique insight into the structure of collective thought . Two aches to ideologies should open up what I mean here . For the first approach , let consider ideologies as a network of concepts , with the core concepts acting as nodes to which peripheral ones attach and disconnect as they evolve over time ( 1996 ) So , for example , while liberty might be central to liberalism , peripheral concepts like white supremacy or democracy have receded and advanced in importance over time ( respectively ) Likewise , we should probably understand that concepts are used in particular historical , which means they might have different meanings to the way we use them now ( 2016 ) Concepts like the state are themselves generative of , while particular meanings of a given concept can only be understood in terms of that ism . For example , could we really understand what liberalism is without an standing of what contemporary liberals mean by liberty ?

And which comes first , the ideology or the concept ?

This is not a frivolous argument , because unless we can adequately grasp the historical specificity of the language we use , we will be tempted to simply assume this is how our language has always been used , leaving us bewitched by the present ( Skinner 1998 ) Once we start to interrogate key concepts , their logic , coherence and their relation to other concepts , we can map the relations of ideologies to one another . For example , both realism and liberalism share core concepts like anarchy , the state , material power and so on . But the relative importance of each can only really be understood once we see how peripheral and other core concepts are deployed in relation to one another , like cooperation or capitalism , institutions or hegemony . Have you ever wondered why you agree with some aspects of an ideology but not with others and agonised about how you can make sense of your split loyalty ?

This way of understanding the structure of ideologies better shows us the interconnected tapestry of ideologies , something we need to get used to a worthwhile endeavour for students of IR to do with all the theories presented in this book . So , ideologies then , like theories , are tapestries of concepts . But , let take another step back and engage in some ideology critique to explore the second approach . What made it possible to dream up a theory like realism or liberalism in the first place ?

With the exception of and feminism , most IR theories were , broadly speaking , developed in the West by 151 International Relations Theory white men , predominantly from the top of income earners , or the upper middle class . In fact , it took the emergence of feminist and postcolonial theorists to point this out . To do this , these theorists had to develop complex accounts of the world and how it hung together that took on the core concepts and assumptions of the mainstream . Contrary to Lake , it was only because feminists and postcolonial theorists ( amongst others ) probed the existential concepts and categories that theoretical development was possible at all . And , this involved exposing IR theories as ideological . This is how dialectical thought operates . It explores the conditions of possibility of a given way of thinking , whether that is conceptual coherence , historical specificity or ever , and then pushes beyond it . It is not important whether IR theories are true or not . What matters is whether they help shape our thinking such that they can guide action , scholarly , political or theological . It is because they guide action , shape it , constrain it and make sense of it that ideologies and theories should be scrutinised . Ideologies are the background cognitive , moral structures that shape societies and reflect their differences , and so understanding how they operate will tell us a huge amount about the world we live in . Let try something turn on your television . Is there not a striking sameness to the stuff that is broadcast in most countries especially Western ones ?

not just that there are a lot of programmes on cooking and real estate , but that the underlying assumptions behind the programmes have a certain resonance . You do find presenters of real estate shows lamenting the unjust structures of capitalism or proclaiming that property is theft ! Rather , there is a shared sense of the inevitability of the logic of property ownership or that the objective is to secure the highest price possible . Think about the way boys and girls are differently appealed to in the cartoons they watch , with roles almost routinely given rather than questioned . As Steve Smith ( 2007 , has argued , the option of accounts of the world is simply not available . As such , you need to familiarise yourself with what theory is , how it works and how it shapes the way you see the world . Ideology critique explores the ways in which communication in general is constrained and circumscribed by ideas , concepts , attitudes and theories , or the way normal language is theory bound and theory dependent . Theories , then , IR theories too , are themselves reflections of ideology . They should be subjected to critique in the same way . Conclusion Think of the and a broad understanding of them in three ways

The Evil . All Hail the ! 152 First , are ideologies and IR theories are ideologically saturated too . This is not a bad thing per se . Once we know this we should be able to both interrogate the internal coherence of the ideology and compare its virtues with others . Second , ideologies themselves shape the society we live in . So , we ought to be able to understand our society and world politics better by exploring the ways in which ideologies shape and structure the ways in which people live and act . In many respects , then , IR theory reflects these ways of living and acting too . Thus , we can think of IR theory as itself an ideological reflection of the world around us . Walker ( 1993 , has made the contentious suggestion that theories of international relations are more interesting as aspects of contemporary world politics that need to be explained than as explanations of world You might not want to go that far , but there is no doubt that there is nothing politically or ideologically neutral about IR theory and locating IR theories in their historical and intellectual context exposes this irreversibly . Third , ideologies can be wrong , their values reprehensible or odious , their core assumptions preposterous . This is because they are used by people whose practices and politics we might disagree with . For Robert Cox ( 1981 , 128 ) theory is not only always for someone and for some purpose , but it also inevitably reflects class biases . We need to be aware of this and subject theory to a range of critiques . Understanding would be the precondition of this . Doing this would be impossible if we were to deny exist , or if we overlook how deeply implicated in ideological structures our modern way of living and thinking are . Nothing is gained by rejecting the unless we at first understand the complexity of what it is we are rejecting . The may be evil , but we must pay due homage to them in order to develop the critical reflection we need to move beyond them .