Abstract
A deep irony is embedded in the history of the scientific study of political science, but especially of international relations. Recent generations of scholars separated policy from theory to gain an intellectual distance from decision making to enhance the “scientific” quality of their work. But five decades of well-funded efforts to develop theories of international relations have produced precious little in the way of useful, high confidence results. Theories abound, but few meet the most relaxed “scientific” tests of validity. Even the most robust generalizations or laws we can state—war is more likely between neighboring states, weaker states are less likely to attack stronger states—are close to trivial, have important exceptions, and for the most part stand outside any consistent body of theory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This text was first published as “Social Science as Case-Based Diagnostics,” co-authored with Steven Bernstein, Janice Stein and Steven Weber, in, Richard Ned Lebow and Mark Lichbach, eds., Political Knowledge and Social Inquiry (New York: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 229–260. ISBN 9781403974563. The permission to republish this text was granted on 18 June 2015 by Claire Smith, Senior Rights Assistant, Nature Publishing Group & Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK.
- 2.
We use evolutionary biology as an analogy for modes of reasoning, not as a model of politics per se.
- 3.
We state the rule in this way to avoid the confusion of “affirming the consequent” (as in if X then Y) and thus to emphasize falsifiability.
- 4.
See Weber, “Counterfactuals Past and Future,” in Tetlock and Belkin, eds, 1996.
- 5.
For elaboration, see Morris (1998).
- 6.
George (1993) makes a similar point.
- 7.
- 8.
See, for example, Modelski/Poznanski (1996), and other contributions to the September 1996 special issue of International Studies Quarterly.
- 9.
See ‘Introduction’ in Tetlock/Belkin (1996).
- 10.
- 11.
For an effort to save the ‘scientific’ explanation while doubting the usefulness of general laws for explaining social phenomena see Elster (1989). See also Brown (1984).
- 12.
See, for example, King et al. (1994): 19, 28–29.
- 13.
For a similar discussion of ‘causality’ embedded in a narrative explanatory protocol, see Ruggie (1998): 89–94.
- 14.
- 15.
For a classic treatment of ethnic conflict see Horowitz (1985).
- 16.
- 17.
For a discussion of feedbacks and unintended consequences of interventions in the former Yugoslavia see Pasic/Weiss 1997.
- 18.
Polkinghorne (1988: 19–20) uses the literary term ‘emplotment’ to describe causation embedded in narrative: “It is not the imposition of a ready-made plot structure on an independent set of events; instead, it is a dialectic process that takes place between the events themselves and a theme; which discloses their significance and allows them to be grasped together as parts of one story.” Cited in (Ruggie 1998: 94).
- 19.
Wendt (2003) goes further, proposing a teleological explanation for an inevitable world state. His logic follows in part on the same technological argument concerning the increasing capacity for devastation of military technology, but he also introduces an argument that the logic of anarchy will channel struggles for recognition. While such a well-developed plotline fits nicely with our scenario methodology, the functional and teleological logics on which Deudney’s and Wendt’s arguments are based run counter to our approach.
- 20.
- 21.
For an analysis of the privatization of security and its consequences, see Stein (2000).
- 22.
- 23.
See Stein et al. (1998).
References
Beissinger, Mark R. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bhaskar, Roy. 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Science. Brighton: Harvester Press.
Biersteker, Thomas J., and Cynthia Weber. 1996. State Sovereignty as Social Construct. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bobrow, Davis B. 1996. “Complex Insecurity: Implications of Sobering Metaphor,” International Studies Quarterly 40 (4): 435—450.
Bueno deMesquita, Bruce. 1981. The War Trap. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Caporaso, James A., ed. 2000. Special Issue: “Changes in the Westphalian Order.” Environmental Politics 2 (4): 1—34.
Carlsnaes, Walter 1992. « The Agency-Structure Debate in Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Quarterly 36, pp. 245-70.
Carlsnaes, Walter 1993. «On Analysing the Dynamics of Foreign Policy Change: A Critique and Reconceputalizaiton Cooperation and Conflict 28, pp. 5-30.
Deudney, Daniel H. 1995b. “The Philadelphian System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union, Circa 1987-1861,” International Organization 49 (2): 191-228.
Deudney, Daniel H. 1995a. “Nuclear Weapons and the End of the Real-State,” Daedalus 124 (2): 209-31.
Deudney, Daniel H. 2000. “Regrounding Realism,” Security Studies 10(1): 1-45.
Elster, Jon. 1989. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Emerson, Rupert. 1960. From Empire to Nation: The Rise to Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples. Boston: Beacon Press.
Feaver, Peter D., Scott D. Sagan, and David J. Karl. 1997. “Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,” International Security 22 (2): 185-207.
Ferguson, Yale H. and Richard W. Mansbach. 1996. Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change. Columbia, SC: South Carolina University Press.
Ganguly, Sumit. 1997. “Explaining the Kashmir Insurgency: Political Mobilization and Institutional Decay,” International Security 21 (2): 76-107.
George, Alexander L. 1993. Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy.” Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press.
Gordon, Michael R. 2004. “Catastrophic Success: The Strategy to Secure Iraq did not Foresee a 2nd War,” New York Times (October 19), online edition.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1989. Wonderful Life. W.W. Norton.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1996. Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin. New York: Harmony Books.
Hall, Rodney Bruce. 1998. National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems. New York: Columbia University Press.
Harr A Rom, and Peter Secord. 1973. The Explanation of Social Behaviour. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Henderson, Gregory, and Richard Ned Lebow. 1974. “Conclusions,” in Gregory Henderson, Richard Ned Lebow, and John G. Stoessinger, eds., Divided Nations in a Divided World. New York: David McKay Company, pp. 433-54.
Herz, John H. 1968. “The Territorial State Revisited—Reflections on the Future of the Nation-State,” Polity 1 (1): 11-34.
Herz, John H. 1957. “The Rise and Demise of the Territorial State,” World Politics 9 (4): 473-93.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1996. “The Project on Environment, Population and Security: Key Findings of Research,” The Woodrow Wilson Center Environmental Change and Security Project Report 2: 45-48.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1999. Environment, Scarcity, and Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jervis, Robert. 1997. System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Karl, David J. 1996/97. “Proliferation, Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,” International Security 21 (3): 87—119.
Kaufman, Stuart 1997. “Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses and Moscow in Moldova’s Civil War,” International Security 21 (2): 108-38.
King, Gary; Keohane, Robert O.; Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry; Brady and Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry..
King, Charles. 2004. “The Micropolitics of Social Violence,” World Politics 56 (3): 431-55.
Kratochwil, Friedrich V. 1995. “Sovereignty and Dominium: Is there a Right of Humanitarian Intervention?” in Gene M. Lyons and M. Mastanduno, eds., Beyond Westphalia? State Sovereignty and International Intervention. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 21-42.
Kupchan, Charles A. 1994. The Vulnerability of Empire. Ithaca; Cornell University Press.
Lake, David A. and Donald Rothchild. 1997. “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict,” International Security 21 (2): 41-75.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1935. World Politics and Personal Insecurity. New York McGraw-Hill.
Lebow, Richard Ned, and Janice Gross Stein. 1990. “Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable,” World Politics 42: 336-69.
Lebow, Richard Ned. 2000-2001. “Contingency, Catalysts and International System Change,” Political Science Quarterly 115: 591-616.
Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15: 5-56.
Modelski, George, and Kazimerz Poznanski. 1996. “Evolutional Paradigms in the Social Sciences,” International Studies Quarterly 40:315-319.
Morris, Simon Conway. 1998. The Crucible of Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pasic, Amir, and Thomas G. Weiss. 1997. “The Politics of Rescue: Yugoslavia’s Wars and the Humanitarian Impulse” Ethics and International Affairs 11: 105-131.
Patomaki, Heikki. 1996. “How to Tell Better Stories about World Politics,” European Journal of International Relations 2:105-34.
Polkinghome, D. 1988. Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Radelet, Steven, and Jeffrey Sachs. 1999. “What Have We Learned, So Far, From the Asian Financial Crisis?” Unpublished manuscript Rosell, Steven A. 1999. Renewing Governance: Governing by Learning in the Information Age. New York Oxford University Press.
Rudner, Richard. 1966. Philosophy of Social Science. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall.
Ruggie, John G. 1993. “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations” International Organization 47:139-74.
Ruggie, John G. 1998. Constructing the World Polity. London : Routledge.
Sachs, Jeffrey. 1998. “Global Capitalism: Making it Work” The Economist 12:23-25.
Sagan, Scott D., and Kenneth N. Waltz. 1995. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate. New York Norton.
Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.
Snyder, Jack and Karen Ballentine. 1997. “Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas” International Security 21 (2): 5-40.
Solingen, Etel. 1994. “The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security 19 (2): 126-69.
Solingen, Etel. 1995. “The New Multilateralism and Nonproliferation: Bringing In Domestic Politics,” Global Governance 1 (2): 205-27.
Stein, Janice Gross. 2000. “The Privatization of Security in Global Political Space,” International Studies Review 2(1): 21-24.
Stein, Janice Gross. 2001. “Proliferation, Non-Proliferation, and Counter-Proliferation: Egypt and Israel in the Middle East,5’ in Steven Spiegel, Jennifer Kibbe, and Elizabeth Matthews, eds., The Dynamics of Middle East Nuclear Proliferation. New York: Mellen Press, 2001: 33-58.
Stein, Janice Gross et al. 1998. “Five Scenarios of the: Israeli-Palestinian Relationship in 2002: Works in Progress,” Security Studies 7:j 195-212.
Strange, Susan. 1996. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tetlock, Philip E. 2005. Expert Political Judgment How good Is It? How Can We Know? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tetlock, Philip E., and Aaron Belkin, eds. 1996. Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tilly, Charles. 1975. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1981. “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better,” Adelphi Papers 178. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Weber, Steven. 1997. “Prediction and the Middle East Peace Process,” Security Studies 6:167-79.
Weber, Steven, 1996 “Counterfactuals Past and Future,” in Philip A. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin (eds), Counerfactual Experimens in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 268-90.
Weiss, Thomas G. 1995. “Overcoming the Somalia Syndrome—‘Operation Rekindle Hope?” Global Governance 1 (2): 171-187.
Wendt, Alexander. 2003. ‘Why a World State is Inevitable: Teleology and the Logic of Anarchy,” European Journal of International Relations 9:491-542.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bernstein, S., Lebow, R.N., Stein, J.G., Weber, S. (2016). Social Science as Case-Based Diagnostics. In: Lebow, R. (eds) Richard Ned Lebow: Major Texts on Methods and Philosophy of Science. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40027-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40027-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40026-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40027-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)