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Levels and Agents, States and People: Micro-Historical Sociological Analysis and International Relations

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Abstract

The historical sociology of international relations is becoming an increasingly prominent field of enquiry. While advocates of an international historical sociology (IHS) have delivered a range of outstanding contributions, they have tended to revolve around the macro-scale, dealing with sweeping grand themes such as the nature of civilizations, the creation of world order, the advent of modernity, and the purpose and formation of the state. This article makes the case for incorporating micro-historical sociological analysis into IHS as a means of complementing already existing analyses, and providing a more rounded field of enquiry. The article argues that the micro–macro issue is an analytic strategy rather than an ontological choice, illustrating this point through a historical institutionalist variant of foreign policy analysis.

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Notes

  1. This article was originally prepared for the ‘Journeys in Historical Sociology’ Workshop, at Goldsmiths College, London, September 22, 2005, as part of an ongoing series of workshops organized by the BISA Historical Sociology Working Group. I would like to thank all of the participants at the workshop for their helpful comments. I would further like to thank Marjo Koivisto and George Lawson for their valuable comments on various drafts of the paper, and Justin Rosenberg for pointing me toward C. Wright Mills.

  2. It should be noted that the rational choice tradition in IR is a ‘micro’-oriented approach in terms of its commitment to the analysis of micro-foundations, which have macro-consequences (Kahler, 1998; Fearon and Wendt, 2001; cf. Schelling, 1978). However, this is mainly about states as rational actors, and not about sub-state micro-foundations.

  3. Such an engagement is becoming more prominent in the critical realist philosophy of the social sciences. Mancias (2006) provides an excellent argument along these lines.

  4. Patomäki (1996) makes an argument along similar lines. Jackson and Nexon (1999) provide a more fundamental reason for abandoning such perspectives, to put an emphasis on relations over entities.

  5. Leonard Seabrooke's work on IPE shows another road that micro-analysis can take within IHS (Seabrooke, 2006).

  6. Carlsnaes’ (1992, 2001) model of analysing foreign policy by distinguishing between three different dimensions in analysing foreign policy outcomes — the structural, the dispositional, and the intentional — is certainly one valuable way of overcoming this problem.

  7. For more on historical institutionalism, see Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (2003) and Thelen (2003).

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  1. Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Bryan Mabee

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Mabee, B. Levels and Agents, States and People: Micro-Historical Sociological Analysis and International Relations. Int Polit 44, 431–449 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800199

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