Critical Realism and the Analysis of Democratisation: Does Philosophy of Science Matter?

Abstract

Critical realism (CR), a school of thought associated with Roy Bhaskar’s critical naturalist philosophy of social science, has made a discernible impact across the social and political sciences during the last few decades (see e.g. Sayer, 2000; Danermark et al., 2001; Archer et al., 1998; Lawson, 1997; Patomaki, 2002; Wight, 2006a). Yet, critics have accused CR of being difficult to ‘apply’ in the concrete study of social and political affairs and for not generating a specific theory of society, politics or, indeed, of international relations (IR). These have been tricky accusations for critical realists to deal with for CR, as its defenders often proclaim, is but a meta-theoretical framework: one that explores the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions that underlie social research. But what use is this framework exactly in generating new explanations of social and political processes if it provides no specific theory or approach, and what kinds of inquiries of social and political processes might CR lead us towards?

The research leading to these results has received funding under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 2007–2013) ERC grant agreement No. 202 596. All views expressed here are those of the author. Thanks also go to the Finnish Academy Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research: the first draft of this chapter was prepared under the postdoctoral fellowship of the centre. Additionally, many thanks to Chris Hobson, Heikki Patomäki and the researchers at IBEI in Barcelona and ISA 2008 for many useful comments on ideas presented here.