Abstract
Among the constraints visited upon normative approaches by canonical traditions in the discipline of International Relations is the distinction between theory and ideology. When applied to the practices of interpretative social science, and the subjective and intersubjective categories which it employs, this distinction implies that any theory arising out of the interpretation of human practices is likely to be tainted with a political project, and its results mere ideology as opposed to objective description.
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Notes
Torbjörn L. Knutsen, A History of International Relations Theory ( Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992 ), p. 128.
Laszek Kolakowski, Metaphysical Horror ( Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988 ), p. 98.
John Maclean, ‘Political Theory, International Theory, and Problems of Ideology’, Millennium (Vol. 10, No. 2, Summer 1981), p. 119.
Reinhold Niebuhr, ‘Ideology and the Scientific Method’ in Christian Realism and Political Problems ( New York: Scribner’s, 1953 ), p. 93.
Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 ), p. 69.
Torbjörn L. Knutsen, A History of International Relations Theory ( Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992 ), p. 133.
See Harlan Cleveland, The Global Commons: Policy for the Planet ( London: University Press of America/Aspen Institute, 1990 ).
V. G. Potter, Charles S. Pierce On Norms and Ideals (Worcester, MA: U.Mass Press, 1967), p. 8ff.
Robert Eccleshall, Vincent Geoghagen, Richard Jay and Rick Wilford, Political Ideologies: An Introduction ( London: Hutchinson, 1984 ), p. 24.
D. J. Manning (ed.), The Form of Ideology ( London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980 ), p. 2.
Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, The German Ideology ( London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1965 ), p. 38.
Sasson Sofer, ‘International Relations and the Invisibility of Ideology’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies (Vol. 16, No. 3, Winter 1987), p. 491.
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© 1997 Hugh C. Dyer
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Dyer, H.C. (1997). Normative Theory, Ideas and Ideology. In: Moral Order/World Order. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376625_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376625_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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