A History of International Oil Politics
Theoretical Perspectives and Case Studies
Murad Gassanly
A History of International Oil Politics
Theoretical Perspectives and Case Studies
Murad Gassanly
St. Jamess Studies in World Affairs
Academica Press
London-Washington
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gassanly, Murad, author.
Title: A history of international oil politics : theoretical perspectives and case studies / Murad Gassanly.
Description: London ; Washington : Academica Press, [2020] | Series: St. Jamess studies in world affairs | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A History of International Oil Politics is both an argument for multi-theoretical pluralism and a proposal for a theory-synergetic approach in international relations. Murad Gassanly, a distinguished international relations scholar and rising British politician, explores how international relations paradigms could be utilized in approaching the vital field of international oil politics, specifically historical issues of international energy politics and comparative case studies of energy transmission networks the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor. This highly original study explores the historical timeline of global energy to demonstrate how a theory-synergetic analysis might offer a deeper and more holistic understanding. As an academic discipline, international relations now offers a maelstrom of competing epistemological, ontological, and normative contestations. Gassanly, however, argues that theoretical diversity has knowledge-producing and maximizing potential and that pluralism does not impede academic progress. Applying different theoretical models to oil politics reveals different realities, but the synergetic whole is greater than the sum of its constituent paradigmatic parts. Empirical convergences between theoretical accounts provides a broad analytical framework for active theoretical synergy-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020018358 | ISBN 9781680532319 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781680539448 (paperback) | ISBN 9781680539721 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: International relations--Philosophy. | International relations--Case studies. | International economic relationsCase studies. | Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspectsCase studies. | Energy policy--International cooperation--Case studies. | Pipelines--Political aspects--Case studies.
Classification: LCC JZ1305 .G38 2020 | DDC 327.101--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018358
Copyright 2020 Murad Gassanly
Dedication
To my parents, Asif and Fira, to whom I owe everything.
Preface
This book is both an argument for multi-theoretical pluralism and a proposal for a theory-synergetic approach in international relations. It explores the ways in which IR paradigms could be utilized in research of a substantive problem-field international oil politics.
The entire historical timeline of global energy is explored here in order to demonstrate how a theory-synergetic analysis might be applied to attain a deeper, more holistic understanding of a given puzzle than would be possible within a single-paradigm research mode.
International relations may be as a discipline characterized by ongoing theoretical debates, a maelstrom of competing epistemological, ontological and normative contestations. However, it is argued here that theoretical diversity has knowledge-producing and maximising potential and pluralism does not impede academic progress.
Applying different theoretical models upon the same substantive problem-field reveals different realities of that same problem field; yet the resultant synergetic whole is greater than the sum of its constituent paradigmatic parts. Focus on empirical convergences between theoretical accounts normally posited separately provides a broad analytical framework for active theoretical synergy.
By bringing these insights to bear upon historic issues of international energy politics and a comparative case-study of energy transmission networks the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor it is demonstrated that synergetic analysis allows for more complex, multidimensional and multi-layered understanding of the problem-field than single-paradigm research.
Contents
I
Foundational and Theoretical Debates in International Relations
II
Theory-Synergetic Approach
III
IR and Politics of Oil (and Gas)
IV
Rationalist Models
V
Reflectivist Models
VI
Synergetic Model
Introduction
Has international relations (IR) failed as an intellectual project? That was the question posited by Barry Buzan and Richard Little in their seminal paper in the Millennium - Journal of International Studies (30 (1) 2001). Is IR theory at an end? What is IR? Can it even still be described as an academic discipline? Should it try to be one? These and similar questions are increasingly being repeated in the wake of the major upheavals of the latest, Fourth, great debate (Lapid, 1989, Darby, 2008; Wver, 2013; see also the special issue of The European Journal of International Relations (Wight et al, 2013).
This may seem strange given that IR remains an attractive subject for an ever growing number of students and scholars, with expanding research and teaching programmes (and budgets) at universities worldwide, not just in the U.S. and Europe. There has been a marked growth in academic literature on IR, specialist publications, and research centers devoted to its study. By some accounts international relations has made major advances in methodology, scope of enquiry, adding new themes and dimensions to the discipline which, now straddles the globe and provides a common language with which to analyze world politics (Darby, 2008, p. 94).
Yet those concerned with the apparent decline and stagnation in international relations point to the disciplines peculiar insularity from other Social Sciences. As Buzan and Little argue this insularity allows ideas from other disciplines to filter into IR, but seems to block substantial traffic in the other direction (Buzan and Little, 2001, p. 19). International relations borrows heavily from other disciplines from philosophy and economics to anthropology and psychology. Yet one would be at a great difficulty identifying any substantial intellectual impact or influence of IR upon wider social sciences.
Even on the issue of theoretical development and the endless quest for a Grand Theory of International Relations is at a disadvantage. As Brown argues IR has been a consumer not a producer of Grand Theory, borrowing extensively from other social science disciplines, such as Philosophy of Science, and making little by way of own contribution (2013, p.485). He goes further in identifying the effect of this uneven exchange and suggests that this disciplinary insularity had obstructed IR from having a wider impact, beyond academia (Ibid, p.484).
While IR had arguably always been multi-disciplinary it appears this multi-disciplinarily simply masks dependency on other disciplines (Buzan and Little, 2001, p. 21). Meanwhile these other disciplines maintain a self-conscious distance from IR and for many international relations is an intellectual minefield best avoided. Or as historian John Lewis Gaddis put it, IR theory is a field that has troubles enough of its own without my adding to them (2007, ix).
Moreover, debates and discussions within IR had not captured public imagination in the way history and economics, for example, had. IRs big names, the stars of the discipline such as Kenneth Waltz, are hardly known in the wider political science and even less in the world beyond. Some prominent IR figures, such as Zbigniew Brezinski and Henry Kissinger did gain a higher public profile, but this was due largely to political posts they held rather than their scholarship (Buzan and Little, 2001, p. 21).
