After Theory, Before Big Data
This books key purpose is to contribute to the ongoing theoretical discussion in the field of international relations (IR) concerning the status of grand theories.
However, it also has a wider, critical mission: to challenge mainstream social science and its dominant methodology, as well as the unfettered optimism that the problem of social order can be solved by the application of scientific knowledge to our practical problems. The author uses rigorous philosophical analysis to focus on the unexamined assumptions that form the bedrock of many contemporary scholars in IR and demonstrates the unavailability of a universal scientific procedure for finding the facts, when we face practical choices and issues of social reproduction.
This book will be of interest to upper-level students of IR, sociology, history, and philosophy of science; it will also speak to students of security, foreign policy making, migration, and political economy, in addressing the basis of their attitudes in thinking about the world and the role of scholarship.
Friedrich Kratochwil studied Philosophy, Politics, and Ancient History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and went as a Fulbright grantee to the USA where he received a MA in International Relations from Georgetown University and a PhD in Political Science from Princeton University. He taught at the universities of Maryland, Columbia, Denver, and Penn, before returning to Europe in 1995, serving as Chair of International Relations at the LMU in Munich and at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy (20032011). He was the editor of the European Journal of International Relations (20002004) and has served on editorial boards of political science, law, and sociology journals in the USA, Europe, and Asia. His most recent book was entitled Praxis: On Acting and Knowing (2018).
INNOVATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Series Editor: Raffaele Marchetti, LUISS Guido Carli, Italy
Innovations in International Affairs aims to provide cutting-edge analyses of controversial trends in international affairs with the intent to innovate our understanding of global politics. Hosting mainstream as well as alternative stances, the series promotes both the re-assessment of traditional topics and the exploration of new aspects.
The series invites both engaged scholars and reflective practitioners, and is committed to bringing non-western voices into current debates.
Innovations in International Affairs is keen to consider new book proposals in the following key areas:
- Innovative topics: related to aspects that have remained marginal in scholarly and public debates
- International crises: related to the most urgent contemporary phenomena and how to interpret and tackle them
- World perspectives: related mostly to non-western points of view
Titles in this series include:
After Theory, Before Big Data
Thinking about Praxis, Politics and International Affairs
Friedrich Kratochwil
Power Relations and Comparative Regionalism
Europe, East Asia and Latin America
Edited by Min-hyung Kim and James A. Caporaso
An Emerging Africa in the Age of Globalisation
Robert Mudida
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Foundations-and-Futures-of-Education/book-series/FFE
First published 2022
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2022 Friedrich Kratochwil
The right of Friedrich Kratochwil to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kratochwil, Friedrich V., author.
Title: After theory, before big data : thinking about praxis, politics and international affairs / Friedrich Kratochwil.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Innovations in international affairs | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020057299 (print) | LCCN 2020057300 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032006581 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032006536 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003175070 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: International relations--Philosophy. | International relations--Research--Methodology.
Classification: LCC JZ1242 .K729 2021 (print) | LCC JZ1242 (ebook) | DDC 327.101--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057299
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057300
ISBN: 978-1-032-00658-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-00653-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-17507-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003175070
In writing this book I was fortunate to receive encouragement and advise from a whole host of people who have contributed to thinking and rethinking my turn to practice. In this context Gunther Hellmann and the Frankfurt group on Normative Orders , as well as Antje Wiener and her colleagues in Hamburg , and Jan Klabbers at the Castren Institute of the University of Helsinki, have to be mentioned. They all provided me with several opportunities over the past few years to try out my ideas in seminars and invited talks.
For this present book, however, I have to thank especially Raffaele Marchetti, who as editor of the Routledge series, suggested that I should expand on a talk I had presented in Rome at Luiss University and perhaps think of a book as a sequel to the Praxis volume. Similarly, crucial at this point was an invitation by Hans Lindahl and Nikolas Raijkovic to Tilburg University where I gave the first version of the Much ado chapter.
Jens Steffeks intervention in calling together a number of colleagues and students at Darmstadt in 2017 for a review on constructivism, asked there the crucial question of whether we as social scientists are condemned to provide only narratives, which provided the crucial impulse for the Alternative Facts chapter. The archeology of the Three Stories and the View to Nowhere chapters is less straightforward. Some of the thought developed out of the discussions of the group convened by Oliver Kessler at Erfurt bringing together an interesting and diverse group of mostly younger scholars working in law, economics and social theory. The EU-funded conferences spanning several years provided much food for thought and were crucial for the genesis of both the Status for Law and the Praxis volumes, without which this book could not have been written.
The catalyst for what became the View to Nowhere chapter was the special issue edited by Hannes Peltonen (Tampere University) and Knut Traisbach (Barcelona) which originally was submitted to
