Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:44:49.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beware of gurus: structure and action In International relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Martin Hollis  and
Steve Smith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The agent-structure problem is not settled by deciding what proportions to put in the blender. Agents and structures do not blend easily in any proportions, and solutions to the problem tend to be unstable. Alexander Wendt's thoughtful review article makes this clear, identifies some of the difficulties, and boldly sketches a possible resolution of them. Since his relections are addressed in part to our recent book Explaining and Understanding International Relations, we welcome the chance to pursue them further. Greatly encouraged by his many friendly comments, we shall concentrate on those suggestive or critical points which have prompted us to think afresh.

Type
Discussion
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 393 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Wendt, Alexander, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap in International Relations’, this issue, pp. 383–92.Google Scholar

2 Hollis, Martin and Smith, Steve, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

3 Wendt, Alexander, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 335–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Dessler, David, ‘What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?’ International Organization, 43 (1989), pp. 441–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 This problem which was pointed out in the context of feminist theory by Marysia Zalewski, and is discussed in her ‘Feminist Theory and International Relations’ in M. Bowker and R. Brown (eds.), Change and World Politics in the 1980s (Cambridge, forthcoming). For the situation with regards to post-structuralism, see Steve Smith, ‘Postmodernism and International Relations’ , in J. Street et al., Aspects of Postmodernism (Centre for Public Choice Studies Working Papers, Number 5, University of East Anglia, 1990), pp. 24-31.

6 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 351.

7 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, pp. 337-8.

8 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 338.

9 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 338.

10 Singer, J. David, ‘The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations’, in Knorr, K. and Verba, S. (eds.), The International System: Theoretical Essays (Princeton, N.J., 1961), pp. 77—92.Google Scholar

11 Wendt, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap’, p. 387.

12 Wendt, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap’, p. 388.

13 Wendt, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap’, p. 388.

14 Wendt, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap’, p. 391.

15 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, pp. 338-9.

16 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p . 347.

17 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 348, his emphasis.

18 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 351.

19 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 352.

20 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 353.

21 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 353.

22 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 354.

23 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 356; The quotations come from Nigel Thrift, ‘On the Determination of Social Action in Space and Time’, Society and Space, 1 (1983), pp. 23-57.

24 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 357.

25 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, pp. 358-9.

26 R. Bhaskar quoted in Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 361.

27 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 364.

28 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 364-5.

29 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 366.

30 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 368.

31 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’.

32 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 442.

33 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 446.

34 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 448.

35 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 452.

36 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 452.

37 Dessler, ‘What's at Stake?’, p. 460-1.

38 Ashley, Richard, ‘The Poverty of Neorealism’, International Organization, 38 (1984), p. 240, his emphasis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Ruggie, John, ‘Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis’, in Keohane, R. (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York, 1986), p. 151, his emphasis.Google Scholar

40 Ruggie, ‘Continuity and Transformation’, p. 151.

41 Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass., 1979).Google Scholar

42 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 40.

43 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 89-90.

44 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 90, emphasis added.

45 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 90.

46 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 92.

47 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 65, emphasis added.

48 Kenneth Waltz, ‘Reflections on Theory of International Polities: A Response to My Critics’, in Keohane, Neorealism and its Critics, p. 347.

49 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 68.

50 Waltz, Kenneth, ‘Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory’, Journal of International Affairs, (Summer 1990), p. 34.Google Scholar

51 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 111.

52 Elster, Jon, Logic and Society (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

53 Elster, Jon, Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences (Cambridge, 1989), p. 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Elster, Jon, Logic and Society; Sour Grapes (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Explaining Technical Change (Cambridge, 1983); Ulysses and the Sirens (Cambridge, 1984); Nuts and Bolts; The Cement of Society (Cambridge, 1989).

55 Elster, Explaining Technical Change, chs. 1-3.

56 Elster, Nuts and Bolts, p. 91.

57 Elster, Jon, ‘Marxism, Functionalism and Individualism: The Case for Methodological Individualism’, Theory and Society, 11 (1982), pp. 453–82. The following quotation is from p. 453.Google Scholar

58 Elster, Jon, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge, 1985).Google Scholar

59 Giddens, Anthony, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley, 1979), p. 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Quoted in Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 361.

60 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 362.

61 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 364.

62 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, p. 365.

63 Wendt, ‘Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap’, p. 391. See especially, Bhaskar, Roy, A Realist Theory of Science (Brighton, 1978)Google Scholar; The Possibility of Naturalism (Brighton, 1979); Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation (London, 1986).

64 Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem’, pp. 351-2.