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Where Have All the Theories Gone?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Warren R. Phillips
Warren R. Phillips
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

The student who begins his study of international relations today is faced with a discipline that has changed greatly in the last decade. Some would say that it has matured to the point of being a true science. Others would argue that it has fallen into the abyss of data collection, technological quantrophobia and unenlightened description, never to return to the light of theoretical explanation. In part, such debates are healthy signs of growing pains in a young science; but there may be a disheartening aspect to them—one that is not immediately obvious. Let us begin by looking at the two sides in this argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , January 1974 , pp. 155 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1974

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References

1 The data holdings of the Inter-University Consortium for Political Science's International Relations Archive and die data available through the UN Statistical Office are representative of the great storehouse of information available today.

2 Mueller's, John E. collection of essays, Approaches to Measurement in International Relations: A Non-Evangelical Survey (New York 1969Google Scholar), describes a wide range of data-generating methodologies currendy available.

3 Perhaps a good indicator of the impact of these techniques upon students in international relations is the growth of books explaining one statistical technique or another. See for instance Rummel, R. J., Applied Factor Analysis (Evanston, 111. 1970Google Scholar) and Tufte, Edward R., ed., The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems (Reading, Mass. 1970Google Scholar).

4 For a very clear and demanding critique of significance tests, see Morrison, Denton E. and Henkel, Ramon E., eds., The Significance Test Controversy (Chicago 1970Google Scholar).

5 Young, Oran R., “Professor Russett: Industrious Tailor to a Naked Emperor,” World Politics, xxi (April 1969), 486–511CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogowski, Ronald, “International Politics: The Past as Science,” International Studies Quarterly, xii (December 1968Google Scholar); Levy, Marion J. Jr., “'Does It Matter If He's Naked?' Bawled the Child,” in Knorr, Klaus and Rosenau, James N, Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton 1969Google Scholar).

6 Young (fn. 5), 486, 487, 489, 490–91, 511. For Russett's reply to these charges, see Russett, Bruce M., “The Young Science of International Politics,” World Politics, XXII (October 1969), 87–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 “I mean by this adjective to comprehend both general systems theory and its derivatives or cognates as these have been applied to the study of international politics. A distressingly large variety of theorists and researchers would appear as adherents of such a framework. Kaplan and McClelland, whose attempts rely fairly obviously on general systems theory; Rosecrance and Modelski, who employ systems vocabulary and concepts in eclectic ways; and even Waltz and Singer, whose debt to general systems work is almost subliminal but especially suggestive of the force of the quasi-metaphysical revolution.

“Much obviously separates these writers, but I wish to suggest that their differences lie mainly in the ontological realm, the realm of statements about what we can know; and that they exhibit affinities of epistemology, statements about how we can know, that are far greater and more useful in explaining the nature of their attack.” Rogowski (fn. 5), 408–9.

8 Ibid.

9 “[Theory] is constructed purposefully to order some particular range of facts. . . . Theoretical statements for scientific purposes are formulated to order the largest possible number of observed facts in the simplest possible framework of concepts. . . .” McClelland, Charles A., Theory and the International System (New York 1966), 12–13Google Scholar.

“The crux of the matter is whether regularities can be discovered which permit the organization of the materials of international politics within a simple framework of reasonable explanatory or predictive power.” Kaplan, Morton, System and Process in International Politics (New York 1957), 3Google Scholar.

“[The essential works of diplomatic and political history] could provide the raw data from which systematic characterizations could be derived.” Richard Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston and Toronto 1964), 5Google Scholar.

10 Rogowski (fn. 5), 410 n.

11 Ibid., 416.

12 “The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it. The question how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man—whether it is a musical theme, a dramatic conflict, or a scientific theory—may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge. This latter is concerned not with questions of fact (Kant's quid facti?), but only with questions of justification or validity (Kant's quid juris?). Its questions are of the following kind. Can a statement be justified? And if so, how? Is it testable? Is it logically dependent on certain other statements? Or does it perhaps contradict them? In order that a statement may be logically examined in this way, it must already have been presented to us. Someone must have formulated it, and submitted it to logical examination.” Popper, Karl A., The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York 1959), 31Google Scholar.

13 Bull, Hedley, “International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach,” World Politics, XVIII (April 1966), 361CrossRefGoogle Scholar–77; Kaplan, Morton A., “The New Great Debate: Traditionalism vs. Science in International Relations,” World Politics, xix (October 1966), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Levy (fn. 5), 90, 91, 104. Levy's article presents a detailed enumeration of several specific errors he has found in “theoretical” works of social scientists. It is worth reading and taking these mistakes to heart.

15 Butterfield, Herbert, The Origins of Modern Science (New York 1956), 106Google Scholar.

16 Hempel, Carl Gustav, “Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science,” in Neurath, Otto, ed., International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (Chicago 1952), Vol. II, No. 7, 36–37Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., 47.

18 Thus, what follows is an attempt to blunt these criticisms by demonstrating the existence of theoretical work in international relations. It is not an assessment of the whole field of mathematical theory in international relations.

19 The analogy to squirrels seems quite appropriate since there are many among us who would collect their data, store them for their private use, and even run the risk of forgetting where they stored them.

20 Margenau, Henry, The Nature of Physical Reality (New York 1950), 150Google Scholar.

21 For example, Lambert, Karl and Brittan, Gordon G. Jr., An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1970Google Scholar).

22 Stephen Toulmin follows this track in The Philosophy of Science (New York 1953Google Scholar).

23 See Hempel, Carl Gustav, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1966Google Scholar), or Richard Rudner, S., Philosophy of Social Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1966Google Scholar), for this approach.

24 Popper (fn. 12) prefers this strategy.

25 Ibid., 32.

26 Forward, Nigel, The Field of Nations: New Approaches to International Relations (Boston 1971), 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 This argument follows closely that of Gibbs, Jack P., “The Identification of Statements in Theory Construction,” Sociology and Social Research, LII (Fall 1970Google Scholar).

28 The choice of whether concepts have empirical content or not is the researcher's option. It is often much more difficult to be certain about the empirical content of concepts than it is in the case of the ones employed in this example.

29 The need for these existential statements is often ignored. Indeed, much of the debate on reliability and validity references arguments over the acceptability of statements of this nature. See Popper (fn. 12), sections 27 and 28. For the necessary idiosyncratic aspects of these statements, see Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy (New York 1958Google Scholar).

30 For a full discussion of the circle of verification, see Margenau (fn. 20).

31 For the type of conclusion necessary before a testable theory is considered adequate many arguments take this form:

“The deductive procedure is in full:

(i) observe a set of empirical facts in real life: call them collectively A ;

(ii) construct die corresponding set of propositions in the model: call them collectively a;

(iii) deduce from them some new propositions in the model: call them B;

(iv) construct the corresponding propositions in real life: call them b.

If the propositions B are not obviously true, and yet when tested against reality turn out to be right, then the model has a good mark and the theory has taken a step forward; if wrong, a bad mark and a step backward. If they are blatant tautologies, or if they are not in a form in which they can be verified, the model also has a bad mark because its use has not advanced matters.” Forward (fn. 26), 53–54.

Although I am in agreement that this form is one way to proceed, I do not consider it as the only form since it does not allow for the test of one of the original statements by deducing directly from it an empirical, singular, derived statement as in our example. Rather it requires a prior step, one which would produce a test statement only by combining primary universal statements that are either semantical or syntactical to form a derived, universal, empirical statement from which we may derive a singular, empirical statement.

32 “Field theory assumes, first, that international behavior and attributes form a social space—a field of complex and changing interrelationships between nations, their characteristics, and their behavior. Isolating a particular variable or two is not sufficient to understand behavior, then. Rather, the whole field must be specified to provide the context and causal environment of interaction. For example, knowledge that a country with a left democratic government is poor and Catholic will not generally be sufficient to explain a nation's international behavior. These characteristics have different behavioral consequences depending on their distribution in the system, behavioral expectations and norms, and on who is the behavioral object.” Rummel, R. J., “A Status Field Theory of International Relations,” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 50 (Honolulu 1971), 4Google Scholar.

33 Wright, Quincy, The Study of International Relations (New York 1955), 524Google Scholar.

34 “. . . absolute characteristics are assumed outside of a nation's behaviorally relevant field and it is assumed that the principle of relative values governs nations: attributes and behavior must be understood by their interrelations, comparatively. Behavior cannot be explained in isolation and a nation's attributes become relevant only in relation to other attributes and to behavior.”

“. . . social time is assumed to be part of the international relations social space—the field. Nation behavior and attributes have extensional and durational relationships; the passage of time is relative to the nations and the context.” Rummel (fn. 32), 4–5.

35 Lewin, Kurt in Cartwright, Dorwin, ed., Field Theory in Social Science (New York 1964Google Scholar); Wright (fn. 33); Arthur Bentley, F., “Inquiry Into Inquiries,” in Ratner, Sidney, ed., Essays in Social Theory (Boston 1954Google Scholar).

36 Rummel (fn. 32), 5.

37 Although these axioms are considered formal, their mathematical implications will not be dealt with here. For a full treatment, see Rummel, R. J., “A Field Theory of Social Action With Application to the Conflict Within Nations,” in General Systems: Yearbook of the Society of General Systems, x (1965), 197–204Google Scholar.

38 Rummel (fn. 32), 5–6. These three axioms are reduced from the original seven axioms published in 1965. The evolution of the theory can be traced by reference to Rummel (fn. 37), his “Field Theory and Indicators of International Behavior,” Di-mensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 29 (Honolulu 1969Google Scholar), and “Social Time and International Relations,” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 40 (Honolulu 1970Google Scholar).

39 Rummel, ibid., “Field Theory . . . .”

40 A criticism often leveled at field theory is that it is not a predictive theory, in that attributes and behaviors must both be known before the relationship can be specified. The statement is true, but it is also true of most of the Darwinian theory of evolution. A student of policy may find little in field theory of direct application to forecasting; but the suggestion that distances are social forces influencing behavior is both enlightening and testable.

41 Rummel, R. J., “U.S. Foreign Relations: Conflict, Cooperation and Attribute Distances,” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 41 (Honolulu 1970Google Scholar).

42 Rosenau, James N., “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Farrell, R. Barry, ed., Approaches to Comparative and International Politics (Evanston, 111. 1966Google Scholar).

43 Organski, A. F. K., World Politics (New York 1960Google Scholar).

44 Wright (fn. 33).

45 Russett (fn. 6).

48 Galtung, Johan, International Relations and International Conflicts: A Sociological Approach (Transactions of the Sixth World Congress of Sociology, 1966Google Scholar); “Rank and Social Integration: A Multi-Dimensional Approach,” in Berger, Joseph, Zelditch, Morris Jr., and Anderson, Bo, eds., Sociological Theories in Progress (New York 1966Google Scholar).

47 Fn. 32.

48 d i—j,1 represents status differences on the economic development dimension, and d i—j,2 represents status differences along the power/size dimensions.

49 The asterisks are employed merely to signal that all α's are not necessarily the same.

50 I have chosen these theorems to show the direction of Rummel's work. They are only a few of the 13 theorems and 9 axioms in his current status field theory. To have dealt with the total set of statements would have been preferable but prohibitive.

51 The theory has been tested widi some success in Rummel (fn. 38); Van Atta, Richard and Rummel, R. J., “Testing Field Theory in the 1963 Behavior Space of Nations,” Papers of the Peace Research Society, xvi (1971), 23–46Google Scholar; Park, Tong-Whan, “Asian Conflict in Systematic Perspective: Application of Field Theory (1955 and 1963),” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 35 (Honolulu 1969Google Scholar); Rhee, Sang-Woo, “Communist China's Foreign Behavior: An Application of Field Theory Model II,” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 57 (Honolulu 1971Google Scholar).

52 In integrating Johan Galtung's Rank Theory, I have relied heavily upon three articles: “A Structural Theory of Aggression,” Journal of Peace Research, 1 (1964); International Relations and International Conflicts; and “Rank and Social Integration” (fn. 46).

53 Ibid., “A Structural Theory of Aggression.”

54 International Relations and International Conflicts, and “Rank and Social Integration” (fn. 46).

55 Johan Galtung, “Europe: Bipolar, Bicentric, or Cooperative,” paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting (Dallas, March 1972).

56 Gleditsch, Nils Petter, “Rank Theory, Field Theory, Attribute Theory: Three Approaches to Interaction in the International System,” Dimensionality of Nations Project Research Report No. 47 (Honolulu 1970Google Scholar).

57 Fn. 32.

58 Galtung, “Rank and Social Integration” (fn. 46), 160. Assumptions of this nature are imaginatively delineated in Galtung, “On the Future of Human Society,” Futures, II, No. 2 (1970), and “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research, viii, No. 2 (1971Google Scholar).

59 Galtung, Johan, “East-West Interaction Patterns,” Journal of Peace Research, iii, No. 4 (1966Google Scholar); Gleditsch (fn. 56).

60 Hernes, Gudmund, “On Rank Disequilibrium and Military Coups D'Etat,” Journal of Peace Research, vi, No. 1 (1969), 71Google Scholar; emphasis in original. Thanks to Patrick Callahan for bringing this point to my attention.

61 Fns. 56 and 32, respectively.

62 International Relations and International Conflicts, and “Rank and Social Integration” (fn. 46).

63 Richardson, Lewis F., Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical Study of the Causes and Origins of War, Rashevsky, Nicholas and Trucco, Ernesto, eds. (Chicago 1960Google Scholar).

64 Richardson, Lewis F., Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, Wright, Quincy and Lienau, Carl C., eds. (Chicago 1960Google Scholar).

65 “This theory is about general tendencies common to all nations; about how they resent defiance, how they suspect defense to be concealed aggression, how they respond to imports by sending out exports; about how expenditure on armaments is restrained by the difficulty of paying for them; and lastly, about grievances and their queer irrational ways, so that a halting apology may be received as though it were an added insult” (fn. 63), 13.

66 Ibid.

67 “The equations are merely a description of what people would do if they did not stop to think. Why are so many nations reluctantly but steadily increasing their armaments as if they were mechanically compelled to do so? Because, I say, they follow their traditions which are fixed, and their instincts, which are mechanical and because they have not yet made a sufficiently strenuous intellectual and moral effort to control the situation. The process described by the ensuing equations is not to be thought of as inevitable. It is what would occur if instinct and tradition were allowed to act uncontrolled. In this respect the equations have some analogy to a dream, for a dream often warns an individual of the antisocial acts that his instincts would lead him to commit if he were not wakeful.” Ibid., 12; emphasis in original.

68 'The increase of armaments that is intended in each nation to produce consciousness of strength and a sense of security, does not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. . . . The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them—it was these that made war inevitable. . . . This is the real and final account of the origin of the Great War.” Sir, ViscountGrey, Edward, Twenty-five Years (London 1925Google Scholar).

69 Thus Mr. Churchill, Winston, in The World Crisis 1911–1914 (London 1923Google Scholar), records that on November 3, 1909, while he was President of the Board of Trade, he began a minute to the Cabinet with these words: “Believing that there are practically no checks upon German naval expansion except those imposed by the increasing difficulties of getting money, I have had the enclosed report prepared with a view to showing how far those limitations are becoming effective. It is clear that they are becoming terribly effective.”

The German Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, in Imperial Germany, trans, by M. A. Lewenz (London 1914), wrote: “It is just possible that the effect of convulsively straining her military resources to die uttermost may, by reacting on the economic and social conditions of France, hasten the return of pacific feelings. . . . Should the three-year military service entail an income tax, this would also probably have a sobering effect.” Richardson (fn. 63), 15.

70 g and h represent any motives which, while affecting warlike preparations, remain constant independently of the amount of such preparations at home or abroad. From the psychological point of view such motives could include deeply rooted prejudices, standing grievances, old unsatisfied ambitions, wicked and persistent dreams of world conquest, or, on the contrary, a permanent feeling of contentment. The list is too long to be recited on every occasion; so, for short, g and h are still usually the 'grievances'—a name which indicates that g is a positive number when its side is dissatisfied and a negative number when the prevailing mood of that side is contentment.” Ibid., 16.

71 See, for instance, Smoker, Paul, “A Mathematical Study of the Present Arms Race,” in General Systems: Yearbook of the Society of General Systems, viii (1963), 51–60Google Scholar.

72 Axelrod, Robert, Conflict of Interest (Chicago 1970Google Scholar).

73 In the special cases of bargaining games and the Prisoners' Dilemma game, Axelrod develops the properties in more detail, but for the general case these are the only properties he requires.

74 Axelrod (fn. 72), 170.

75 Ibid., 171.

76 Ibid., 170.

77 Riker, William, Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven 1962Google Scholar).

78 Richardson (fn. 63), 145.

79 Sorokin, Pitirin, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences (Chicago 1956Google Scholar); Contemporary Sociological Theories: Through the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century (New York 1964Google Scholar).

80 I am not arguing that there is no place for technique-relevant citations; rather, once these have been deleted, we must be left with a substantive problem.

81 Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago 1962Google Scholar).

82 See, for instance, Rummel (fn. 32).

83 See Gunnell, John G., “Deduction, Explanation, and Social Scientific Inquiry,” American Political Science Review, LXIII (December 1969Google Scholar), and A. James Gregor, “Gunnell on ‘Deductivism,’ the ‘Logic’ of Science, and Scientific Explanation: A Riposte,” ibid., for a look at the depth of this misunderstanding.

84 I wish to thank Tom Milburn for the suggestion of this concept.

85 Deutsch, Karl W., Singer, J. David, and Smith, Keith, “The Organizing Efficiency of Theories: The N/V Ratio as a Crude Rank Order Measure,” American Behavioral Scientist, ix (October 1965Google Scholar).