ABSTRACT
Readers of the contemporary literature in International Relations (IR) frequently find calls for a pragmatic reorientation in theorizing the field. Some scholars, for instance, advocate a more pragmatic version of constructivism (Haas and Haas infra) and a greater concern with the relevance of academic knowledge to our political life (Bernstein et al. 2000). Others interpret the increasingly scholastic debates as a ‘flight from reality’ (Shapiro 2005) and call for a more decisive ‘pragmatic turn’ (Bohman 2002; Owen 2002). It is no accident that the former argument is made predominantly by students of foreign policy and diplomacy (see for instance Neumann infra). They traditionally have been ill at ease with the project of a general ‘theory’ of international politics, particularly after the dissolution of the bipolarity that gave some prima facie legitimacy to ‘systemic’ approaches.1 Similarly, in the case of European integration, Ulrich Krotz has called attention to some significant practices underpinning Europeanization that cannot be studied within the simple dichotomy of interstate or intersocietal interactions, but the ‘parapublic’ processes and activities, exemplified by Franco-German exchanges, partnerships, prizes and multilevel contacts, have been largely missed by the conventional Europeanization literature (Krotz 2007). The more principled calls for a pragmatic approach, however, come from
some IR specialists who have participated in previous ‘great debates’. Here the present anthology, as well as the recent contributions by Peter J. Katzenstein and Rudra Sil (Analytic Eclecticism, forthcoming), or my Tartu lecture (Kratochwil 2007a) resulting in a symposium, could be mentioned. These calls usually not only entail a move away from some of the foundationalist criteria of classical positivist science – be it those of empiricism, logical positivism or scientific realism – but they also invite us to give up on the universal suspicion of critical theory, or the endless deconstructions of some postmodern attempts of ‘theory construction’. Instead, the actual problem that such a pragmatic turn identifies is the mistaken attempt of reducing issues of praxis, and of the knowledge appropriate for it, to ‘philosophical’ or even metaphysical questions. Here the postulated primacy of ontology over epistemology (or vice versa), of ‘rump materialism’ over ‘idealism’ debates, come to mind (Wendt 1999).
