Designing Social Inquiry Week 3. Critiques and alternatives to positivism I34012 Sohyoun Ham

Questions What is interpretivist (or reflectivist) approach in International Relations? How does it differ from positivist approach? Which do you think is the more appropriate research methodology by which we can analyze issues and puzzles in International Relations? What are the main arguments of Kratochwil and Ruggie? What do you think Kratochwil and Ruggie meant by claiming, “epistemology fundamentally contradicts ontology (in regime analysis)? Discuss proper ways to analyze international regime

‘Interpretivist’ approach in IR Alternative to scientific inference To explain the reasons for or meanings of social action Employ Verstehen: understanding the meaning or actions and interactions from the members’ own points of view Relate to the whole set of the concepts and practices Standards of evaluation : coherence and scope Require a deep cultural immersion before formulating research questions Interpret one to search of meaning

Positivism vs. Interpretivism from Pizam and Mansfeld (2009) Assumptions Positivism Interpretivism Focus of interest What is general, average and representative What it specific, unique and deviant Knowledge generated Absolute Laws (time, context and value free) Relative meanings (time, context, culture, value bound) Subject/Researcher relationship Rigid separation Interactive, cooperative, participative Nature of reality Objective, tangible, single Socially constructed, multiple Goal of research Explanation, strong prediction Understanding, weak prediction Desired information How people think and do a specific thing, or have a specific problem What some people think and do, what kind of problems they are confronted with, and how they deal with them

Two approaches in IR Positivism Interpretivism Strengths Clarity of theoretical relationships Unambiguous Definition of terms Explicit concern with bias Depth study of culture, issues of ethics and leadership Validated data New concepts and insightful hypotheses Weakness Difficulty of quantification; imprecision; inability to measure core concepts Reliance on data gathered for other purposes Different realities and interpretations co-exist and are the norm in IR Correlations do not demonstrate causality; need for counterfactual simulations Simplistic, unrealistic Ambiguous with unobservable concepts Personal viewpoint and values Inability to falsify descriptive hypotheses Limited evidence within experience Preparing careful descriptions, gaining deep understandings of the world, asking good questions, formulating falsifiable hypotheses based on theories, collecting evidence to evaluate hypotheses

International organization: a state of the art on an art of the state by Kratochwil and Ruggie Why international organization theories and international organizations’ practice are mismatched after World War Ⅱ? Conventional epistemological approaches do not and cannot suffice in studying international regimes Sudden emergence of international regime studies in the 1970s (e.g. the trade regime, the monetary regime, the ocean regime) States coordinate their expectations and organize international behavior in issue-areas Involve a normative element, an intersubjective meaning

‘epistemology fundamentally contradicts ontology’ in regime analysis International regimes Norms Rules Decision-making procedures Principles Regime analysis Epistemological position: How we know? Positivism Subject / Object Intersubjective meaning is inferred from behavior International regimes are social institutions around which expectations converge in international issue areas with principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures The ontology of regimes rests upon a strong element of intersubjectivity The prevailing epistemological position in regime analysis is positivistic Positivism posits a radical separations of subject and object and focuses on the ‘objective’ forces that move actors in their social interactions Intersubjective meaning is inferred from behavior ‘intersubjective’

Problems in the practice of regime analysis Actor behavior fails adequately to convey intersubjective meaning Intersubjective meaning would have considerable influence on actor behavior In the simulated world, actors cannot communicate and engage in behavior Norms can be problematical in positivist explanations Standards of behavior are inappropriate as ‘causing’ occurrences Norms are counterfactually valid

What options? 1. Interpretive epistemology - stress the intimate relationship between validation and the uncovering of intersubjective meanings 2. Intersubjective ontology -e.g. consumption behavior, ‘revealed meaning’ for ‘objective’ surrogates that can capture ‘intersubjective’ reality 3. More interpretive strains

An interpretive epistemology in ‘organization-design’ approach What range of international policy problems can best be handled by different kinds of institutional arrangements? An interpretive epistemology emphasizes Transparency of actor behavior and expectations Legitimation struggles Epistemic politics - This can lead to focus on the study of international organizations itself

Conclusion Even if positivist approach provides a powerful frame to study social inquiry such as objective reality, hypothesis testing, empirical evidence, it shows insufficient to explain norms in international regimes. To compensate this weakness, it would be appropriate to employ interpretivists approach for better understanding

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