![]() ![]() ![]() Any approach that seeks to explain the seemingly endogenous processes and events that combine to produce social phenomena must contain an understanding of causal complexity that most positivists lack, and must overcome interpretivists’ dislike of generalizations of outcomes to focus on generalizations of processes. While these initial contributions to the attempt to develop a truly social science of international relations are to be applauded for their insight and theoretical scope, neither is able to provide an explanatory scheme for the construction, manifestation, or destruction of social phenomena better than positivists. Social, because their intent is to capture the inherently social nature of international politics scientists because they wish to offer explanations for types of events and processes that occur in international politics. For lack of a better title to give theorists undertaking this pursuit, I will refer to them as social scientists. Each makes the argument that positivism and interpretivism need not stay locked into their epistemological frames indeed, much is gained by combining certain aspects from each. There have been two important attempts over the past decade to overcome the limitations of positivism and interpretivism-one by Friedrich Kratochwil in 1989 with the publication of Rules, Norms, and Decisions, and the other a decade later by Alezander Wendt with Social Theory of International Relations. How do certain practices combine to constitute meaningful entities? This sort of ‘constitutive theorizing’ comprises the bulk of intepretivist work.īoth positivist and interpretivist approaches are able to view a narrow portion of complex and integrated social issues only. Interpretivists provide historical narratives rather than causal explanations, focusing their attention on the construction of social meaning. Interpretivists question the practice of generalizing findings across types in the form of causal explanations. 4 Their work is to be applauded for its conceptual ingenuity and generally rigorous methodological standards, but interpretivists lack the desire to (or even belief in the ability to) speak beyond the particular empirical event they are investigating. ![]() Scholars who have been able to employ successfully a new conception of social factors belong primarily to the interpretivist school. 3 While the most scholars have dealt with social phenomena by trying to incorporate them into the field’s dominant approach to theorizing (positivism), the obverse is needed: approaches to theorizing international relations need to be incorporated into a social framework. 2 They are not captured sufficiently by directly causal explanations offered by mainstream positivist scholars. Social phenomena differ in kind from natural phenomena (they are time-space specific, do not exist apart from their social context, and are “a function of belief and action”). ![]() Scholars have failed largely to evaluate whether accepted explanatory approaches fit. There has been significant movement in the field over the past decade to accept and incorporate notions such as identity, culture, and norms, 1 but scholars’ attempts to study them in the same way that they have studied material factors for the past four decades have left the explanatory potential of social phenomena largely unfulfilled. In order to improve scientific explanations of social phenomena, it is important to take a step back and evaluate the way they have been approached in the field in recent decades. The term ‘social phenomena’ includes identity (individual and collective), culture, symbols, ideas, norms, principles, narratives, and collectively held beliefs. This paper is attempts to construct an epistemological basis for studying social phenomena. Scientific Explanations of Social Phenomena: Overcoming the Positivist-Interpretivist Divide ![]()
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