So I have finally caught up on all the back episodes of Game of Thrones, so I know what the hell you are all talking about. I thought I’d take up Charli’s challenge about the paradigm that Dead Ned represents because I think that it says something deeper (always deeper) about something missing in IR theory these days.
Ned represents duty, honor and integrity as opposed to old school Machiavellianism (although I guess duty, honor and integrity are even more old school). But that is not liberalism, not at all. Those are all deeply conservative virtues. They are more romantic than rationalist, more nationalistic than internationalist. Who is Ned Stark loyal to? His king, despite that the fact that he rules arbitrarily. No liberal would do that. And I don’t recall Ned calling for some type of constitutional monarchy.
Ned Stark’s character is more in keeping with romanticism than English School enlightenment. That particular epoch stressed the organic rather than the deliberative nature of things. It was profoundly emotional rather than detached and Machiavellian. It was communitarian not individualist.
The problem with IR theory is that the constructivists tend to be liberal, focusing on nice things, cosmopolitan and global norms, to the detriment of any number of more common norms that promote duty to the state or the nation. And the neorealists neglect them because they are non-material in nature. So they fall between the stools. As a consequence, all kinds of interesting things remain unstudied. We can’t understand any number of wars and conflicts without paying attention to duty and honor and other romantic notions, particularly during the romantic period of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Constructivists are the ones to do it but they are too cosmpolitan. That was the natural first step but now they should dig deeper. In Steve Saideman’s oft quoted words, “Where else do we see such inter-subjectivity?” Make Ned undead.
Rathbun is a professor of International Relations at USC. Brian Rathbun received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and has taught at USC since 2008. He has written four solo-authored books, on humanitarian intervention, multilateral institution building, diplomacy and rationality. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in International Organization, International Security, World Politics, International Studies Quartlery, the Journal of Politics, Security Studies, the European Journal of International Relations, International Theory, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution among others. He is the recipient of the 2009 USC Parents Association Teaching and Mentoring Award. In 2019 he will be recognized as a Distinguished Scholar by the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
- Brian Rathbunhttps://www.duckofminerva.com/author/brathbun
Way to spoil, dude. Let the body get cold and the wounds from the bar fight (https://bit.ly/jcQA3Z) heal. At least put the spoilers below the break. Brian, you just lost seven units of street cred. Good thing your hairstyle gives you 20 per week.
OK, if you know he got stabbed in a bar fight, my guess is you have seen the episode….. But point taken.
Ned is not dead
I going on the basis of the book here–can’t get HBO in Vienna–so I’ll keep this short and to the nerdy point. I agree that Ned Stark embodies old-fashioned conservative values of duty, honor and loyalty. I also agree that constructivism can offer an explanation of his behavior in terms of his identiy and the norms that comprise it.
But there are also other strands of IR theory and related theorizing that offer ways of thinking about these issues, better than constructivism–which isn’t so much a theory as a conceptual approach. The trouble with the paradigm wars in IR is that approaches that don’t neatly fit into one paradigm tend to get overlooked. Ned Lebow, for example, has a new book out deeply thinking through issues like honor. Barry O’Neill has a book called something like “Honor, Symbols and War”. And oh, yeah, there’s the guy named Kaufman who argues that symbolic appeals to emotionally-laden values–often nationalist or patriotic values–can in some contexts be quite powerful.
Unfortunately for Ned Stark, he was not in a context in which such appeals would work (because the myth-symbol complex to which he was referring was not widely-enough held among his peers). As a result, Ned Stark is dead. But Ned Lebow is alive–and Barry O’Neill, and yours truly. It’s not all about constructivism vs. realism
Stuart, sorry you took offense. But I think it is just you and Ned, and that does not make a quorum. O’Neill treats honour in a utilitarian fashion, as a reputation, to promote credibility. So basically I am calling people to your banner. Feel free to lead. I will follow.
Brian, thanks for the kind comments, and no offense taken. My comment was primarily meant to be a very general one–the more we get away from paradigm debates and explore other avenues, the better off I think we will be. In this particular case, some of my thoughts are relevant; in other cases there are other approaches. Bourdieu’s habitus, for example, might be relevant here, postulating that people (like Ned Stark) are creatures of habit, contra the constructivist view that people are rule-following creatures. There’s overlap, but they’re not at all the same thing.
In short, my slogan is just: “End the Hegemony of the Dominant Paradigms”.
Not too catchy; I’ll have to work on it.
I will follow you, my liege! To the barricades, with only my smarts and wits as armor…. oh, crap.