I’m crashing on multiple deadlines, so in lieu of “morning linkage”….
Last night I was in a twitter conversation with Phil Arena and Kindred Winecoff about Fabio Rojas’ recent post at orgtheory.net concerning the incredible shrinking vocation of social theory.
Roja’s observations echoe themes that we’ve been talking about at the Duck, both in print and in PTJ and my 10 August 2012 podcast (m4a). After quoting Kieran Healy’s excerpt from his grad-level sociological theory syllabus — about the incredible shrinking character of social theory — Rojas argues that:
- A humanities style moral/social philosophy/history of thought sub-field is in retreat in every discipline. Political science is the exception.
- You can still do theory, as in writing fat books that are praised but rarely read. They get published. There are theory journals, and you can still get career points for them.
- Hypothesis Uno: Old style theory was only advantageous in a data poor environment.
- Hypothesis Dos: Old style theory was only advantageous in a low tech environment.
- Hypothesis Tres: Science is now bigger, which gives an advantage to empirical specialists.
- Conclusion: In a fast paced world where people have real data, high tech tools, and can consume a lot quickly, writing Parsons style magnus opuses is something that few people can pull off.
Final comment: I’ve now spent 9 years between IU and Michigan as faculty and post-doc. Very different departments, but that allows you to see the wide range of sociology. I’ve looked over (and tried to read) *hundreds* of job applications. Very, very few “pure theory” applications. What does that tell me? From time to time, you’ll the fat theory book come out, but the profession collectively says “meh.”
I agree with the correlational analysis, but not the mechanisms. Rojas’ provides the “standard story” but his arguments are about functional efficiency when they should be about sociological forces operating within, across, and upon various social scientific disciplines. To name just a small one: when the safest route to acquiring social capital is to invest heavily in technical knowledge, that trades off with the investments necessary to be good consumers and produces of social (or, in our case, international) theory.
I also think that theorists in International Relations have become worse at explaining why the field should pay attention to what they have to say. In that sense, “international theory” is the victim of its own two-decades long flourishing, during which time it became less important to demonstrate the downstream implications — positive and negative — of different ways of conceptualizing the ontology of world politics.
And that leads to another comment. Kindred said the other night that we need more “big think” in IR, especially in light of the decline of the traditional “paradigms.” A number of people agree, but it isn’t clear what that would like it, let alone how it would be packaged and presented current tastes and reviewer expectations.
I don’t think there’s a modest way to do this, so I’ll just be direct. The sort of “big think” I have in mind is along the lines of what I and my co-authors try to do in a forthcoming paper in Perspectives.
https://wkwine.web.unc.edu/files/2011/05/NetworkFinance.pdf
Very nice piece. You are making very classic arguments of the type advanced by relationalists and social-network analysts against other forms of structuralism, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. But the really “big think” step is to (1) extend this claim to much further in world politics and (2) embed it in an argument a bit less exclusively SNA. But, of course, I have my biases as I’m trying to write an intro chapter to a long-delayed edited volume doing something along those lines…. :-)
Thanks Dan. My dissertation is expanding this logic while still staying within the domain of the politics of finance — embedding national and subnational dynamics within an expanded form of the systemic context we’re describing. Basically I’m trying to first complicate the structure further, and then embed actors — bot private and public — into it. We’ll see how it turns out.
I agree that the real ‘big think’ step is to broaden the argument, but you should have seen the pushback we’ve gotten just for that paper! We had to keep things simple and somewhat confined to get people to buy into it at all (and many still don’t). In the future I hope to broaden the general approach to other aspects of world politics. In fact, my first post-dissertation project will, I think, be to re-examine some of Susan Strange’s work on ‘structural power’ in light of the ‘fitness with preferential attachment’ mechanism we propose. I think that will allow me to be a ‘bit less exclusively SNA’ and incorporate the broader political system rather than just one area.
I agree that we’re working in an old tradition here. What I think is cool is that some aspects of the old core-periphery/dependency lit had a difficult time methodologically. It also was a bit mechanical and static for my tastes. We can do a lot better now, both theoretically and empirically, and I think this could lead to some interesting results.
Have theorists become worse at explaining why the field should pay attention to them? I would disagree – the field has other problems. I would argue that many scholars on both sides of the neo-neo camps are only concerned with fortifying their positions; barricading the doors; boarding up the windows. Scholars find solace in their theory and facts aplenty to confirm it; they comfort in the fact that the ‘other’ neo speaks a different language – we can’t hear or understand you! The neo-neo camp also serves as shelter against the constant barrage of rocks slung by those beyond the beyond the pale; when they’re not too busy scrambling to publish something in the European Journal of International Relations, of course.
Theory in IR is in the doldrums – but I don’t think theorists are to blame. We need a revolution from the top, the bottom, and the middle; a class grassroots philosophical upstart who preach the word of theoretical illumination to undergrads, postgrads, post-docs, lecturers, professors, editors, and even presidents.
This sounds interesting, but I can’t entirely follow what you’re saying. Would you explain a little bit more what you mean by “he neo-neo camp also serves as shelter against the constant barrage of rocks slung by those beyond the beyond the pale”?