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Introduction
Post-Positivist Approaches
Andre Vella
Department of International Relations University of Malta
Semester 1 - 2013
andre.vella.06@um.edu.mt

Traditional Approach to IR
Traditional Approach to FP: Proponents include
Machiavelli, Grotius and Kissinger. The traditional
approach with its attention to the specific historical
foreign policies of a particular country, analyses the
substance of foreign policy as practised, as opposed to
the systemic theories and explanations advanced by
more analytical and scientific approaches to foreign
policy.
No explicit methodology.
Use mostly historical methods to study IR.

Different theoretical perspectives within the academic

study of IR paint different pictures of world politics.
Differences in the way that they are portraying their
vision of the world, therefore the issue of methodology.
Grand Debates of IR:
1. Realism vs. Idealism;
2. Traditionalism vs. Behaviourism;
3. Neorealism vs. Neoliberalism and
4. Rationalism vs. Reflectivism

Return of Classical Approach cont.

Principal Elements of Traditional approach:
1. Identifying and ordering the central questions
2. Clarifying the relevant concepts
3. Drawing the appropriate distinctions
4. Investigating the historical evidence
5. Formulating a coherent argument that can
comprehend it satisfactory.

The Behavioural Revolution

Positivist Methodology

Expansion of natural sciences influenced the social sciences.

Behaviourism: is an approach that seeks to increase precision,
predictive and explanatory power of IR theory. Behaviourists
believe in the unity of science: that social science is not
fundamentally different from natural science; and that means that
the same analytical methods, especially quantitative methods can
be also applied to social sciences, including IR.
Criticised the Traditional Approach:
1. Historicism over empiricism
2. Idiographic (descriptive) study over nomothetic (explanatory)
study
3. Ivory tower theory
4. Equating theory to knowledge, rather than using theory to seek
knowledge

Positivism: A methodology in IR that employs most

of the attitudes and assumptions of behaviourism
but in a more sophisticated manner. Positivism is a
fundamentally scientific approach. Its advocates
and adherents believe that there an be objective
knowledge about the social and political dimension
of the world, and that this knowledge is obtainable
through the careful development and testing of
empirical propositions. The social scientist is not
different from any other scientist in this regard.

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Good Scientific Theory

How to identify a scientific theory

Philosophy of good scientific theory:

Accurate and limited research (specialised research);
Non-relativist (universal, objective);
Verifiable or Falsifiable;
Powerful in its explanations;
Amenable to improvement;
Consistent with well-established knowledge;
Parsimonious (short & to the point.)

1. State the theory being tested;

2. Infer hypothesis from it;
3. Subject the hypothesis to experimental or
observational tests;
4. In taking steps 2 and 3, use the definitions of terms in
the theory being tested;
5. Eliminate or control perturbing variables not included
in the theory under test (confounding variable)
6. Devise a number of distinct and demanding tests;
7. If a test is not passed, ask whether the theory flunked
completely, needs repair and restatement, or requires
a narrowing of the scope of its explanatory claims.

Post-Positivist Methodology

Post-Positivist Methodology cont.

Through the behavioural revolution, IR study evolved; but the

methodological debate was not over yet. A renewed debate
started between the rationalists and the reflectivists.
A diverse groups of scholars emerged in the 1980s who
critically engaged the methodological problems of positivists.
They asked:
1. To what extent can we really ever come up with testable
verifiable, empirical facts about world politics?
2. Is it really possible to create theory in a neutral scientific
manner?
3. Do claims of value-free neutrality actually obscure the
extent to which theories serve the interests of the most
powerful groups within society?

They raise:
1. Epistemological questions (How do we accept particular
theories as better or closer to the truth than others?)
2. Ontological questions (Why do we accept certain theories as
fixed & natural?)
3. Normative questions (does theory have a role to play in
bringing about change, and raising moral and ethical
questions).
Key elements of Post-positivism:
1. Rejection of grand theories rooted in a scientific
commitment to objective and generalizable knowledge of
the world;
2. Concern to show how knowledge of the world is always
rooted in the perspective of the theorist;
3. Commitment to a greater plurality of methodological
techniques in building a more reflective theory of
international politics .

Post-positive methodology: developed largely in

reaction to positivist claims. Post-positivism
presupposes methods that acknowledge the
distinctiveness of human beings
Social science is a different methodology from natural
science.
Post-positive approaches: include critical theory,
postmodern theory and normative theory. All are
different, but all are sceptical of behavioural view.
Post-positivism attempt to present a more reflective
form of theoretical inquiry.

Critical Theory
Critical theory: A post-positivist approach to IR influenced but
not limited by Marxist thought, advanced by the Frankfurt
school. Sometimes regarded to as neo-Marxist. Emphasis on
sources of structural inequality inherent in the international
system as well as the ways in which it might be overcome.
Emancipatory theory: argues that IR should seek to
understand how men and women are prisoners of the
existing state system, and how they can be liberated from the
state and from other oppressive structures of contemporary
world politics, which can be reconstructed along universal
solidarist lines.

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Critical Theory cont.

It rejects 3 basic assumptions: (i) An objective external reality,
(ii) The subject/object dimension and (iii) value-free social
science.
Critical theories emphasize the fundamentally political nature
of knowledge. They seek to liberate humanity from the
conservative forces and oppressive structures of hegemonic
(US-dominated) world politics and global economics.
They are radical in two ways:
1. They believe that their theory and practice are not separate
and autonomous of thought and action.
2. They are not happy with the international reforms that are
limited to regulating relations among states, particularly if
they rely on the capacity and will of the so called great
powers.

Robert Cox
Theory is always for someone and for some purpose (Social forces,
state and world orders: beyond international relations theory, 1981).
Challenged the assumption that social scientists can really study
objectively the world without their own personal biases.
Distinguished between Problem-Solving Theory & Critical Theory.
Wrote Production, Power and World Order: Social Forces in the
Making of History (1987). Relationship between material forces of
production, ideas and institutions.
Summary:
1. Commitment to critical theory;
2. Influence of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi on his substantive
arguments regarding world order and
3. His particular analysis of globalization in the late twentieth century.

Andrew Linklater

Postmodernism

Published Men and Citizens in the Theory of

International Relations (1982) his doctoral thesis.
He highlighted the philosophical assumptions of critical
theory in the study of IR.
Major aim was to refine I. Kants arguments; taking
over his ethical cosmopolitanism.
Recently has focused on the role of norms in civilizing
world society, especially the universalization of the
harm principle.
Other critical theorists include Andre Gunder Frank,
Stephen Gill, Antonio Gramsci and Jurgen Habermas.

Sometimes referred as post-structuralism; based on

questioning of knowledge claims and uncovering the linkages
between knowledge and power.
Postmodernism: A post-positivist approach to IR that rejects
the modern, enlightenment idea that ever-expanding human
knowledge will lead to an improved understanding of mastery
of the international system. A distinctive feature of
postmodernist discourse in IR is an inclination towards
scepticism, debunking and deconstructing of universal truths,
such as those advanced by Kant, Marx and Waltz, that are
supposed to be valid for all times and places.
Focus on discourse; textual analysis.

Richard Ashley

Robert B.J. Walker

First book was an orthodox examination of the

triangular balance of power between China, the United
States and the Soviet Union, in which he examined the
different rates of technological, economic and
population growth among these great powers over
time.
Focused on meta-theoretical premises that formed the
basis of IR theories of his time.
He engaged in a project of deconstruction of the
discipline of IR, exposing particular discourses of
power/knowledge in the field.

Sometimes co-authoring with Richard Ashley.

Focused on the discourse of sovereignty.
Max Webers work looms large in Walkers work.
He suggests that the iron cage of modernity is
manifested in the study of international relations,
which limits our ability to imagine the political
possibilities of radical change.
Other postmodern authors include David Campbell
and Michael Foucault.

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Normative Theory
Pre-positivism rather than post-positivism, as it reflect the
attitude of the traditional approach before the behavioural
revolution.
Normative theory: can be seen as the political theory or
moral philosophy that underlies IR. It is primarily concerned
with understanding fundamental values of international life,
the moral dimensions of IR and the place of ethics in
statecraft.
In reality all the above post-positivist theories posses a
normative element.
Another normative theory is Feminism.

Ontology vs. Epistemology

Ontology (nature of the social world) vs. Epistemology
(the relation of knowledge to the world):
1. Ontology Is there an objective reality out there?
2. Epistemology How can we obtain knowledge about
the world?
Positivism and post-positivism are exclusive of each
other and cannot be combined.
Most of IR scholars seek a position between these two
extremes.

Feminism
Emerged in the 1980s.
provided a powerful critique of the ways in which our
knowledge of IR has been shaped by the experiences of
men, neglecting the very different ways in which
women experience world politics.
At the empirical level, Cynthia Enloes work reveals the
role of women in sustaining international relations,
even though this role is performed in the background
and on the margins of international relations theory
Bananas, Beaches and Bases (1990).
Other feminist thinkers include Jean Elshtain, Christine
Sylvester & J. Ann Tickner.

Conclusion
Despite post-positivist methodologies originating
from the traditional approach, traditional theorists
would probably see critical theorists as ideological
and political which is trying to change the world
according to their dogma, therefore as born-again
idealists wanting to create a better world within
their own mindsets.