Department of International Relations Central European University International Relations Theory Fall 2016 PhD Alexander Astrov Email: astrova@ceu.edu Course objectives The course aims at facilitating a discussion of some of the issues currently debated in International Relations theory. The course is centred around some of the theoretical debates in contemporary International Relations theory and is aimed at enhancing students ability to analyse the way various theoretical approaches are constructed and interact with each other. Although this puts together rather diverse approaches, all of them are united by their focus on the place of language in IR theorising. What is really in question, however, is the relation between language and politics. This does not mean that students are expected to convert to the linguistic turn in IR regardless of their individual research focus. In fact, one of the tasks of the course is to critically question the validity of any theoretical turn. So students must focus primarily on their own research questions but learn to relate them to the theoretical debates and practical concerns that animate the field as a whole. Being an important theoretical skill in its own right, this exercise should also contribute to the students ability to meet one of the specific requirements of a doctoral project: awareness of the state-of-the-art theoretical discussions within the discipline. Accordingly, both in their oral presentations for specific seminars and the two papers required for the course students are expected not merely to discuss the texts included in the syllabus but to draw on the literature from their respective sub-fields and to show how/why the questions raised in the texts from the syllabus may be important for the better understanding of those sub-fields. Put differently, the main outcome of this course is students Aims The course s main aim is to provide students with a strong understanding of: theorising in international relations; the way theories evolve as answers to context-specific questions; how these contexts in turn are shaped by practices; how advances in understanding, once these occur, may be seen as outcomes of dialogical engagements between theories.
Learning outcomes By the end of the course students will: enhance their ability to place their own research-questions into the overall context of IR theorising, on the one hand, and the possible configuration of global political order, on the other; critically engage with ideas discussed by various theorists and schools of thought; get an overview or some of the state-of-the-art theorising in the filed. Course outline Requirements: Active participation in the seminar - 20% Presentation - 20% Midterm essay (circa 5.000 words) - 30% Final essay (circa 5.000 words) - 30% Week 1 Seminars 1 & 2 Introduction and general discussion, allocation of assignments Week 2 Seminar 3 Hannah Arendt, Introduction into Politics, in Jerome Kohn ed. The Promise of Politics (New York: Schocken Books, 2005): 93-153. Seminar 4 Hannah Arendt, Introduction into Politics : 153-200. Week 3 Seminar 5 Terry Nardin, Law, Morality, and the Relations of States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983): 3-68. Christian Reus-Smit, The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions, International Orhanization 51, 4, 1997: 555-589. Seminar 6 James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders, International Organization, 52, 4, 2005: 943-969. Frank Schimmelfennig, The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union, International Organization, 55, 1, 2001: 47-80. Week 4 Seminar 7
Thomas Risse, Let s Argue! : Communicative Action in World Politics, International Organization, 54, 2000: 1-40. Thomas Diez and Jill Steans, A useful dialogue? Habermas and International Relations, Review of International Studies, 31, 2005: 127 40. Seminar 8 Chantal Mouffe, For An Agonistic Model of Democracy, in Noël O Sullivan ed. Political Theory in Transition (London: Routledge, 2000): 113-30. Richard Ned Lebow, The Ancient Greeks, and Modern Realism: Ethics, Persuasion, and Power, in Duncan Bel ed. Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Week 5 Seminar 9 Stefano Guzzini, A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations, European Journal of International Relations, 6, 2000: 147-82 Nicholas Onuf, Habits, Skills and Grandiose Theory, in Postinternationalism: 99-116. Seminar 10 Ted Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics: Identities & Foreign Policies, Moscow 1955 & 1999 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002): 1-38. Ted Hopf, The logic of habit in International Relations, European Journal of International Relations, 2010 16: 539-561. Week 6 Seminar 11 Vincent Pouliot, The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities, International Organization, 62, 2008: 257-288. Vincent Pouliot, "Sobjectivism": Toward a Constructivist Methodology, International Studies Quarterly, 51, 2, 2007: 359-384. Seminar 12 Didier Bigo, Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations: Power of Practices, Practices of Power, International Political Sociology, 5, 2011: 225-258. Thierry Balzacq, The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context, European Journal of International Relations, 11, 2005: 171-201. Week 7 Seminar 13 Chris Brown, The 'Practice Turn', Phronesis and Classical Realism: Towards a Phronetic International Political Theory?, Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 40, 2012: 439-456. Cornelia Navari, The concept of practice in the English School, European Journal of International Relations, 17, 2011: 611-630. Seminar 14 Fred Dallmayr, Conversation Across Boundaries: Political Theory and Global Diversity, Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 30, 2001: 331-347. Eugene Garver, The Human Function and Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 6, 2, 1989: 133-145.
Week 8 Seminar 15 George Lakoff and Marc Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980): Chapter 1. K. M. Fierke, Changing Games, Changing Strategies: Critical Investigations in Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998): 1-65. Petr Drulák and Vít Beneš, Czech metaphors about Europe: Havel vs Klaus, Journal of International Relations and Development, 18, 2015: 532-55. Seminar 16 Jennifer Milliken, The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of Research and Methods, European Journal of International Relations, 5, 2, 1999: 225 254. Hayden V. White, Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground, History and Theory, 12, 1, 1973: 23-54. Week 9 Seminar 17 Roman Jakobson, Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances, Selected Writings (The Hague: Mouton, 1971): 239-259. Roman Jakobson, On the Relation Between Visual and Auditory Signs, Selected Writings: 338-345. Seminar 18 Ernesto Laclau, The Rhetorical Foundations of Society (London: Verso, 2014): Chapters 3&4. Readings for the next three seminars will be selected based on the discussions in class. Week 10 Seminar 19 Seminar 20 Week 11 Seminar 21 Seminar 22 Week 12 Seminars 23 & 24 Concluding discussion