Organization / What are concepts and theories good for?
Petr Ocelík
ESSn4007 / MEBn4001
Outline
• What are concepts and theories good for?
• Ontology and epistemology: back to the very basics
What are concepts good for?
• heuristics
• learning
• communication
• evaluation
What are concepts good for?
• heuristics
• learning
• communication
• evaluation
Pareidolia
What are concepts good for?
• heuristics
• learning
• communication
• evaluation
What are concepts good for?
• heuristics
• learning
• communication
• evaluation
What are concepts good for?
• heuristics
• learning
• communication
• evaluation
Labour Party Manifesto Conservative Party Manifesto
McDermott 2010
Concrete vs. abstract concepts
Security as an abstract concept
National security must be defined as integrity of the national territory and
its institutions. (Morgenthau 1960: 563) ... The survival of a political unit,
such as a nation, and its identity. (Morgenthau 1952: 973)
vs.
The freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and
human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely
choose to do. ... Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin.
Emancipation, not power or order, produces true security. Emancipation,
theoretically, is security. (Booth 1991: 319)
Essentially contested concepts (Gallie 1956)
• Conceptual confusion and contestation are major sources of
difficulties in both theory and empirical analysis (Collier 2006)
• ECCs
• generally recognized as meaningful
• internally complex
• are subject of competition/contestation
• have normative character
What are theories good for?
• Theory can be seen as a set of interrelated concepts – or more
illustratively as a map which orients us in a specific part of reality
What are theories good for?
• Theory can be seen as a set of interrelated concepts – or more
illustratively as a map which orients us in a specific part of reality
• Theories provide us with (relatively) coherent perspectives through
which we understand specific parts of reality
• Any intelligible political action rests upon certain (although often
implicit) theoretical assumptions
Theories and politics (Snyder 2006)
Theories and politics (Snyder 2006)
Are theories built out of a scratch?
Are theories built out of a scratch?
• No, theories are domain specific (e.g. theories of international
politics) and dependent on antecedent conditions (e.g. international
system consists of national states)
• Theories rest on more general (philosophical) assumptions about the
nature of reality and knowledge
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science
whose philosophical baggage is taken to board without examination.
(Daniel Dennett)
→ ontology and epistemology relevant (for any scientific inquiry...)
Ontology: main cleavages
• materialists vs. idealists
• agency vs. structure debate
Materialists vs. idealists
• materialists:
• reality is ultimately made of matter
• social world is (primarily) driven by material forces
• idealists:
• social reality is mentally/socially constructed
• social world is (primarily) driven by ideational forces
Materialists vs. idealists
The agency vs. structure debate
• To what extent we are able to shape our lives against to what
extent our lives are determined by external forces?
• individualism (priority of agency):
• complex social phenomena can be explained on the basis of individual
behavior
• structuralism / holism (priority of structure):
• social phenomena cannot be reduced to actor interactions, individual
behavior is determined by social structures
The agency vs. structure debate
Epistemology: explanation vs. understanding
Epistemology: explanation vs. understanding
• explanation:
• naturalist model of science (law-like regularities)
• social world as an external environment
• objective (observer-independent) knowledge is possible
• focus on causal explanations generalizable to broader class of phenomena
• understanding:
• rejection of naturalism
• social world as internalized constructed rules and meanings
• knowledge is always situated (observer-dependent)
• focus on (often idiosyncratic) insights to/interpretations of phenomena
Didactic classification
rational choice theory
(neo)liberalism historiographical approaches
neoclassical geopolitics
neorealism
Marxism strong constructivism (Copenhagen school)
Paris school
individualism
structuralism
explanation understanding
Critical Theory
weak constructivism
classical realism
materialism
hybrid
idealism