Political Theory,International Theory,and Problems of Ideology1

This essay is a revised version of a paper first presented to the BISA/SSRC Contemporary Theory Group, and then to the Politics and the International Relations research seminars at Sussex University. I am grateful to members of these three groups for comments and suggestions, and also to Prof. D. N. Winch and Rev. Frank McHugh.

I say "by and large" here simply because I am aware that, besides the explicitly "holist" thrust of systems theory which is dealt with in the latter part of the essay, there is a limited realisation by practitioners/statespeople that the severe economic and social deprivation endured by massive proportions of the world's population is intimately and causally connected to the relatively luxurious economic and social conditions of life in the advanced economies of the world. At one level, this realisation can be seen clearly in the arguments and assumptions behind the Bretton Woods and United Nations systems set up at the end of the Second World War, but I have in mind here more recent and more radical views, such as those entailed in the setting up of UNCTAD (1964) and the Brandt Report (1980). My view, however, is that these analyses can only lead at best to reformist strategies for change, in that they do not theoretically admit of such economic and social deprivation on the one hand, and enlarged consumption on the other, as being structurally and historically inherent in contemporary international relations.

See, for example, P. Saunders , Urban Politics ( London: Hutchinson, 1979), J., Winkler , in R. Case (ed.), Industrial Society: Class, Cleavage, and Control (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977); P. Dunleavy , Urban Political Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1980); A. Cawson , "Pluralism, Corporatism and the Rôle of the State", Government and Opposition (Vol. 13, Spring 1978); and A. Cox , "Corporatism as Reductionism: the Analytic Limits of the Corporatist Thesis", Government and Opposition (Vol. 16, Spring 1981).

See, for example, I. Gough , The Political Economy of the Welfare State (London: Macmillan, 1979).

T. Parsons , "Order and Community in the International Social System", in J. Rosenau (ed.), International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press , 1961), pp. 120-129.

For examples of this in the general textbooks in international relations, see J.K. Holsti , International Politics (London: Prentice Hall, 1974); P. Reynolds , An Introduction to International Relations (London: Longmans, 1971,); J. Frankel , International Politics: Conflict and Harmony (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edition, 1973); K. Waltz , Theory of International Politics (Lexington, Mass.: Addison-Wesley , 1979); T. Taylor (ed.), Approaches and Theory in International Relations ( London: Longmans, 1978).

am aware of the importance of international law in the initial development of the discipline, and of the view presently held by some scholars as to the essentiality of international law in order for there to be the very possibility of international relations activity, for example, A. James , "Diplomacy and International Society", International Relations (November 1980), p. 947. However, as far as the development of international theory is concerned, international law has not provided the central thrust. Rather than international theory developing as a body of theory similar to classical juridical theory, it has, after an initial and substantive concentration, tended to move away from such a composition. All this is not to deny at all the relevance of international law to concrete international relations activity.

See, for example, H. Morgenthau , Politics Among Nations ( New York: Alfred Knopf, 1948); H. Butterfield and M. Wight (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations ( London: Allen & Unwin, 1966); H. Bull , The Anarchical Society (London: Macmillan, 1976); J.K. Holsti , op. cit ; T. Taylor , op. cit ; and K. Waltz , op. cit

This point is made in M. Wight , "Why is there no International Theory", in H. Butterfield and M. Wight , op. cit; F. Parkinson , The Philosophy of International Relations, (London: Sage, 1977); R. Purnell , "Theoretical Approaches to International Relations: the Contribution of the Graeco-Roman World", in T. Taylor , op. cit, pp. 19-31.

The most explicit example of this view is to be found in M. Donelan (ed.), The Reason of States: A Study of International Political Theory ( London: Allen & Unwin, 1978). Other examples are to be found in H. Bull, op. cit. and F. Parkinson, op. cit.

J. Maclean , "Marxist epistemology, explanations of change, and the study of international relations", in B. Buzan and R. Barry Jones (eds.), Change in the Study of International Relations: The Evaded Dimension (London : Frances Pinter, 1981), pp. 46-67.

See, for example, E.H. Carr , The 20 Years' Crisis ( New York: Harper and Row, 1964).

See, for example, D.D. Raphael , Problems of Political Philosophy, revised edition (London: Macmillan, 1976); and A. Quinton , Political Philosophy ( London: Oxford University Press, 1973), especially the Introduction and Chapter 1.

I am using "idealist" in the strict sense of philosophical idealism, i.e. the view that the subject of enquiry is the "idea" and that it is the "idea" that produces reality.

Where the evaluation "ideological" has a negative content, and the evaluation "non-ideological" a positive content.

See, for example, A. Ryan , "Normal Science or Political Ideology?", in P. Laslett, W. Runciman, and G. Skinner (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and Society (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1972, 4th series); P.H. Partridge , "Politics, Philosophy, Ideology", Political Studies (Vol. 9, 1961 ), pp. 217-35; K.J. Holsti , op. cit, pp, 68-70 and pp. 365-68; and K. Popper , The Open Society and its Enemies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962, 4th edition).

The second version of ideology for Mannheim is that which restricts the concept to the conscious deception of groups of interest. In this version, ideology is psychological and appears as a free decision attributable to the will of social groups.

J. Maclean, op. cit.

C. Taylor , Hegel and Modern Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), see Chapter 3, especially pp. 142-154.

This view is found in the first assertion of the preamble to the UNESCO Constitution: "That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed."

For more detailed discussion of this term, together with reductionism in general, see S. Lukes , "Methodological Individualism Reconsidered ", British Journal of Sociology (Vol. 19, 1968); B. Bhaskar , "On the possibility of Social Scientific knowledge and the Limits of Naturalism", Journal of Theory of Social Behaviour (Vol. 8, 1978 ); M. Mandelbaum , "Societal Facts", British Journal of Sociology (Vol. 6, 1955); J. Agassi , "Methodological Individualism", British Journal of Sociology (Vol. 11, 1960); W.H. Dray , "Holism and Individualism in History and Social Science", in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967); T. Benton , Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul , 1977) especially Chapter 7; and K. Waltz , op. cit

See. A. Wolfers , Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1962), Chapter I.

J. Maclean , "Systems theory, structural-functionalism and Marxism", paper presented to BISA/SSRC Contemporary Theory Group, 1979.

K. Waltz , op. cit, p. 40. See also Chapters 2, 3, and 4.

Ibid., particularly pp. 1, 79 and 195. However, the title of the book itself reveals all.

Both elements of this reductionism are shown in their most extreme form in H. Morgenthau, op. cit.

See, for example, J.D. Singer , "The level of analysis problem in International Relations", in J. Rosenau (ed.), International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press, 1969 edition).

See P. Reynolds, op, cit.

For a clear exposition of this mode see, K. Waltz , op. cit ; R. Little , "A Systems Approach", in T. Taylor , op. cit, pp. 182-204.

For a discussion of the method see K. Marx , Grundrisse, Introduction to the method of political economy (London: Penguin , 1963). For an example of its application see K. Marx , Capital, Vol. I, The Analysis of the Relationships between Free Labour and Owners of Capital (London: Penguin , 1976) or Capital, Vol. 2, The Analysis of Money (London: Penguin, 1978), particularly Chapter 4, "The Three Figures of the Circuit ". For secondary discussions see, J. Mepham "The Theory of Ideology in Capital", in J. Mepham and D. H. Ruben (eds.), Issues in Marxist Philosophy, Vol. 3, Epistemology, Science, Ideology (Brighton : Harvester Press, 1979), pp. 141 - 173, or I.I. Ruben , Essays on Marx's Theory of Value (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1973), pp. 5-60.

See, for example, M. Donelan , op. cit; F. Parkinson , op. cit ; H. Bull , op. cit; and M. Wight , Systems of States ( New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1977 ).

See for example, M. Donelan , op. cit, especially the introduction, and H. Butterfield and M. Wight , op. cit.

See, for example, J.K. Holsti , op. cit, pp. 365-368; and J. Frankel , The Making of Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963).

The essay by R. Little in B. Buzan and R. Barry Jones , op. cit, makes some attempt to move towards this, but remains trapped in the Mannheimian universalist confusion that makes the social production of knowledge the same as ideology.

See, Z. Bauman , Towards a Critical Sociology ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976).

See, J. Maclean , "Marxist epistemology, explanations of change and the study of international relations", in B. Buzan and R. Barry Jones , op. cit.

See, for an expansion of some of the implications of this, the essay by Robert Cox in this issue.

See, for example, R. Harre , The Philosophies of Science ( London: Oxford University Press, 1972); R. Kear and J. Urry , Social Theory as Science ( London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975); and R. Bhaskar , Realist Theory of Science ( Leeds: Alwa Book Co., 1975).

See, W.H. Dray , Philosophy of History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964).

Nagel and Hempel, for example, answer that it does not, because history cannot offer explanation (because, further, the only valid explanation is scientific and part of what is meant by scientific is its laws are ahistorical). Against this, Straus, Berlin and Collingwood, for example, argue that it must be.

For a general discussion of these problems, see W.H. Dray , op. cit; J.G. Gunnell , Political Theory: Tradition and Interpretation, (Winthrop , Mass.: Winthrop Press, 1979); but also see the critical review of the book by J.G. Pocock , Political Theory (November 1980), pp. 563 - 567; and R. Ashcraft , "Political Theory and the Problem of Ideology", Journal of Politics, (Vol. 42, 1980). For a discussion in relation to particular texts, see, D. Winch , Adam Smith's Politics - An Essay in Historiographic Revision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); C.D. Tarlton , "The Creation and Maintenance of Governments: A Neglected Dimension of Hobbes' Leviathan ", Political Studies (Vol. 26, 1978); R. Ashcraft , "Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government: Radicalism and Lockean Political Theory", Political Theory (Vol. 28, 1980 ).

Quoted in J.G. Gunnell , op. cit, p. 86.

D. Winch, op. cit.

J. Gunnell, op. cit., Chapters 2 and 3.

J.G. Pocock , "The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry", in P. Laslett and W. Runciman (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962, 2nd series), and also Pocock , op. cit

See, for example, D. Germino , Modern Western Political Thought (New York: Harper, 1974 ); S. Wolin , Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960); and G. Sabine , A History of Political Theory (Drysdale, Illinois: Drysdale Press, 1973, 4th edition).

D. Raphael , op. cit, pp. 7-11.

M. Donelan, op. cit., Preface, emphasis added.

Ibid., Introduction, p, 15, emphasis added.

F. Parkinson, op. cit., Introduction, p.7, emphasis added.

Ibid., Chapter 1, p. 9, emphasis added.

R. Purnell, op. cit.

M. Wight , in H. Butterfield and M. Wight , op. cit, emphasis added.

M. Wight , "Western Values in International Relations", in H. Butterfield and M. Wight (eds.), op. cit, emphasis added.

G. Sabine ,, p. 124.

Ibid,. p. 523.

S. Wolin , op. cit, p. 194.

J. Maclean, in B. Buzan and R. Barry Jones, op. cit.

J. Maclean , "Systems Theory, Structural Funtionalism and Marxism", op. cit.

N.J. Storer ," The Internationality of science and the nationality of scientists", International Social Science Journal (Vol. 22, 1970), p. 80.

For a more developed form of this argument, see J. Maclean , "Marxist epistemology, explanations of change and the study of international relations", in B. Buzan and R. Barry Jones , op. cit.

See, for example, in international theory, the attempt to establish colonialism as development or underdevelopment, but also, and more generally, the predominant eclectic approach towards theory. With reference to political science, P. Dunleavy , op. cit ; A. Cawson. op. cit ; and P. Saunders , op. cit The argument that follows is an extended version of that offered in the Preface to H. Bernstein (ed.) Underdevelopment and Development (London: Penguin , 1978).

See, O. Holsti , R. Siverson and A. George (eds.), Change in the International System (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980).

I am indebted to Dr. B. Buzan for reminding me forcefully and clearly of this.

P. Corbett , Ideologies (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 11-12.

A clear example of this, from a claimed Marxist approach, is H. Magdoff , The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Press, 1969).

K. Mannheim , Ideology and Utopia (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976).

Ibid., pp. 48-52.

For an interesting discussion concerning these points, see J. Mepham and D.H. Ruben , op. cit.

Paragraph 3. document in file ED42/1, Public Records Office.

Ibid., paragraph 5, and paragraph 11.