Analytical eclecticism for vigor and rigor?

Abstract

In this Exchanges piece, I comment on centripetal and centrifugal tendencies across social science disciplines with an eye to the possibilities and pitfalls of analytical eclecticism in bridging within-field impasse and generating cross-disciplinary dialogue germane to economic geography.

Geography is no stranger to the terms “centripetal” (movement toward a center) and “centrifugal” (movement away from a center), or coming together and going apart, since at least the 1930s with Colby’s (1933) seminal “Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces in Urban Geography” on urbanization. These terms, adapted for disciplinary focus, are also widely used in political science (e.g. Cox, 1990; Downs, 1957), sociology (e.g. Etzioni, 1996), and economics (e.g. Krugman and Elizondo, 1996; Stiglitz, 2015). The two “Cs” support another type of analysis too, one more relevant for our methods discussion here.

In psychology, anthropology, and geography, disciplinary trends themselves have been subject to centripetal-centrifugal assessment. Altman (1987: 1059) found divergence and fragmentation within psychology writ large, where “centrifugal factors prevail over centripetal trends.” Driessen (2013: 390) likewise characterized “the present-day weakness” of anthropology as “its lack of a centripetal force and common mission.” In “Economic Geography: Island Life,” Peck (2012: 119) identified a similar centrifugal pattern, with subfield interests “intensely networked on the inside. . . but only loosely integrated with one another.” Barnes and Sheppard (2010: 193) likewise characterized economic geography as “fragmented into a series of intellectual solitudes.” In other words, various social science fields have been seen over the years to be spinning off into less connected, and potentially incommensurable, concerns. For disciplines divided, the worst-case scenario is that a centrifugal dynamic can create a stifling impasse where intra-disciplinary dialogue disappears. Fecundity at the expense of coherence is a related anxiety in economic geography (Barnes et al., 2007: 22).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, mainstream political science has been experiencing a centripetal “rigor mortis” of rational individualism (Walt, 1999) and interpretative reticence (Dolan and Dumm, 1993). ¹ The domineering nature of a single leading approach threatens deadlock by silencing alternatives through a methodologically narrow and rigid field of study.

At first glance there is an obvious contrast to be made between centripetal political science and centrifugal economic geography, especially given the latter’s “low premium . . . placed on methodological codification, [and] transparency” (Barnes et al., 2007: 23). However, the fact remains that impasse affects both fields. Despite their centrifugal-centripetal distinctions, the “pantheon” of approaches in economic geography (Sheppard, 2011, note 3) implicates within-type trends in a similar way. The “paradigms” of political science (Sil and Katzenstein, 2010a) are not too dissimilar from economic geography’s “different islands of practice in the discipline [that] tend to be ‘mono-methodological’” (Barnes et al., 2007: 24). Rather than an “engaged pluralism,” fragmented pluralism indicates a discipline divided (Barnes and Sheppard, 2010: 194; cf. Martin, 2021: 23).

Altman (1987) asks us to think of unification and separation in dialectical terms; disciplinary dynamics of coming together and moving apart are always present and neither “C” is wholly negative or positive. When consolidated, a field of study can find greater structure and common purpose, but it is in danger of stagnation; when fractured, the field is often highly generative though it risks irrelevance. As Etzioni (1996: 6) put it, “communities require that the two basic forces [centripetal and centrifugal] be in balance.” Tensions of vigor and rigor ought to co-exist over time.

Being apart together necessitates finding common ground. Methodological discussion can advance commonalities and hash out debate even if objects of study are otherwise disparate/cloistered. Methods toolkits and metaphysical inquiry speak across and within disciplines, whether scholarly communities’ objects of research lack a core focus or could use a breath of fresh air. Exploring new methodological opportunities beyond impasse centrally motivates the discussion here.

In an effort to escape centripetal pressure in political science, Sil and Katzenstein (2010a: 23) argue that analytical eclecticism can bridge the isolated paradigms that otherwise “[risk] missing out on crucial insights about the complex processes and intersecting mechanisms that account for interesting outcomes.” As they (Sil and Katzenstein, 2010b) describe, eclecticism is an orientation of scholarship that embraces pragmatism over idealism, replaces inductive-deductive epistemological traps with results-oriented problem-solving, identifies multiple mechanisms of complex causality, and mobilizes mid-level concepts as a way of avoiding intractable metaphysical divisions.

If that description sounds familiar, it should. Despite being characterized as generally “methodologically opaque” (Barnes et al., 2007: 13, 21), methods discussions in economic geography have recently centered on pluralism and mid-level theorizing. Meshing with the call for engaged collaboration and conversation across methodologies (Barnes and Sheppard, 2010), mid-level approaches include those directly attuned to causal mechanisms like Yeung (2019, 2023) on the need for more empirically- and phenomenon-specific theory rather than foundational grand theories of capitalism and individual-level storytelling, or those that avoid “strong deduction and simple induction” like Peck (2023: 9) who argues for conjunctural analysis that develops mid-range concepts between “the epochal and the eventful” (or between abstract tendencies and concrete complexity, Dixon et al., 2023).

Whereas the possibilities for rapprochement with heterodox economics have been debated (Barnes and Sheppard, 2010; Peck, 2012; Sheppard, 2011), an emergent, not yet discussed, social science connection is thus forming for economic geography and political science communities grappling with impasse: both hope to find refuge in mid-level theorizing. At its most caricatured, one might say political scientists, beset by paradigmatic winner-take-all warfare and stalemated by Sisyphean metatheoretical self-indulgences, seek succor in “unmediated access” to a real world freed from circular musings (Hamilton, 2017: 137). Economic geographers, marooned by proliferate incoherence and threatened by Scylla-Charybdis trade-offs of solitude versus superiority, find connection through pragmatic engagements capable of enhanced policy relevance and practical adequacy (Martin, 2021; Yeung, 2023).

On an analytical level, connecting cross-disciplinary mid-level concepts might be one way of preserving the characteristic vigor of economic geography, in conversation with the rigor of a more restrained political science. On a methodological level, there might also be new pathways, or a “common language” (Sheppard, 2011: 321), created through the mid-range approach of analytical eclecticism. The question then becomes, with methodological pluralism seen as desirable for improving understanding and explanation in economic geography (Pike et al., 2016), can analytical eclecticism cure what ails?

Analytical eclecticism is pluralist in that it offers to go beyond the theory-driven accounts accused of offering partial answers to vexing problems given the range of exclusions generated by any single theoretical approach. The “post-foundationalist” pragmatism of eclecticism thus starts with problems and collects evidence unfettered by any one theory. However, there are methodological cautions to be gleaned by economic geographers interested in political scientists’ efforts to move beyond their own impasse: thus far, in practice, eclecticism within political science appears to be limited to a synthesis of theories sharing already-dominant positivist epistemologies (Cornut, 2015).

Contra the explicit aim of analytical eclecticism, post-foundationalism may be reinforcing within-type centripetal tendencies by integrating only those paradigms that can be approached from an epistemology centered on causality. A satisfying synthesis with postmodern perspectives that eschew truth claims has yet to emerge, and indeed reconciling hermeneutics with empiricism does not appear possible or desirable. ² The appeal of eclecticism—that it dodges the “intractable mire” of epistemological debate (Hamilton, 2017: 156)—is principally accomplished through recourse to particular truth claims. Eclecticism is best positioned to integrate research questions that seek explanation and interpretation through the “how” and “why” of positivism, threatening a frustrated pluralism of another sort given that empiricism may be important in economic geography, but it is not universal (Sheppard, 2006: 18).

For the project of engaged pluralism in economic geography, the lesson from eclecticism, pragmatism, and mid-level theorization elsewhere in the social sciences is that scholarship can run from metatheory, but it can’t hide; philosophical assumptions lurk and linger. The triptych of micro-, mid-, and grand-level theories belongs together, not apart, as it remains methodologically and politically necessary to expose underlying philosophical assumptions in order to avoid reproducing deleterious relations of domination (Peet, 2020; Reus-Smit, 2013). Metatheory is not just for the philosophers; delineating understandings of truth and consequence bear directly on “problem-solving” in economic geography.

Shared meso-level concepts that are the regular focus of multi-disciplinary investigation, ³ will only benefit from enhanced methods discussions that are as upfront about epistemology as they are other elements like ontology or research design. The limits of pluralism are located in the reach of methods. It is very likely that some epistemological differences cannot be reconciled, but for scholarly communities at an impasse, seeking balance does not necessarily imply finding a consensus. It is always worth having methods conversations in the spirit of advancing research that is as enthusiastic as it is sustained, as vigorous as rigorous.

Ultimately, if the goal is to disrupt centrifugal-centripetal impasse, pragmatism and mid-level theorizing can certainly help with cross-field dialogue; likewise, metatheoretical debates cannot be abandoned along the way—because, if for no other reason, selective eclecticism makes for partial pluralism.

For those concerned with addressing the forces that fragment and bind fields of study, we might also ask why particular areas of the social sciences (anthropology, psychology, geography, and so on), share the centrifugal experience, or vice versa. Methods-adjacent conversations on dissemination likely provide an important part of the answer, whether that relates to trends in publishing outlets, evaluation metrics, hiring and promotion standards, and related power structures within these scholarly communities (Rosenman et al., 2020). Our approaches to how we do research both underpin and reflect centripetal and centrifugal trends in academe. Interdisciplinarity, as desirable as that may be for research in a field like political economy, is not the only way to move beyond disciplinary strictures, sharing methodological strategies of addressing impasse through a mix of rigor and vigor can help get us there too. But methods have to be approached in their totality, as toolkits for generating answers and philosophies for understanding the boundaries of knowledge and world we seek to engage.