In recent years, paradigmatic debates in International Relations (IR) have focused on questions of epistemology and methodology. While important in their own right, these differences have obscured the basic divide in the discipline between substantialism, which takes entities as primitives, and relationalism, which takes processes of social transaction as the basic building blocks of theory. We argue that while both approaches can be fruitful, theories of processes and relations are better suited to address certain questions, most notably those involving change in global politics. Drawing on work in International Relations, sociology and philosophy, we examine what such theories entail and discuss areas of research for which they are especially suited.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbott, Andrew
(1988) `Transcending General Linear Reality', Sociological Theory6: 169-186.
2.
Abbott, Andrew
(1996) `Things of Boundaries', Social Research62: 857-862.
3.
Abell, Peter
(1993) `Book Review: Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action. By Harrison C. White', American Journal of Sociology99(2): 1083-1085.
4.
Adler, Emmanuel
and Michael Barnett (1996) `Governing Anarchy: A Research Agenda for the Study of Security Communities', Ethics and International Affairs10: 63-98.
5.
Alker, Hayward
(1996a) Rediscoveries and Reformulations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Archer, Margaret
(1996) Culture and Agency, revised edn.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Ashley, Richard
(1986) `The Poverty of Neorealism', in R.O. Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and its Critics, pp. 255-300. New York: Columbia University Press.
8.
Ashley, Richard
(1988) `Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique', Millennium17: 227-262.
9.
Ashley, Richard
(1995) `The Powers of Anarchy', in J. Der Derian (ed.) International Theory: Critical Investigations, pp. 94-128. New York: New York University Press.
10.
Bakhtin, Mikhail
(1990) Creation of a Prosaics, ed. Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
11.
Barnes, Barry
(1982) T.S. Kuhn and the Social Sciences. New York: Columbia University Press.
12.
Barnes, Trevor
(1996) Logics of Dislocation: Models, Metaphors, and Meanings of Economic Space. New York: Guilford Press.
13.
Bartelson, Jens
(1995) A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14.
Bates, Robert
, Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and Barry Weingast (1998) Analytic Narratives. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
15.
Bendix, Reinhard
(1978) Kings or People. Berkeley: University of California Press.
16.
Bhaskar, Roy
(1975) A Realist Theory of Science. London: Verso.
17.
Bhaskar, Roy
(1989) Reclaiming Reality. London: Verso.
18.
Block, Fred
(1987) Revising State Theory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
19.
Blythe, Mark M.
(1997) ` “Any More Bright Ideas?” The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political Economy', World Politics49 (January): 229-250.
Bourdieu, Pierre
(1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22.
Bourdieu, Pierre
(1990) The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
23.
Bourdieu, Pierre
and Loïc J.D. Wacquant (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
24.
Brown, Peter
(1996) The Rise of Western Christendom. Oxford: Blackwell.
25.
Buber, Martin
(1958) I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
26.
Burt, Ronald S.
(1992) Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27.
Campbell, David
(1992) Writing Security. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
28.
Cox, Robert
(1987) Production, Power, and World Order. New York: Columbia University Press.
29.
Cox, Robert
(1996) `States, Social Forces, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', in R. Cox with T. Sinclair Approaches to World Order, pp. 85-123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
30.
Der Derian, James
(1987) On Diplomacy. Oxford: Blackwell.
31.
Der Derian, James
(1992) Antidiplomacy. Cambridge: Blackwell.
32.
Dessler, David
(1989) `What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?', International Organization43(3): 441-473.
33.
Deutsch, Karlet al.
(1957) Political Community and the North Atlantic Area. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
34.
Dewey, John
and Arthur Bentley (1949) Knowing and the Known. Boston: Beacon Press.
35.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn
(1996) Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
36.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn
(1997) `Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory', European Journal of International Relations3(3): 365-392.
37.
Elias, Norbert
(1970) What is Sociology?New York: Columbia University Press.
38.
Elias, Norbert
(1991) The Society of Individuals. Oxford: Blackwell.
39.
Elias, Norbert
(1992) Time: An Essay. Oxford: Blackwell.
40.
Elias, Norbert
(1994) The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
41.
Emirbayer, Mustafa
(1997) `Manifesto for a Relational Sociology,'American Journal of Sociology103(2): 281-317.
42.
Emirbayer, Mustafa
and Jeffrey Goodwin (1994) `Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency', American Journal of Sociology99(6): 1411-1454.
43.
Emirbayer, Mustafa
and Ann Mische (1998) `What is Agency?', American Journal of Sociology103(4): 962-1023.
44.
Fabian, Johannes
(1983) Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.
45.
Fearon, James
(1991) `Counterfactuals and Hypothesis-Testing in Political Science', World Politics43(January): 169-195.
46.
Ferguson, Yale
and Richard Mansbach (1996) Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
47.
Feyerabend, Paul
(1993) Against Method, third edition.London: Verso.
48.
Foucault, Michel
(1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon.
49.
Foucault, Michel
(1979) Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage.
50.
Foucault, Michel
(1980) Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon.
51.
Giddens, Anthony
(1979) Central Problems in Social Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.
52.
Giddens, Anthony
(1984) The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
53.
Giddens, Anthony
(1987) The Nation-State and Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
54.
Godsen, Christopher
(1994) Social Being and Time. Cambridge: Blackwell.
55.
Gramsci, Antonio
(1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
56.
Granovetter, Mark
(1985) `Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness', American Journal of Sociology91(3): 481-510.
57.
Guzzini, Stefano
(1993) `Structural Power: The Limits of Neorealist Power Analysis', International Organization47(3): 444-478.
58.
Hall, Rodney Bruce
(1997) `Moral Authority as a Power Resource', International Organization51(4): 593-622.
59.
Hall, Rodney Bruce
(1998) National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems. New York: Columbia University Press.
60.
Harvey, David
(1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
61.
Heidegger, Martin
(1962) Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
62.
Hollis, Martin
and Steve Smith (1990) Explaining and Understanding International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon.
63.
Hollis, Martin
and Steve Smith (1991) `Beware of Gurus: Structure and Action in International Relations', Review of International Studies17: 393-410.
64.
Holt, Mack P.
(1995) The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
65.
Inayatullah, Naeem
and David Blaney (1996) `Knowing Encounters: Beyond Parochialism in International Relations Theory', in Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil (eds) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, pp. 65-84. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
66.
Israel, Jonathan I.
(1995) The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
67.
Jessop, Bob
(1990) State Theory. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
68.
Katzenstein, Peter
(ed.) (1996) The Culture of National Security. New York: Columbia University Press.
69.
Katznelson, Ira
(1997) `Structure and Configuration in Comparative Politics', in Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman (eds) Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
70.
Keohane, Robert O.
(1989) International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory. Boulder: Westview Press.
71.
Keohane, Robert O.
and Joseph Nye (1989) Power and Interdependence, 2nd edn.New York: HarperCollins.
72.
Kern, Stephen
(1983) The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1910. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
73.
Klein, Bradley S.
(1990) Strategic Studies and World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
74.
Krasner, Stephen
(1984) `Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics', Comparative Politics16(2): 223-246.
75.
Kratochwil, Friedrich
(1986) `Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality', World Politics39(1): 27-52.
76.
Kratochwil, Friedrich
(1993) `The Embarrassment of Changes: Neo-Realism as the Science of Realpolitik Without Politics', Review of International Studies19: 63-80.
77.
Laclau, Ernesto
and Chantal Mouffe (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.
78.
Laffey, Mark
and Jutta Weldes (1997) `Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations', European Journal of International Relations3(2): 193-237.
79.
Lakatos, Imre
(1978) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
80.
Landes, David
(1983) Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
81.
Lapid, Yosef
(1996) `Culture's Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory', in Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil (eds) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, pp. 3-20. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
82.
Lewis, Martin
and Kären Wigen (1997) The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
83.
Mann, Michael
(1986) The Sources of Social Power, Volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
84.
Mannheim, Karl
(1936) Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harvest Books.
85.
Meyer, John
and Brian Rowan (1977) `Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony', American Journal of Sociology83(2): 340-363.
86.
Meyer, Johnet al.
(1987) Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
87.
Mill, J.S.
(1874) A System of Logic. New York: Harper and Brothers.
88.
Milner, Helen
(1991) `The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique', Review of International Studies17: 67-85.
89.
Milner, Helen
and Robert Keohane (eds) (1996) Internationalization and Domestic Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
90.
Mitchell, Timothy
(1991) `The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics', American Political Science Review85(1): 77-96.
91.
Moon, Donald
(1975) `The Logic of Political Inquiry: A Synthesis of Opposed Perspectives', in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds) Handbook of Political Science, Volume 1. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
92.
Moravcsik, Andrew
(1997) `Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics', International Organization51(4): 513-554.
93.
Moravcsik, Andrew
(1998) The Choice for Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
94.
Murphy, Alexander
(1996) `The Sovereign State System as Political-Territorial Ideal: Historical and Contemporary Considerations', in T. Biersteker and W. Weber (eds) State Sovereignty as Social Construct, pp. 81-120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
95.
Neumann, Iver
(1996) `Self and Other in International Relations', European Journal of International Relations2(2): 139-174.
96.
Onuf, Nicholas
(1995) `Levels', European Journal of International Relations1(1): 35-58.
97.
Padgett, John
and Christopher Ansell (1993) `Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434', American Journal of Sociology98(6): 1259-1319.
98.
Patomäki, Heikki
(1996) `How to Tell Better Stories About World Politics', European Journal of International Relations2(1): 105-133.
99.
Plotnitsky, Arkady
(1995) Complementarity. Durham: Duke University Press.
100.
Price, Richard
and Nina Tannenwald (1996) `Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboo', in P. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security, pp. 114-152. New York: Columbia University Press.
101.
Rescher, Nicholas
(1996) Process Metaphysics. Albany: State University of New York Press.
102.
Ringmar, Erik
(1996a) `On the Ontological Status of the State', European Journal of International Relations2(4): 439-466.
103.
Ringmar, Erik
(1996b) Identity, Interest, and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
104.
Robertson, Roland
(1992) Globalization. London: Sage.
105.
Ruggie, John
(1983) `International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order', in S. Krasner (ed.) International Regimes, pp. 195-232. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
106.
Ruggie, John
(1986) `Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis', in R. Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and its Critics. New York: Columbia University Press.
107.
Ruggie, John
(1993) `Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations', International Organization47(1): 139-174.
108.
Somers, Margaret R.
(1993) `Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community, and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy,'American Sociological Review58: 587-620.
109.
Somers, Margaret R.
and Gloria Gibson (1994) `Reclaiming the Epistemological “Other”: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity', in Craig Calhoun (ed.) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
110.
Spruyt, Hendrik
(1994) The Sovereign State and its Competitors. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
111.
Sylvan, David
and Stephen Majeski (1998) `A Methodology for the Study of Historical Counterfactuals', International Studies Quarterly42(1): 79-108.
112.
Thomason, Burke C.
(1982) Making Sense of Reification: Alfred Schutz and Constructivist Theory. London: Macmillan.
113.
Thomson, Janice
(1995) `State Sovereignty in International Relations', International Studies Quarterly39: 213-233.
114.
Tilly, Charles
(1984) Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage.
115.
Tilly, Charles
(1990) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. Oxford: Blackwell.
116.
Tilly, Charles
(1995) `To Explain Political Processes,'American Journal of Sociology100(6): 1594-1610.
117.
Tilly, Charles
(1996) `International Communities, Secure or Otherwise', Center for the Social Sciences at Columbia University Pre-Print Series.
118.
Tilly, Charles
(1997) `Means and Ends of Comparison in Macrosociology', Comparative Social Research16: 43-53.
119.
Todorov, Tzvetan
(1984) The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper and Row.
120.
Walker, R.B.J.
(1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
121.
Waltz, Kenneth
(1986) `Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Reply to My Critics', in R. Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and its Critics, pp. 322-346. New York: Columbia University Press.
122.
Weber, Cynthia
(1995) Simulating Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weeden, Chris
(1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Cambridge: Blackwell.
125.
Wellman, Barry
(1988) `Strutural Analysis: From Metaphor to Substance', in Barry Wellman and and S.D. Berkowitz (eds) Social Structures: A Network Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
126.
Wendt, Alexander
(1987) `The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory', International Organization41(3): 335-370.
127.
Wendt, Alexander
(1991) `Bridging the Theory/Meta-Theory Gap in International Relations', Review of International Studies17: 383-392.
128.
Wendt, Alexander
(1992a) `Anarchy is What States Make of it', International Organization46(2): 391-425.
129.
Wendt, Alexander
(1992b) `Levels of Analysis vs Agents and Structures: Part III', Review of International Studies18: 181-185.
130.
Wendt, Alexander
(1994) `Collective Identity Formation and the International State', American Political Science Review88(2): 384-397.
131.
Wendt, Alexander
(1996) `Identity and Structural Change in International Politics', in Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil (eds) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, pp. 47-64. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
132.
Wendt, Alexander
(1999) Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
133.
White, Harrison
(1992) Identity and Control. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
134.
White, Harrison
(1996) `Network Switchings and Bayesian Forks: Reconstructing the Social and Behavioral Sciences', Social Research62: 1035-1063.
135.
White, Harrison
, Scott A. Boorman and Ronald L. Breiger (1976) `Social Structure from Multiple Networks I: Blockmodels of Roles and Positions', American Journal of Sociology81(4): 730-780.
136.
Winch, Peter
(1990) The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge.
137.
Zacher, Mark
(1992) `The Decaying Pillars of the Westphalian Temple: Implications for International Order and Governance', in J. Rosenau and E.-O. Czempiel (eds) Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, pp. 58-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
