critical approaches

Question 1

what we take to be the state is a series of _____ that we believe to be the state

Answer 1

representations

Question 2

what does Onuf (1989) suggest about the social and political world

Answer 2

it is a ‘world of our making’, one that we as political and social actors jointly construct, destroy and deconstruct

Question 3

what are problem-solving theories

Answer 3

• PST deal with the world ‘as it is’, attempts to find patterns and regularities, and to be able to make the system run as smoothly as possible, to aid statesmen in the conduct of statecraft.

Question 4

what are critical theories

Answer 4

• CT assume any order to be a historically contingent one. We need to study how it came about, what power/knowledge structures created it and sustain it, and what political possibilities exist to transform it.

Question 5

what do Hollis&Smith define ‘Explaining’ as?

Answer 5

We live in a Newtonian physics: world as a mechanism. The world is like a watch, we can see the face of it, but the mechanism is hidden from us. Science is about opening the back of the watch and finding out, how the mechanism, the springs and the wheels of the clock actually work. We thus discover the objective and necessary forces that cause the appearances that we can observe on the surface.

Question 6

what do Hollis & Smith define ‘understanding’ as?

Answer 6

1) People are guided by meaning in their life. World/Reality is made up of signs and symbols, conventions, rules, that tell us ‘how to behave’.
2) Language is central, as it provides, codifies, and expresses conventions, rules, identities: ‘Terrorists’, ‘humanitarian intervention’, ‘austerity measures’.
3) (International) Politics takes place within, and creates, structures of meaning. It therefore needs to be studies and investigated in terms of these structures.

Question 7

definition of discourse

Answer 7

Conceptualising the structure of meaning within politics

Question 8

what do discourses tell us?

Answer 8

they tell us what exists, what counts as truth, what can be meaningful said, thought, perceived

Question 9

link between politics and discourses

Answer 9

contestations over ‘reality’ of society, economy and relations to the rest of the world