The turns to pragmatism and practice theory in recent years are indicative of a fragmented discipline searching for the ends of International Relations theory. While diverse and contested, both bring forth conceptual language — habit, habitus, field, or practice — that promises to reorient the field on different grounds, with different implications for thinking about the vocation of International Relations. This article considers the contributions made possible by pragmatism in light of the turn to practices, outlining a “pragmatic International Relations” that is tasked with a political project: constituting the public in an age of global governance. It does so through a reading of Dewey that foregrounds his political commitments to democracy as a form of publicly inclusive inquiry. Rather than severing the normativity inscribed in Dewey’s social theory, this article demonstrates how his political values were productive of his theoretical practice. As such, we argue that Dewey does not dispense with metaphysics in order to attend to political problems, but, instead, locates metaphysics as constitutive of the political problem itself: democracy in the age of expertise.

Since the 1960s, “the stakeholder,” or affected party, has emerged as a novel democratic subject whose participation in varied institutional sites—from universities to government agencies, corporate boardrooms to international organizations—is seen as necessary for the management of complex problems. However, few specifically attend to the stakeholder as a distinct political subject and consider its implications for democratic practice. This paper presents a genealogy of the stakeholder, documenting its appearance in corporate managerialism and US public administration and showing how racial mobilization, rapid technological progress, and the political rationality of systems thinking provided the conditions of possibility for its emergence. Though orienting democracy around stakeholders permits opportunities for participation in political life, I argue that this subject is predicated on a circumscribed form of participatory politics that erodes habits of discovering a common good, erases distinctions between individuals and corporate bodies, and amplifies the problem of expertise.

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There is a robust literature on the World Bank's shift toward participatory development in the 1990s but scant attention to the specific way in which participation was defined in terms of “stakeholder” inclusion. Rather than the poor, NGOs, or some other constituency, participation was framed in terms of stakeholders, or all affected parties. Thus, there are two related outcomes to explain: a shift in institutional practice and the formation of a novel subject of development governance. Drawing on pragmatist and object-oriented international relations, I develop a model of how institutions become objects of sustained and collective reflection, at once opening the possibility for institutional change and new political subjectivity. In the case of the Bank, I specifically argue that out of a period of crisis, actors inside and outside the Bank reflected on the problem of development, borrowing from past experiments with systems managerialism to define the contours of the problem and pose solutions. Using Bank documents, I show how the logic of systems managerialism helped define the problem of development in terms of complexity and pose stakeholder inclusion as an effective solution. The result was not only new practices but the articulation of the stakeholder as a novel political subject. Existen muchas publicaciones sobre el giro del Banco Mundial hacia el desarrollo participativo en los 90, pero escasa atención a la manera específica en la que la participación fue definida en términos de inclusión de las “partes interesadas”. En lugar de referirse a las poblaciones más vulnerables, las organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) u otros sectores, la participación se enmarcó en términos de las partes interesadas o todas las partes afectadas. Por lo tanto, hay dos resultados relacionados para explicar: un cambio en la práctica institucional y la formación de un tema novedoso sobre la gobernanza del desarrollo. Basándome en las relaciones internacionales (International Relations, IR) pragmáticas y orientadas al objeto, elaboro un modelo de cómo las instituciones se convierten en objetos de reflexión sostenida y colectiva, abriendo, a la vez, la posibilidad de un cambio institucional y una nueva subjetividad política. En el caso del Banco, sostengo específicamente que, a partir de un periodo de crisis, los agentes dentro y fuera del Banco reflexionaron sobre el problema de desarrollo y tomaron prestados los experimentos del pasado con el gerencialismo de sistemas para definir los perfiles del problema y plantear soluciones. A través de los documentos del Banco, muestro de qué manera la lógica del gerencialismo de sistemas ayudó a definir el problema de desarrollo en términos de complejidad y a plantear la inclusión de las partes interesadas como una solución efectiva. El resultado no fueron solo prácticas nuevas, sino también la articulación de las partes interesadas como un tema político novedoso. On dispose à ce jour de plusieurs ouvrages traitant de la tendance de la Banque mondiale à privilégier le développement participatif dans les années 90, mais on ne prête pas suffisamment attention à la concrétisation de la participation en ce qui concerne l'inclusion des « parties prenantes ». Contrairement aux pauvres, aux ONG ou à d'autres groupes d'intérêt, la participation a été définie en fonction des parties prenantes, ou de toutes les parties concernées. Par conséquent, il convient d'expliquer deux effets complémentaires : un changement dans la pratique institutionnelle et la naissance d'un nouveau concept de gouvernance du développement. En m'appuyant sur la RI pragmatiste et objectiviste, je propose un modèle montrant comment les institutions deviennent des objets de réflexion durable et collective, offrant à la fois des opportunités d'une réforme institutionnelle et d'une nouvelle subjectivité politique. Pour le cas de la Banque mondiale, je soutiens en particulier que suite à une période de crise, les acteurs internes et externes à la Banque se sont penchés sur le problème du développement, en s'inspirant des expériences passées concernant la gestion des systèmes pour en définir les grandes lignes et proposer des solutions conséquentes. En me basant sur la documentation de la Banque pour démontrer comment la dynamique de la gestion des systèmes a contribué à définir le problème du développement par sa complexité et à présenter l'inclusion des parties prenantes comme une solution efficace. Il en résulte non seulement de nouvelles pratiques, mais également la mise en place d'un nouveau sujet politique pour les parties prenantes.

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