Critical methods in International Relations: The politics of techniques, devices and acts

Aradau, Claudia; Huysmans, Jef

doi:10.1177/1354066112474479

Cited by 154 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…A clear development brought by an international political sociology of security has been an emphasis on methodological questions (see Salter and Mutlu 2013;Shepherd 2013;Aradau and Huysmans 2014;Aradau et al 2014;Mutlu 2015a). The "how of writing" is not separated from "what is being said" (Huysmans and Nogueira 2012).…”

Section: Methodological Developmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology

Guillaume

Bilgin

2016

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When compared to traditional approaches to security studies, critical approaches to security studies are often presented in terms of a deepening and widening of the security studies' agenda (Krause and Williams 1997). In that version of disciplinary history, traditional security studies scholars are represented as people focusing on state-centric approaches with a more solid ontology; with a clear understanding of key concepts such as national interest, national security, and so on, and their implications on international politics, as well as a less flexible epistemology. From that standpoint, critical approaches to security studies are seen as a disruption of that existing agenda. As part of the deepening/widening meta-narrative of critical approaches to security studies, the contributions of these approaches are represented in terms of the inclusion of different scales (human security, cosmopolitan security, urban security, etc.) as well as different issue areas (borders, environment, immigration, maritime security, etc.) into security studies' agenda. Our chapter concentrates on introducing how international political sociology has helped developed the critical agenda in security studies; we move away from a deepening/ widening perspective that is common in such review chapters and instead present a review of some of the thematic contributions in an international political sociology to security studies, in the form of a discussion of such concepts as materialities, practices, relationalities, reflexivity and the micro-politics of the everyday (for a broader reflection about security, see Burgess in this volume).International political sociology seems to enjoy an organic relationship with security studies, considered in the broader sense of the concept to include approaches that focus on discourses, practices and technologies of security. Most notably, those scholars interested in the political sociology of international security seem to focus on the everyday over the exceptional, as well as on the 'everydayness' of the exceptional in their studies of what counts as security today through reflexive lenses that regularly questions the ontological and epistemological assumptions of security's concepts and theories. This preference makes an international political sociology approach particularly engaging within the context of contemporary security studies scholarship. A majority of the all-time most-cited articles published in the journal International Political Sociology have a security focus (Dillon 2007;Salter 2007; Huysmans 2008, among others), yet unlike traditional approaches to security, these publications focus on the new materialities, practices, relationalities, reflexivity and the micro-politics of security in an attempt to see the effects of 'security' on the everyday. More specifically, a common theme is on the (in)security practices of security actors in

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Section: Methodological Developmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology

Guillaume

Bilgin

2016

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“…Ontological and epistemological issues were for a long time at the heart of critical debates, whereas the "ideas that inform the methods and techniques that we use" (Shepherd 2013: 1) were rather put aside (Aradau -Huysmans 2013). That is not to say, of course, that the methodological question of "how we do what we do" (Salter 2013a: 1-2) had not been discussed before, nor that researchers did not think critically about their inquiries.…”

Section: From Critical Theory To Critical Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Central European Security: Critical Insights

Daniel¹,

Turcsányi²,

Potjomkina³

et al. 2015

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A former security bureaucrat who has fled the world of security professionals in order to make sense of it, his research focuses on two interconnected issues -first, security discourses and everyday, as well as ceremonial practices of Central European security professionals under post-socialism; and second, urban marginality and the relationships of marginalization, ethno-racial stigmatization and class reproduction to the spread of frames of insecurity and practices of surveillance, repression, and punishment in Central Europe. Contact: lubomir.luptak@gmail.com. Diāna Potjomkina is a Research ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSFrom the position of authors responsible for the editorial work on this volume, we would like to thank several people who commented on its drafts at various stages. Dagmar Rychnovská, Tomáš Karásek, and Marian Majer contributed with their valuable reflections and helped to improve the quality of individual chapters as well as the whole publication as such. We also appreciate the contribution of Mirka Pavlíková, who helped us with the finishing touches of the text and Matt Rees, who was responsible for the proofreading and copyediting. This publication is the second one in the Global Politics Special Series and in this regard we would like to thank Aleš Karmazin for his work on the previous publication in the Special Series, which paved the way for this one. Our thanks go also to the rest of editorial board of Global Politics. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude to the director of the International Institute of Political Science (IIPS) Prof. Vít Hloušek, and the head of the Department of the International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University, Dr. Petr Suchý -as well as other staff at these institutions -for their long-standing support of Global Politics in general and the Special Series in particular. Especially the help of Lucie Mořkovská from the IIPS was essential and the books of Special Series would perhaps never been published without her.Obviously, the authors of this volume declare that they are wholly responsible for any possible inaccuracies or mistakes. Jan Daniel and Richard Turcsányi V VI SUMMARYThis book employs various theories of contemporary security studies to explore some of the most important and most common security issues in Central Europe at this time. Individual chapters of the book adhere mainly to European branches of critical and constructivist security studies, through which they look at some of the salient topics of Central European security politics.The distinction between internal and external security issues is employed throughout the book for analytical purposes. Under this framework, alliance building, security guarantees, "special relationships," the relational politics of identity, and relations with major powers -documented in the book on the case of Latvia's relations with United States -are examples of external security issues. Various pressing domestic security challenges, illustrated on the case of Hungarian far-right movements and the...

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“…It might be objected that some postpositivist approaches frame their research differently and indeed that a formula for devising puzzles serves knowledge-producing and hence political purposes the same way all methods do -by enacting the 'worlds' it analyses (Aradau and Huysmans, 2014). Put differently, it could be argued that our formula takes the x and the y as objectively existing and true.…”

Section: What a Puzzle Is And How To Develop Onementioning

confidence: 98%

what is the point? teaching graduate students how to construct political science research puzzles

Gustafsson

Hagström

2017

Eur Polit Sci

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One of the key challenges graduate students face is how to come up with a good rationale for their theses. Unfortunately, the methods literature in and beyond political science does not provide much advice on this important issue. While focusing on how to conduct research, this literature has largely neglected the question of why a study should be undertaken. The limited discussions that can be found suggest that new research is justified if it (1) fills a 'gap'; (2) addresses an important real-world problem; and/or (3) is methodologically rigorous. This article discusses the limitations of these rationales. Then, it proposes that research puzzles are more useful for clarifying the nature and importance of a contribution to existing research, and hence a better way of justifying new research. The article also explores and clarifies what research puzzles are, and begins to devise a method for constructing them out of the vague ideas and questions that often trigger a research process.

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Critical methods in International Relations: The politics of techniques, devices and acts

Cited by 154 publications

References 66 publications

Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology

Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology

Challenges of Central European Security: Critical Insights

what is the point? teaching graduate students how to construct political science research puzzles

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