Micro-moves in International Relations theory

Abstract

This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent 'micro--moves' in several contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions, and the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory's value without 'going down' to 'lower levels' of analysis where structures are enacted and contested. We suggest that empirics of the last fifteen years -including the war on terror and the Arab Spring -have pushed scholars into increasingly micropolitical positions and analytical frameworks. Drawing upon insights from Gilles Deleuze, William Connolly, and Henri Lefebvre, among others, we argue that attention to three issues -affect, space, and time -hold promise to further develop micropolitical perspectives on and in IR, particularly on issues of power, identity, and change. (Routledge, 2008). He is currently working on a project investigating restraint in global politics, an edited volume on methods and constructivism, and two journal symposia on the politics of constructivism. He is also the co--editor of three books and one handbook, and has published articles in a number of international studies journals. 2 Every macro--theory presupposes, whether implicitly or explicitly, a micro--theory to back up its explanations--Steven Lukes, Introduction to Emile Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method, (1982: 16) The balance one strikes between the macro and micro is a tension that has characterized social theory since at least Durkheim's time. Whether it is titled a level--of--analysis (Singer, 1961) or agent--structure (Wendt, 1987) 'problem', International Relations (IR) has faced its own related quandaries over which level(s) should be regarded theoretical, methodological, and even normative primacy. Since Kenneth Waltz's (1959) critique of the first and second images as inadequate to capture the most important dynamics of world politics, IR has at times focused within a grand theory mode that too--often eschews the myriad of sub--system and sub--state phenomena. Attention to anarchy and its inescapable pressures on nation--states were said to offer the most reliable insights into the 'small number of big and important things' of which IR should mostly concern itself (Waltz, 1986: 329). While a recent and persuasive 2013 special issue of European Journal of International Relations considered whether we were at the 'End of IR theory', there continues to be a default admonition to scholars, and students, to re--embrace grand theory (Snyder, 2013; Harrison and Mitchell, 2014). A 15 December 2011 post by Professor Brian Rathbun on the popular blog 'Duck of Minerva' provides ample illustration of this move --an exaltation to all IR scholars to find the 'big' theoretical argument that will make them famous. The post asks graduate students (especially) whether the empirical studies that 3 seem to have permeated IR as of late 'will make you the next Robert Keohane? Or Ale...

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