Political Science and the “Micro-Politics” Research Agenda

Chakravarty, Anuradha

doi:10.4172/2332-0761.1000e103

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Recent studies have attempted to appraise these shifts in one of the many fields drawn from in IR — political science. Although we may not share the initial starting point of Chakravarty (2013), namely, that the turn to the micro in the wider field of political science is ubiquitous, her study points to a number of reasons for the micropolitical ‘research agenda’ of political science in the last decade. The first two reasons derive from the presumed importance of micropolitical spaces: (1) that they are integral to understanding how macropolitics gets enacted, embodied and embedded; and (2) that they precede or even shape macropolitical trends.…”

Section: Explaining and Characterizing Moves To Micropolitics In And Of Irmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro-moves in International Relations theory

Solomon

Steele

2016

European Journal of International Relations

160

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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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Section: Explaining and Characterizing Moves To Micropolitics In And Of Irmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro-moves in International Relations theory

Solomon

Steele

2016

European Journal of International Relations

160

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“…The new agenda draws on older discussions of the level-of-analysis problem in IR that probe the transnational and domestic institutional, ideational and cognitive sources of foreign and security policy (Kaarbo, 2015; Moravscik, 1997; Singer, 1961; Wendt, 1992). Political science studies of micro-politics look at how informal behaviours at the level of the individual can have political consequences at the macro level (Chakravarty, 2013). Micro approaches call attention to how macro-level phenomena can be the sum of large numbers of local or individual ‘microscopic’ events – which each on its own may be largely inconsequential for society.…”

Section: The Micro Level As Driver Of Discursive Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, IR research has turned to social mechanisms as a promising approach to model the role of micro processes for macro-level social, discursive and political change (Chakravarty, 2013; Checkel, 2017; Kertzer, 2017; Solomon and Steele, 2016). Helpfully, a mechanisms approach can integrate the analysis of cognitions, affects, relations and incentives with structural factors (Tilly, 2001: 37–38).…”

Section: The Micro Level As Driver Of Discursive Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Illiberal deliberation: Communist regime travel controls as state capacity in everyday world politics

Hedin¹

2018

Cooperation and Conflict

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Much social theory takes for granted that transnational people-to-people dialogue is inherently liberal in process and content – a haven of everyday authenticity that shelters ideas of human rights and democratic reform. In contrast, this contribution shows how communist regimes built and institutionalised an encompassing administrative state capacity to control and shape micro-level professional contacts with the West. This extensive but secret system of coercion, which was brought to light only with the opening of former communist regime archives, set a markedly illiberal framework for everyday East–West deliberations during the Cold War. Effectively, the travel cadre system may not only have delayed the demise of Soviet bloc communism, by isolating the population from Western influences. It was also intended to serve as a vehicle for the discursive influence of Soviet type regimes on the West. The article provides one of the first and most detailed English language maps of the administrative routines of a communist regime travel cadre system, based on the East German example. Furthermore, drawing on social mechanisms methodology, the article sets up a micro-level ‘how it could work’ scheme over how travel cadre systems can be understood as a state capacity, unique to totalitarian regimes, to help sway political discourse in open societies.

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“…In recent years, microanalyses have gained increasing traction in the discipline of International Relations (IR) and in political science more generally. This popularity is reflected in a wealth of different theoretical approaches and labels, ranging from practice theory (Adler and Pouliot 2011) to relationalism (McCourt 2016), from 'micro-moves' (Solomon and Steele 2017) to 'micro-politics' (Chakravarty 2013), from political ethnography (Neumann 2012) to 'performances of agency' (Braun et al 2019). The turn to microanalyses is commonly associated with two distinct promises (cf.…”

Section: Introduction Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Microanalysis as ideology critique

Schindler¹

2020

Theory as Ideology in International Relations

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Microanalysis -understood as the 'zooming in' on the details of everday social practices and situationsis an increasingly popular tool of academic study in the discipline of International Relations (IR) and beyond. However, the critical potential of so-called micro-moves is today largely ignored. This chapter seeks to revive this potential. It elaborates four different strategies for using microanalysis as a tool for criticizing theory as ideology.

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Political Science and the “Micro-Politics” Research Agenda

Cited by 6 publications

References 13 publications

Micro-moves in International Relations theory

Micro-moves in International Relations theory

Illiberal deliberation: Communist regime travel controls as state capacity in everyday world politics

Microanalysis as ideology critique

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