Structures Do Not Come with an Instruction Sheet: Interests, Ideas, and Progress in Political Science

Abstract

This article questions the centrality of interest-based explanation in political science. Through an examination of the “turn to ideas” undertaken in the past decade by rationalist and nonrationalist scholars in both comparative politics and international relations, it seeks to make three points. First, interests are far from the unproblematic and ever-ready explanatory instruments we assume them to be. Second, the ideational turn of historical institutionalism and constructivist international relations theory marks a substantive theoretical shift in the field precisely because it problematizes notions of action that take interest as given. Third, such scholarship emerged from, and in reaction to, the inherent limits of rationalist treatments of interests and ideas. That it did so suggests that progress in the discipline may be more dialectic—rather than linear or paradigmatic—than we realize.

The theory and method of comparative area studies

“…Among the most dire problems rational choice faces is its inability to taking into account the symbolic systems which impute particularly identities and preference sets to individual agents (Blyth, 2003;Hechter and Kanazawa, 1997: 209). Take, for example, Laitin's study of language acquisition and ethnic identity in post-Soviet space.…”

The place of conditionality and individual responsibility in a “data-driven economy”

“…Policy actors have been shown to fall back on established ideas and frames of references in dealing with such legitimatory pressures (Abdelal et al, 2010;Blyth, 2003;Hall, 1993). A suitable template stems from the area of welfare reforms, where governments have been able to put more weight on market principles and introduce conditionality while accommodating an ideal of agency that emphasizes individual responsibility.…”

Podział lewica–prawica w perspektywie konstruktywistycznej

“…Same struktury nie dostarczają bezpośrednich wskazówek co do sposobów interpretacji siebie. Nie pojawiają się w świecie społecznym wraz z instrukcjami obsługi, by użyć trafnej formuły M. Blytha (Blyth, 2003). Poszukiwanie źródeł podziałów lewicowo-prawicowych w sferze ekonomii redukuje specyficzne dla kontekstu systemu politycznego danego kraju, oryginalne strategie aktorów społecznych i politycznych.…”