Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy: Past Paths and Future Directions in International Studies

The Essence of Millennial Reflections on International Studies: Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Politic

THE ESSENCE OF MILLENNIAL REFLECTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy Michael Brecher and Franlz P. Harvey W hen Michael Brecher was introduced to international relations (IR) at Yale in 1946, the field comprised international politics, international law and organization, international economics, international (diplomatic) history, and a regional specialization. The hegemonic paradigm was realism, as expressed in the work of E. H. Carr, Arnold Wolfers, Nicholas Spykman, W. T. R. Fox, Hans Morgenthau , Bernard Brodie, and others.l The unquestioned focus of attention was interstate war and peace. By the time the other editor of this collection, Frank Harvey, was initiated into international relations at McGill in the late 1980s, the preeminent paradigm was neorealism,2 but there were several competing claimants to the "true path": institutional theory,3 cognitive psychology,4 and postmodernism.5 And by the time he received his doctoral degree, other competitors had emerged, notably, critical theory,6 constructivism,? and feminism.8 The consequence, at the dawn of the new millennium, was a vigorous , still inconclusive, debate about the optimal path to knowledge about international studies (IS), most clearly expressed in the views that it is a discipline-international relations (IR) or world politics-like economics, sociology, anthropology, history, or that it is a multidisciplinary field of study; the "big tent" conception of the premier organization, the International Studies Association (ISA). 2 Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy It was in this context that the Millennial Reflections Project was conceived. The origin and rationale of the idea may be found in the central theme of Michael Brecher's presidential address to the ISA conference in Washington in February 1999: "International Studies in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: Flawed Dichotomies, Synthesis , Cumulation." The next stage was the creation of a set of ten millennial reflections theme-panels by Michael Brecher, then ISA president, and Frank Harvey, the program chair for ISA 2000: these panels served as the highly successful centerpiece of the Los Angeles conference in March 2000. Soon after, we enlisted the enthusiastic support of the University of Michigan Press for the idea of publishing revised and enlarged versions of these conference papers. Most of the participants in the Los Angeles panels readily agreed to revise and enlarge their papers. A few other papers were invited. The result is this volume and the accompanying set of four shorter, segmentfocused volumes, prepared for the benefit of teachers and students of IS in colleges and universities everywhere. Whether a discipline or a multidisciplinary field of study, IS has developed over the last half century with diverse philosophical underpinnings , frameworks of analysis, methodologies, and foci of attention . This diversity is evident in the papers that were presented at the panels at the 2000 Los Angeles conference and revised for publication in this state-of-the-art collection of essays on international studies at the dawn of the new millennium. In an attempt to capture the range, diversity, and complexity of IS, we decided to organize the forty-four "think piece" essays into eight clusters. The mainstream paradigms of realism and institutionalism constitute the first two concentrations; critical perspectives (including critical theory, postmodernism, and constructivism ); feminism and gender perspectives; methodology (including quantitative, formal modeling, and qualitative); foreign policy analysis ; international security, peace, and war; and international political economy make up the remaining six. The raison d'etre of the Millennial Reflections Project was set out in the theme statement of the Los Angeles conference, titled "Reflection , Integration, Cumulation: International Studies Past and Future ." As we noted in that statement, the number and size of subfields and sections has grown steadily since the founding of the International Studies Association in 1959. This diversity, while enriching , has made increasingly difficult the crucial task of identifying intrasubfield, let alone intersubfield, consensus about important Essence of Millennial Reflections on International Studies 3 theoretical and empirical insights. Aside from focusing on a cluster of shared research questions related, for example, to globalization, gender and international relations, critical theory, political economy , international institutions, global development, democracy and peace, foreign and security policy, and so on, there are still few clear signs of cumulation. If the maturity of an academic discipline is based not only on its capacity to expand but also on its capacity to select, the lack of agreement within these communities is particularly disquieting. Realists, for instance, cannot fully agree on their paradigm's core...