After International Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World Politics (Critical Realism: Interventions (Routledge Critical Realism))

After International Relations articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in International Relations. Heikki Patomaki here establishes a way out of the international relations problematic which has puzzled so many great thinkers and scholars for the last two hundred years. After International Relations shows how and why theories based on the international problematic have failed; articulates an alternative, critical realist research programme; and illustrates how this research programme can be put to work to enable better research and ethico-political practices. Developing a critical realist methodology for international relations, peace research and global political economy this book resolves many of the theoretical aporias of international relations. It explains in detail the way research should be conducted in open systems and pluralistic contexts; it refines the logic of explanatory emancipation beyond the confines of nation states, and responds to the problem of violence. It goes further than any existing text in developing critical theoretical methodologies in international relations, and shows how they can be applied in research and acted upon in ethico-political practice.The book begins with a critical genealogy of the emergence of the international relations problematic - the irrealist foundations of which were laid down by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. After spelling out the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of the critical realist alternative, it explores the future role of critical realism in the construction of non-violent and democratic world politics, which overcomes the Kantian antimonies and dilemmas of the international problematic. It will be of great interest to all those involved in international relations, peace research and international political economy. Social Sciences Book Cover 1 Title 4 Contents 5 List of illustrations 10 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction 14 Overcoming international relations 32 How it all started? Can it end? A genealogy of the international problematic 34 Learning from Alker: From quantitative peace research to emancipatory humanism 56 How to tell better stories about world politics 83 Explicating a critical realist methodology 110 Critical realist social ontology 112 Double hermeneutics of iconic modelling 136 The normative logic of emancipation 156 Visions of world politics 178 Modelling Thucydides' Melos episode 180 A global security community 206 From security to emancipatory world politics: Beyond 'Nordic nostalgia' 223 Epilogue 250 Bibliography 252 Index 270 After International Relations articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in International Relations. Heikki Patomäki here establishes a way out of the international relations problematic which has puzzled so many great thinkers and scholars for the last two hundred years. After International Relations shows how and why theories based on the international problematic have failed; articulates an alternative, critical realist research programme; and illustrates how this research programme can be put to work to enable better research and ethico-political practices Includes cutting edge contemporary researchEngages with the central debates in IR such as truth, agent-structure problem, level of analysis problem, emancipation and new methodological procedure etc.Author is a highly regarded scholar, who has published widely on IR, and is an important voiceReveals how critical realism CR enables better research and ethnopolitical practices Heikki Patomäki articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in international relations. The author shows how critical realism facilitates better research and ethnopolitical practices Heikki Patomaki articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in international relations. The author shows how critical realism facilitates better research and ethnopolitical practices Every problem, whether practical-political or more theoretical, has a set of presuppositions.