TY - JOUR
AU - Lapid, Yosef
AB - In what has frequently been referred to as the “third debate,” postmodern, postpositivist, critical, feminist, and constructivist scholars who have alternative assumptions about social inquiry and knowledge construction have vigorously challenged conventional scholarship in international studies. Issues of theoretical pluralism, cross-paradigmatic communication, incommensurability, reflexivity, and theory choice have been raised in this discussion but until recently dialogue, as such, has received only indirect and sporadic attention. Presently, however, the rising tide of interest in dialogue concerning social theory seems to have reached the shores of the international relations discipline. Therefore, the present is as good a moment as any to ask the inevitable question: Is this new preoccupation with dialogue yet another metatheoretical diversion (see Moravcsik in this forum)—whereby international relations scholars divert precious and scarce scholarly resources from productive “first order” (for example, empirical) investigations to sterile “second order” navel gazing—or are we witnessing here a potentially important development that may eventually help us leave the isolated intellectual realms into which we have drifted over time? In what follows, this author will argue that the latter is clearly the case. Borrowing from Richard Bernstein (1992), if “flabby” (anything goes) and “fortress-like” (incommensurable) forms of pluralism are the dubious legacies of the third debate and “engaged pluralism” rather than “inevitable synthesis” (Moravcsik, this forum) or even “dialogical synthesis” (Hellmann, this forum) is the most feasible and deserving destination for the international relations theory enterprise in the foreseeable future, then dialogue must figure prominently on our agenda at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The successful harnessing of dialogue as a potential remedy to our long-enduring knowledge problems, however, will necessitate a well-targeted metatheoretical prelude (for example, a reflexive disciplinary dialogue about dialogue) to ensure that this putative “dialogical turn” will itself be genuinely dialogic. Such appears to be the rationale for this symposium. Given this need and this rationale, the present contribution will be limited to four orientational comments addressing the metatheoretical challenge. (1) To begin with, booming popularity across the disciplines has transformed “dialogue” into a weasel word, one that inevitably ends up meaning different things to different people. “Dialogue,” says Nicholas Burbules (2000:252), “represents, to one view or another, a way of reconciling differences; a means of promoting empathy and understanding for others; a mode of collaborative inquiry; a method of critically comparing and testing alternative hypotheses; a form of constructivist teaching and learning; a forum for deliberation and negotiation about public policy differences; a therapeutic engagement of self-and-other exploration; and a basis for shaping uncoerced social and political consensus.” In light of this plurality of meanings, a serious attempt to place dialogue at the heart of the international relations theory enterprise must involve an enhanced ability to differentiate between dialogue and other forms of human communication (for example, debate, discussion, deliberation, and so on) as well as among different forms of dialogue. In other words, a prime objective of this proposed metatheoretical prelude would be to promote a more nuanced understanding of both the epistemological and non-epistemological functions of dialogue in scholarly communication. Iver Neumann's insightful introduction to the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin (1984) in this forum is a first step in this direction. Even so, additional steps are needed to effectively counter, for instance, the implied association of dialogue with synthesis in the title of this symposium. As Friedrich Kratochwil and other contributors aptly point out, the notion that “dialogue and synthesis are all of one cloth,” indeed, deserves serious metatheoretical scrutiny. (2) Moreover, it is important to highlight the distinction between theory, paradigm, and discipline as alternative targets for dialogic enrichment in international relations. The guidelines for this symposium explicitly focus on the “theory-paradigm level.” Although an appropriate focus and much can be gained through reflection on the merits and demerits of establishing sustained dialogues between contending approaches such as critical theory, constructivism, and the English School, for instance, the envisioned metatheoretical prelude would prioritize the disciplinary level. At this level, dialogue calls attention to the way we communicate (or fail to communicate) as a scholarly field. Dialogue resonates well with the definition of a discipline as “a conversational community” and leaves open the possibility that a discipline's communicative ability to impart or share knowledge may be as important as its epistemological ability to produce certified (that is, true) knowledge. Such an approach, in turn, suggests interesting shifts in the metaphors that inform received ways of thinking about scholarly disciplines. “The construct of voice,” says Linda Putnam (2001:42) in her presidential address to the International Communication Association, “reframes the notion of paradigms, theories, and perspectives rooted in ocular metaphors and reified boundaries. By casting the field as multiple voices, rather than incommensurate or fragmented perspectives, we can pursue complimentary understandings through blurring boundaries and engaging in collaborative activities.” Similar ideas are found in Trevor Barnes's (2001) distinction between “epistemological” and “hermeneutic” modes of theorizing. Epistemological theorizing seeks accurate representation and is, therefore, dominated by ocular metaphors. By contrast, hermeneutic “theorizing shuns disembodied vision as a metaphoric blueprint. Rather … it is based on conversation” (Barnes 2001:551). Such ideas also seem well worth pursuing in an effort to overcome (via dialogue) the current field's communicative stasis. David Bohm's (1996:2) depiction of dialogue as “a process of collaborative meaning making” seems particularly promising in this context. The word dialogue, explained the late physicist, comes from the Greek term dia-logos (“meaning-through”) and is best understood as an effort by two or more people to make something new together. In this sense, dialogue is indispensable in any disciplinary effort to transform flabby or fortress-like pluralism into engaged pluralism. For, as Jeffrey Bineham (2000:221) points out, at the level of disciplinary identity, “the central question for a participant in dialogue is this: Can I identify with the whole of the conversation, rather than my piece of it? Can I stand in a commitment to a larger possibility than my own position?” The relevance of these brief observations should be obvious. Andrew Moravcsik complains, for instance, that his critical co-contributors to this forum fail to show openness to theory synthesis. This charge is only partially fair given that all other participants refer explicitly to both dialogue and synthesis, and most leave the door open for synthesis as one type of potentially rewarding, and occasionally possible, intellectual operation. In contrast, in his extended contribution, Moravscik fails to make even a single reference to dialogue. Instead, he reframes the debate as dealing with “whether pluralism … ought to be preserved for its own sake,” a position espoused by none of the participants in this exchange. The pattern recurs in Moravscik's wholesale repudiation of metatheory-driven (as opposed to problem-driven and theory-driven) scholarship as well as in his spirited effort to sharply differentiate scientific and nonscientific discourses despite the miserable failure of all such demarcation efforts—including science's empirical basis, superior rationality, capacity for cumulative progress, objective truth, unique method or ethos, and so on (see, for example, Fuchs 2001:84-86). (3) This brings us to current interest in via media solutions to knowledge problems in international relations. Despite some skeptical and hostile responses elicited by via media-middle ground ideas (see, for example, Adler 1997; Wendt 2000), a more serious discussion of the promise of a “median communicative space” (that is, the notion of a “third way in the third debate”) deserves to be included in the metatheoretical prelude envisioned in these comments. Note, for instance, that the dia prefix recurs in both (dia)logue and via me(dia). Is there an intellectually viable middle ground that carries the promise of dialogue and deliberation (but not necessarily consensus or synthesis) across deeply divisive ontological, epistemological, and axiological lines? The possibility of transcending sterile paradigmatic fragmentation with a carefully fine-tuned third-way heuristic is suggested, for instance, in Erik Doxtader's (2000) insightful elucidation of the enhanced “communicative qualities” of the “middle” in public life. He (Doxtader 2000:362) extends an open invitation to scholars to “find other middles and investigate their communicative qualities.” The international relations scholarly community would be well advised to accept this invitation and proceed with a serious investigation of the middle of the third debate. Frank Harvey and Joel Cobb's skepticism in this forum regarding the merits of this invitation derives, in part, from insufficient attention to this author's explicit focus on the communicative—as opposed to epistemological—qualities of the via media. From a communicative point of view, and with respect to both intra- and inter-paradigmatic differences, the via media should discourage both facile ignoring and dogmatic rejection of other theories and perspectives (see Lapid 2002). Furthermore, the anticipated result of more engaged pluralism should be consistent with both Harvey and Cobb's vision of “multiple middle-grounds across multiple debates” and with Kratochwil's preference for “problem-driven as opposed to approach-driven” analysis. (4) For some time now, there has been dissatisfaction with the “third debate” characterization of the current state of our intellectual transition. Are we still in the third debate or have we moved to a fourth or, perhaps even, a fifth debate? Were we to engage in a successful implementation of a dialogical turn toward engaged pluralism, it would justify fresh proclamations of a new stage in theorizing. Indeed, the scholarly community is well-situated today to take advantage of new intellectual and communicative opportunities offered by a rehabilitated, enlarged, and more frequently visited median space. “Would it not be refreshing,” asks Donald Puchala (2000:142), “if such continuing conversation, and not periodic great debates, become the intellectual mode of International Relations?” Hopefully, the metatheoretical prelude sketched in these comments will help turn Puchala's vision into a reachable goal. References Adler Emanuel . ( 1997 ) Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics . European Journal of International Relations 3 : 319 – 363 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Bakhtin Mikhail . ( 1984 ) Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics . Translated by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . Barnes Trevor J. . ( 2001 ) Retheorizing Economic Geography: From the Quantitative Revolution to the “Cultural Turn” . Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91 : 546 – 565 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Bernstein Richard . ( 1992 ) The New Constellation . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press . Bineham Jeffery L. . ( 2000 ) From Debate to Dialogue: Toward a Pedagogy of Nonpolarized Public Discourse . Southern Communication Journal 65 : 221 . Bohm David . ( 1996 ) On Dialogue . London : Routledge . Burbules Nicholas . ( 2000 ) The Limits of Dialogue as a Critical Pedagogy . In Revolutionary Pedagogies , edited by Trifonas Peter . New York : Routledge Flamer . Doxtader Erik . ( 2000 ) Characters in the Middle of Public Life: Consensus, Dissent, and Ethos . Philosophy and Rhetoric 33 : 336 – 369 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Fuchs Stephan . ( 2001 ) Against Essentialism . Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press . Lapid Yosef . ( 2002 ) Sculpting the Academic Identity: Disciplinary Reflections at the Dawn of a New Millennium . In Visions of International Relations: Assessing an Academic Field , edited by Puchala Donald J. . Columbia : University of South Carolina Press . Puchala Donald J. . ( 2000 ) Marking a Weberian Moment: Our Discipline Looks Ahead . International Studies Perspectives 1 : 142 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Putnam Linda . ( 2001 ) Shifting Voices, Oppositional Discourses, and New Visions for Communication Studies . Journal of Communication 51 : 38 – 51 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Wendt Alexander . ( 2000 ) On the Via Media: A Response to the Critics . Review of International Studies 26 : 165 – 180 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS © 2003 International Studies Review
TI - Through Dialogue to Engaged Pluralism: The Unfinished Business of the Third Debate: The Unfinished Business of the Third Debate
JO - International Studies Review
DO - 10.1111/1521-9488.501019_3
DA - 2003-05-29
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/through-dialogue-to-engaged-pluralism-the-unfinished-business-of-the-c00aR4nQ4R
SP - 1
EP - 131
VL - Advance Article
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -