I Never Knew Kenneth Waltz | Rogermacginty

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ROGERMACGINTY

I never knew Kenneth Waltz

International Relations theorist Kenneth Waltz has died and there have been quite a few blog andFacebook tributes to him. I did not know him (though my sympathies go to his family and thosewho did know him), and I dont think I have read much of his work. Im sure some of it was onreading lists when I was an undergraduate or MA student, but I dont have a conscious memoryof using it in my working life as an academic. What interests me is the process through whichparticular individuals are identified as greats in their field and are honoured.

It strikes me that the discipline of International Relations is a fiction (certainly a construction). Itrelies on a cohort of people who believe that there is such a thing as the discipline of InternationalRelations. They have a vested interest in maintaining this shared fiction and so they reinforce it bygoing to the same conferences, reading the same books, citing the same authors, offering courseson it, and using the same terminology. They even have their own argot and abbreviations (notleast IR). This is not to undermine the seriousness and genuineness of their intellectualendeavours. It is instead, it is to point out that International Relations is something of a club. Likemost clubs, there are rules and gatekeepers.

I remember being at the BISA (British International Studies Association) conference in St Andrewssome years ago. The plenary speaker was some big name in the field. Typically, I have forgotten

who it was. But what I do remember was the guy who introduced him saying And if you dontknow who our plenary speaker is then you shouldnt be here. Needless to say, I didnt know whothe plenary speaker was, but I took away the message loud and clear: you dont belong here, ifyou dont conform and join the club, and read the same things that we read, and honour the samepeople that we honour. So, for me, the discipline of International Relations was aboutfollowership, of getting into camps behind leading authors, of appending the word School onto aparticular group of scholars.

The reason I dont have much time for International Relations (despite the fact I have an MA andPhD in it, and am now a Professor of Peace and Conflict studies) is that I have not found it to be 1.very useful or 2. very welcoming. It hasnt been very useful for understanding the sorts of conflictsI am interested in (civil wars) and it certainly hasnt been very welcoming.

Ive sat through a few uncomfortable seminars in which students, dutifully giving their seminarpapers, have cited me: As Mac Ginty says .. I was sitting a few feet away. The thing was, Idont think the students agreed with what I had written. They were just saying it to please me, tokeep on the right side of me. I would have preferred it if they had used their own words andthoughts; if they had have had a go at my writing or added something to it. It was followershipand very depressing. It can be no accident that we call our units of study disciplines. To follow

them we must be disciplined: we must get into line, agree with selected others, cite selected worksetc. This followership (perhaps best expressed in the US tenure system and wasnt tenure

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associated with slavery?) leaves little room for innovation, critique and intellectual dissent.

Over the past few years I have been working on ideas of hybridity and resistance. I have to admitto having only the scantest knowledge of the works of Bourdieu, Foucault, Spivak and de Certeau.Frankly, although their ideas are important, I find their word very difficult to read. Usuallywhenever I give a conference or workshop paper, my fellow panellists or audience members

mention these authors. I used to feel like a fraud, hoping that they wouldnt uncover the fact thatmy knowledge of these people was paper thin. But now Im happy to be a fraud. You see, I havegot myself to similar intellectual positions as Bourdieu, Foucault, Spivak and de Certeau byobserving my daily life, and my very broad reading. I hasten to add that I am in no waycomparing the sophistication of my thinking to the likes of Foucault! Im still messing about withPlay Dough while they were building grand temples. Im merely reflecting that I have been able towork out that the meanings of words matter, that politics is everywhere, and that power is oftenhidden and takes multiple forms without wading through their work in great detail. I have read alittle of it, appreciated it, but have not done the cultish thing of reading everything andobsessively citing them.

Perhaps we need to be less referential (and indeed reverential) to the greats. Obviously we needto be scholarly and cite people when we use their work. But do we have to all cite the same stuff?Where is the law (and it is followed so religiously that Im beginning to think it is a law) that sayswe have to cite Nye, Morgenthau, Kaplan, Keohane etc. Im sure they are/were extraordinarilynice people and excellent teachers and mentors. But I just find it this followership creepy. Are wedoing enough in this discipline to encourage independent thinking, critique, innovation, thebreaking of traditions and boundaries? Of course not. Because that would threaten the fiction thatthere is such a thing as International Relations.

Roger Mac [email protected]

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7 Responses to I never knew Kenneth Waltz

alanbullion 14/05/2013 at 11:53 am #

Good article, as ever!Alan

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Ali Z. Gokpinar 14/05/2013 at 6:20 pm #Reblogged this on Ali Gokpinar.

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Marcel 14/05/2013 at 6:45 pm #Ive asked myself how this International Relations club is different of all other disciplines.

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Darren Atkinson 14/05/2013 at 9:34 pm #This is a really thoughtful post Roger and goes some why to demystifying the academicprocesswho would have thought that not being able to cite and quote everythingimportant authors have written off the top of your head was a problem that afflicted nearlyeveryone? IR does seem to be afflicted with this club mentality for some reason but Impretty sure that most other disciplines have the same issues. For example if you talk aboutnationalism studies without showing at least a passing knowledge of Benedict Anderson then

it appears to bring question marks on your work. Although, funnily enough, in ImaginedCommunities Anderson states that he is heavily influenced by the work of Walter Benjaminand yet he barely quotes him. It appears that he has an overarching appreciation of his workand it has influenced the whole without necessarily being a quote and paste job. I feel thatany aspiring scholar should at least hope that they might write something more akin to IC thanthe numerous journal articles that have come afterwards. Surely its better to aim high and missthan never aim at all?

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rogermacginty 14/05/2013 at 10:50 pm #

Thanks Darren. Yes, that is good advice. I think we probably have one good book in us allrather than 30 good journal articles.Without being too Oprah about it, I think we should also listen to the voices inside us: ourown sentiments, sensibilities, ethics rather than quoting from people because we feel wehave to.Hope all is well in NZ. Look out for my colleague Jen Peterson who is visiting the NationalPeace Centre.

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Darren Atkinson 15/05/2013 at 1:10 am #One book? What about impact Roger? Im not in the family so to speak and yet I
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already despair at the ceaseless attempts to destroy education as an end in itself.

I went to Jens talk the other week but didnt get the chance to say hello. Ill look out forher at the next NPC event.

Ruxandra Stoicescu 15/05/2013 at 7:56 am #Maybe its a question of intellectual memory, rather than citing. These are important authorsand thinkers, we can build on them, as long as we dont repeat in a servile manner. It is ironicand telling that they got to be giants because they werent! However, Theres no point inreinventing the wheel, either.

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