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Applying Jackson's Methodological Ideal-Types: Problems of Differentiation

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MILLENNIUMJournal of International Studies

Applying JacksonsMethodological Ideal-Types:Problems of Differentiationand Classification

Adam R.C. HumphreysUniversity of Oxford, UK

AbstractIn The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, Patrick Jackson situates methodologies in

International Relations in relation to their underlying philosophical assumptions. One of his aims

is to map International Relations debates in a way that capture[s] current controversies

(p. 40). This ambition is overstated: whilst Jacksons typology is useful as a clarificatory tool,

(re)classifying existing scholarship in International Relations is more problematic. One problem

with Jacksons approach is that he tends to run together the philosophical assumptions which

decisively differentiate his methodologies (by stipulating a distinctive warrant for knowledge

claims) and the explanatory strategies that are employed to generate such knowledge claims,

suggesting that the latter are entailed by the former. In fact, the explanatory strategies which

Jackson associates with each methodology reflect conventional practice in International Relations

just as much as they reflect philosophical assumptions. This makes it more difficult to identify

each methodology at work than Jackson implies. I illustrate this point through a critical analysis

of Jacksons controversial reclassification of Waltz as an analyticist, showing that whilst Jacksons

typology helps to expose inconsistencies in Waltzs approach, it does not fully support the

proposed reclassification. The conventional aspect of methodologies in International Relations

also raises questions about the limits of Jacksons engaged pluralism.

Keywords

Explanation, International Relations theory, methodology

Corresponding author:

Adam R.C. Humphreys, Brasenose College, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Square, Oxford, OX1 4AJ, UK.

Email: [email protected]

MIL0010.1177/0305829812463476Millennium: Journal of International StudiesHumphreys

Forum


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Humphreys 291

Introduction

The significance of Patrick Jacksons The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relationsis

threefold.1Firstly, it is, in its own right, a substantial work of meta-theory which does much

to clarify the kinds of philosophical commitments which might and do underpin alternativemethodological approaches in International Relations (IR). Unlike some other meta-theo-

rists, Jackson resists the temptation to state his preferred methodological stance and demand

that the rest of the discipline implements it, opting rather to explore the range of positions

which can claim support from the philosophy of science. Secondly, it thereby serves to

undermine claims to methodological hegemony. By resisting the discipliningfunction of

the claim to science in IR (9) and, in particular, the equation of neopositivism and scien-

tific acceptability (43), Jackson offers succour to those scholars who are committed to sci-

entific inquiry, but who reject predominant methodological tropes. Thirdly, it offers a basis

on which to identify what methodological claims are at work in IR and to explore theirimpact on substantive inquiry. It is on this third aspect of the book that I focus.

Jackson argues that methodological inquiry in IR tends to neglect what he terms our

hook-up to the world (28), that is, the grounds on which we can claim to have knowledge

of world politics. For him, this is a question of philosophical ontology (28) which is logi-

cally prior to questions of scientific ontology (concerning what objects we believe to exist in

the world), to questions of epistemology (the form of which depend on philosophical-onto-

logical assumptions) and to questions of method (as distinct from methodology). The cor-

nerstone of his argument is that the philosophy of science offers support to a varietyof

claims about our hook-up to the world, and thus a variety of philosophical ontologies, each

of which holds different implications for how we should go about producing factual knowl-

edge about world politics (32). His aim is to map these claims in a way which makes the

systematic reflections found in the philosophy of science accessible to IR scholars and

illuminate[s] discussions within and issues pertinent to IR (33).

Jackson sets about this task by seeking to show how four operational methodologies

in IR (neopositivism, critical realism, analyticism and reflexivity) emerge out of two

wagers about our hook-up to the world. The first wager concerns the relationship of

knower to known and involves a choice between conceiving of knowledge claims as: (a)

corresponding to the world as it is independently of those claims (mindworld dualism);

and (b) providing internally coherent accounts of the ordering of lived reality (mindworld monism). The second wager concerns the limits of knowledge claims and involves

a choice between: (a) limiting those claims to what can be directly or indirectly

experienced (phenomenalism); and (b) allowing them to extend beyond what can be

experienced (transfactualism). Situating IR methodologies in relation to these two

wagers generates the following typology (37):

Phenomenalism Transfactualism

Mindworld dualism Neopositivism Critical Realism

Mindworld monism Analyticism Reflexivity

1. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and

its Implications for the Study of World Politics(London: Routledge, 2011). References appear as page

numbers in parentheses. All emphases in quotes are as in the original text.


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292 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 41(2)

The bulk of The Conduct of Inquiryis concerned with exposition of how these meth-

odologies reflect and draw on their distinctive pairs of philosophical wagers. Jacksons

chief aim is to show that no single approach can exclusively claim the mantle of sci-

ence in IR (189). One strength of his typology, therefore, is that it makes space for

meta-theoretical approaches which are currently marginalised in IR. He criticises neo-positivism and critical realism for making unwarranted claims to methodological

hegemony and asserts the equal claim to scientific validity of reflexivity and of the kind

of analyticist approach he has previously articulated in Civilizing the Enemy.2

Jackson is also concerned to show that philosophy of science can help us to clarify

IR research practices, with an eye towards making them more coherent and potentially

more productive (25). In fact, he maintains that his typology is sufficient to map out the

present diversity of scientific ways of producing knowledge within IR (197). One of the

crucial tests of Jacksons typology is therefore how productively it may be applied to

existing scholarship.When applying Jacksons typology, it is important to recognise that it is a deliberate

over-simplification (37) designed to draw out key features of each methodology. Jackson

maintains neither that all IR scholars fall neatly within one of his quadrants nor that all

methodological debates in IR fall across one of the boundaries. What the typology pro-

vides is an ideal-typical standard against which to compare existing scholarship. That

said, if Jackson is correct in affirming that researchers in IR tend to be insufficiently

explicit about their philosophical assumptions (25, 30), then this is suggestive of some of

the problems likely to be involved in applying his typology.

Such problems are readily apparent from Jacksons own efforts in this regard. Forexample, he classifies Waltz as an analyticist, adding that the relative absence of

controversy over the more widespread reading of Waltz as a neopositivist is testimony to

neopositivisms unreflective dominance in IR (113). Recent debates have, though, also

generated a new characterisation of Waltz as a scientific realist and offered new evidence

for a neopositivist interpretation of his work. These debates illustrate Jacksons point

about the need for greater clarity regarding philosophical assumptions in IR, but they

also reveal how difficult it can be to classify such assumptions with confidence. I con-

tend that while his typology can helpfully bring out inconsistencies in Waltzs approach,

it cannot facilitate a definitive (re)classification of Waltzs methodology. In practice, histypology is much more helpful as a clarificatory than as a classificatory tool.

What underlies these concerns about how Jacksons typology may be applied in IR is

a deeper worry that the contours of particular methodologies in IR owe as much to con-

vention as to wagers in philosophical ontology. In his exposition, Jackson tends to run

together the philosophical assumptions which determine what form knowledge claims

must take and the explanatory strategies used to generate those claims. The two are ana-

lytically separable. Indeed, one feature of methodological debates in IR is precisely

that advocates of particular meta-theoretical approaches tend to assert ownership of

2. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West

(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), especially ch. 2. Critical realists also seek to cre-

ate space for meta-theories other than neopositivism. See Colin Wight and Jonathan Joseph, Scientific

Realism and International Relations, in Scientific Realism and International Relations, eds Colin Wight

and Jonathan Joseph (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), passim.


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Humphreys 293

particular explanatory strategies, even when those strategies are consistent with a range

of meta-theories. Such assertions easily slide into the sorts of unjustified claims to meth-

odological hegemony that Jackson seeks to undermine. Jacksons typology can help us

to unpack these issues, but the results are rather messier than he implies.

My argument therefore proceeds as follows. In the next section, I examine Jacksonsclaims about the relationship between each of his methodologies and the philosophical-

ontological wagers they operationalise, arguing that in IR particular explanatory strate-

gies are conventionally, rather than logically, associated with particular wagers.

Consequently, what fundamentally differentiates Jacksons methodologies is not so

much the explanatory strategies they employ as the ends to which those strategies are

put. I argue that, in practice, this is likely to make classification of existing scholarship

more difficult than Jackson suggests. The subsequent section gives substance to this

contention by showing how it illuminates aspects of Waltzs methodology which work

against a definitive classification. The conclusion considers the broader implications ofthe idea that IR methodologies are conventional complexes of philosophical assumptions

and explanatory strategies.

Unpacking Jacksons Methodologies: Problems of

Differentiation

Although he does not use the terms interchangeably, Jackson never defines the rela-

tionship between philosophical ontologies and methodologies. Instead, he speaks vari-

ously of the philosophical-ontological commitments underpinningeach methodology,of how methodology connectsphilosophical premises and substantive conclusions,

of how each methodology stems from a particular combination of philosophical-

ontological commitments, and of the requirements of research design entailed by

underlying commitments in the realm of philosophical ontology (1967).3 The

resulting ambiguity about which aspects of each methodology are strictly entailed by

philosophical-ontological wagers and which reflect conventional ways in which those

wagers are operationalised in IR permeates the text. This is a significant obstacle to the

application of Jacksons typology to existing scholarship in IR, for it undermines our

ability definitively to link particular methodological moves to underlying philosophi-cal assumptions and thereby to track how those assumptions shape IR debates.

In examining Jacksons specific claims about the relationship between each of his

philosophical ontologies and their associated methodologies, I leave reflexivity to one

side and focus exclusively on neopositivism, critical realism and analyticism.4I do so for

two related reasons. Firstly, despite Jacksons even-handedness, I am not convinced that

many of the researchers likely to fall under his reflexivist label are committed to science

in the way that he suggests. Whereas neopositivists, critical realists and analyticists share

a commitment to generating knowledge of the world (however that is construed), in

3. My italics.

4. I follow Jackson (76) in talking of critical rather than scientific realism. See Wight and Joseph, Scientific

Realism and IR, 17; Fred Chernoff, Critical Realism, Scientific Realism, and International Relations

Theory,Millennium: Journal of International Studies35, no. 2 (2007): 399407.


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Jacksons own account, reflexivists pursue different, if equally important, ends such as

provoking greater self-awareness and self-reflection among researchers and promoting

social change (198, 201).5

Secondly, Jackson employs a Weberian definition of science as empirical inquiry

designed to produce knowledge (19). This enables him simultaneously to acknowledgethat scientific inquiry may be motivated by evaluative judgements but also to insist that

it remains logically distinct from those judgements (1923, 1936). His purpose in

adopting such a definition is to avoid prejudging what counts as good science (19), but

his reliance on Weber creates a curiosity, viz. Weber, as an analyticist, belongs withinone

of the quadrants of Jacksons typology, while the typology itself is presented as an ideal-

type even though ideal-typical analysis is analyticist. This creates a difficulty in captur-

ing reflexive research, for reflexivists are likely to reject Webers sharp distinction

between scientific inquiry and the evaluative judgements in which it is grounded and,

indeed, to want to investigate the content and purpose of such boundaries. This consti-tutes an important challenge to Jacksons enterprise, but not one I can take up here.

Neopositivism

According to Jackson, neopositivist methodological principles include the notion that a

causal connection shows itself in systematic cross-case correlations between specific

factors and the notion that knowledge is constructed through the successive proposing

and testing of hypothetical guesses about the character of the world (41). These princi-

ples clearly reflect neopositivisms philosophical assumptions. Phenomenalism impliesthat all we can know of causation is how its effects are experienced and that all that dis-

tinguishes the experience of causal effects from that of accidental effects is the formers

systematicity. This explains why neopositivists tend to prize empirical regularities and to

interpret causal claims in terms of covariation. Mindworld dualism suggests that any

claim about the world remains no more than a conjecture until it is tested against experi-

ence. Although repeatedly passing hard tests intuitively offers support for what may now

be termed a hypothesis, the problem of induction (of establishing a warrant for believing

that the future will be like the past) means that strictly speaking hypotheses can only ever

be falsified, not verified.It may therefore seem that methodological principles such as search for empirical

regularities, define causal effects in terms of covariation and subject all hypotheses to

repeated tests follow relatively straightforwardly from neopositivist wagers. However,

two problems arise when it comes to definitely identifying neopositivist methodologies

at work: firstly, the search for regularities is not exclusive to neopositivists, who are not

themselves obliged to employ inferential strategies for developing conjectures; and, sec-

ondly, hypothesis-testing may be difficult to differentiate from the means used to evalu-

ate empirical claims within other methodologies.

Given how neopositivists conceive of causation, the search for empirical regularities

is a key task. However, it may be achieved in different ways: Hempels focus on

5. Some critical realists also emphasise such transformative goals. See Heikki Patomki,After International

Relations: Critical Realism and the (Re)Construction of World Politics(London: Routledge, 2002).


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Humphreys 295

empirical laws and King, Keohane and Verbas focus on measuring causal effects are

both means to this end.6Moreover, there is no reason at all why critical realists and ana-

lyticists should not also search for regularities. That search would serve a strictly heuris-

tic, rather than explanatory, function: its purpose would be to identify empirical patterns

that might be worth explaining, rather than to provide a basis for explaining them. Yetthis possibility precludes us from inferring a neopositivist methodology purely from the

search for general laws.7It is only by establishing that such a search is intended to under-

write a claim about covariation-causality that we can identify neopositivism at work. If

critical realists in IR reject all talk of regularities in order to differentiate themselves

from neopositivists, this is a matter of convention, not of necessity. Conversely, although

Jackson contrasts neopositivists inferential strategies for establishing the presence of

causal relationships with the abductive and counterfactual strategies employed by criti-

cal realists and analyticists (42), there is no reason at all why neopositivists cannot use

abductive or counterfactual reasoning as a heuristic tool. Neopositivist commitments inthe realm of philosophical ontology imply nothing about how hypotheses should be

developed: what matters is how they perform when tested.8

Hypothesis-testing is, as Jackson suggests, central to the neopositivist attempt to cross

the putative mindworld gap. If the nature of the enterprise is sufficiently closely specified

(making clear that systematic covariation is intended to ground knowledge claims), then it

would seem to imply a neopositivist methodology: such an enterprise would not make

sense given an alternative set of philosophical-ontological wagers. In practice, however,

hypothesis-testing may be difficult to differentiate from superficially similar enterprises

such as trying ideal-types for size to see whether the causal stories they help to generate fitwith what we think we already know about the world (from within an analyticist methodol-

ogy), or seeking to identify real-world manifestations of an abduced claim about underly-

ing causal powers (from within a critical realist methodology). Jackson is right to emphasise

the logicaldistinctiveness of these endeavours, but unless their place in the explanatory

process is clearly specified, they may not be easy to distinguish in practice.

Critical Realism

Critical realist wagers on mindworld dualism and transfactualism match a common-sense conception of what scientists do: they seek to explain experienced phenomena by

reference to underlying causal powers in a mind-independent world.9 Moreover, as

6. Carl G. Hempel,Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science(New

York: Free Press, 1965); Gary King, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry:

Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

7. For example, Wight accepts that constant conjunctions may reveal laws at work. Colin Wight,Agents,

Structures and International Relations:Politics as Ontology(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2006), 46.

8. Jackson therefore argues, correctly, that the debate about deductive versus inductive explanatory strate-

gies in IR is internal to neopositivism (589).

9. Thus, some critical realists claim that only their approach can explain sciences tangible successes.

See Heikki Patomki and Colin Wight, After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism,

International Studies Quarterly44, no. 2 (2000): 218.


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Jacksons discussion suggests, critical realists in IR employ a distinctive vocabulary of

ontology, unobservables and causal powers. As with neopositivism, the question is

whether this alone is sufficient to distinguish critical realism from other methodologies:

is the distinctiveness of this vocabulary a unique corollary of critical realist wagers in

philosophical ontology or a conventional development within IR? The potential difficul-ties involved in definitively identifying a critical realist methodology at work are readily

apparent from Jacksons discussion of unobservables, social stratification, abduction and

causal complexes.

Critical realism was introduced to IR via Wendts criticism of Waltzs ontologically

reductionist definition of the structure of the international system in terms of the observ-

able attributes of state units. Wendt argued that structure is not just a theoretical label for

how states react to the presence of rivals, but rather exercises real causal power in its own

right, helping to generate state agents as well as to constrain their behaviour.10 This

emphasis on the reality of unobservables such as social structures is a common criticalrealist trope in IR. However, Jackson points out that while electrons may not be directly

observable, the fact that they can be detected with the help of specialist equipment means

that one does not have to be a critical realist to regard them as real (857). Moreover,

instrumentalist approaches may refer even to undetectableunobservables: what divides

critical realists from neopositivists are the grounds for affirming the real existence of the

undetectable unobservables postulated in scientific theories.11 In short, what distin-

guishes a critical realist methodology is not so much a focuson unobservables as a dis-

tinctive belief about the warrant for regarding undetectable unobservables as real.

A similar point applies to critical realist discussion of social stratification and depthontology. Jackson points out that there is nonecessary connection between a picture of

the social world that includes particular layers and levels of social relations, and a philo-

sophical ontology that claims that these various levels and layers are in a mind-

independent sense real things (75). The sense in which critical realism requires the

stratification of reality is that this is what makes possible the idea that we experience

only part of what the world is really like (93). This, in turn, justifies the critical realist

claim to be able to causally explain the constant conjunctions that neopositivists merely

identify.12The key critical realist move, therefore, is the claim that objects have real but

unrealised capacities, including causal powers (98). This follows from philosophical-ontological wagers on dualism and transfactualism: the critical realist claim is that we

can generate knowledge of those properties of the mind-independent world which cannot

be directly experienced (this is what differentiates it from neopositivism). Again, though,

thepracticeof investigating social stratification is not sufficient to identify a critical real-

ist methodology in the absence of more explicitly philosophical-ontological claims about

the end to which that practice is directed.

10. Alexander E. Wendt, The AgentStructure Problem in International Relations Theory, International

Organization41, no. 3 (1987): 33570.

11. See Fred Chernoff, The Ontological Fallacy: A Rejoinder on the Status of Scientific Realism in

International Relations,Review of International Studies35, no. 2 (2009): 384.

12. See Milja Kurki, Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International

Relations Theory,Review of International Studies32, no. 2 (2006): 2015.


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Humphreys 297

According to Jackson, critical realists often rely on abductive explanatory strategies,

that is, reasoning from some puzzling set of observations to a likely explanation of those

observations (83). Such strategies sit comfortably with transfactualism because they

permit reasoning from experienced phenomena to the dispositional properties which

may underpin them. However, abduction can also be used to generate testable conjec-tures, suggesting that it is entirely compatible with the kinds of philosophical-ontologi-

cal assumptions made by neopositivists and other non-realists (88).13 Jackson also

observes that, in contrast to the typical neopositivist focus on isolating potential causal

factors, critical realists prefer to operate with causal complexes, which are used to

account for a specific outcome in all of its specificity (110). Again, this fits comfort-

ably with transfactualism: it involves showing how dispositional properties are in fact

manifested in a particular instance. As an explanatory strategy, though, it may appear

rather similar to an analyticists singular causal analysis, which traces how a number of

factors com[e] together in a case-specific way (147). In short, those explanatory strate-gies whichfit comfortablywith critical realist wagers do not decisively distinguish criti-

cal realism from alternative methodologies in IR in the absence of a further articulation

of the philosophical-ontological commitments which underpin those strategies.

Analyticism

For mindworld monists, it makes no sense to seek to establish the characteristics

(whether systematic or dispositional) of the world as it might be thought to exist indepen-

dently of our engagement with it: our knowledge is necessarily of a world in which weare already ineluctably implicated. What we cando is to order and interpret, and thereby

make sense of, understand and explain, experienced phenomena. Analyticist commit-

ments to monism and phenomenalism therefore dictate that knowledge claims offer a

disciplined ordering of the facts of experience (114).

Jackson argues that analyticist science, properly understood, must terminate in a

case-specific narrative (152). He reasons as follows. Bringing order to the experienced

world requires the instrumental oversimplification of complex, actual situations (142).

This is achieved by developing ideal-types which model some of the relevant features

of the object or process under investigation (1467), thereby providing a conceptualbaseline in terms of which actual outcomes can be comprehended (144). Because it is an

artificially simple and purely logical instrument, it makes no sense to test an ideal-type

(in a neopositivist sense), or to ask whether it captures real causal powers (in a critical

realist sense). An ideal-type can only be evaluated pragmatically, by asking whether it

reveals intriguing and useful things about the objects to which it is applied (146). This

requires comparing the ideal-type to what actually happened, and responding to discrep-

ancies by either reformulating the ideal-type or adducing situationally specific reasons

why the observed outcome in that case was not what the model ideal-typically envisions

13. See Jrg Friedrichs and Friedrich Kratochwil, On Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism Can Advance

International Relations Research and Methodology, International Organization 63, no. 4 (2009):

70131.


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(147). The resulting account is explanatory in the sense that it constitutes a case-specific

narrative about how and why something came about as it did.

Jackson provides a persuasive case that the use of ideal-types and the development of

case-specific narratives is consistent with, and perhaps even required by, analyticist

wagers on philosophical ontology. However, as we have seen, a focus on developingsingular causal analyses is not distinctive to analyticism. Not only is critical realism

oriented towards this kind of analysis (because dispositional properties can emerge in

different ways in different contexts), but there is also nothing to preclude neopositivists

from developing case-specific narratives through process-tracing.14Moreover, although

Jackson argues that ideal-types are distinguished by being strictly neither true nor false,

but rather instrumentally useful (146), the same might be said of a neopositivist theory:

the question is not whether it captures how the world really works (a realist endeavour),

but whether it accurately predicts useful features of the phenomenal world. As with neo-

positivism and critical realism, what distinguishes an analyticist methodology is not somuch the explanatory strategies it employs as the warrant it offers for the knowledge

claims thus generated.

Philosophical Ontologies and Methodologies

This brief review has highlighted three aspects of how philosophical-ontological wagers

play out in IR. Firstly, explanatory strategies which fit comfortably with the wagers that

underpin each methodology may nevertheless also be compatible with other methodolo-

gies, at least when employed heuristically. This is true of the neopositivists search forempirical regularities, the critical realists use of abduction and the analyticists develop-

ment of singular causal analyses. Secondly, what may be conventionally regarded as

distinctive characteristics of each methodology may not in fact be sufficient decisively to

differentiate it from other methodologies. For example, although analyticist reasoning is

inherently instrumental, neopositivist theories may also be instrumental, if in a some-

what different way. Thirdly, some practices may be difficult to distinguish in the absence

of further articulation of the ends to which they are put.15For example, critical realists

and analyticists may both refer to causal complexes, even if the resulting knowledge

claims are differently construed.All this suggests that the contours of each methodology in IR are not wholly entailed

by wagers in philosophical ontology. Indeed, it may be better to think of methodologies

as conventional complexesof philosophical wagers, explanatory strategies and perhaps

methods. Philosophical assumptions articulate the warrant for knowledge claims and

hence determine what form such claims must take (e.g., critical realist assumptions sug-

gest that explanatory claims should identify the dispositional properties and powers

14. See Andrew Bennett and Alexander L. George, Case Studies and Process Tracing in History and Political

Science: Similar Strokes for Different Foci, inBridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists,

and the Study of International Relations, eds Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman (Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press, 2001), 13766.

15. Jackson himself, drawing on Dewey, emphasises the importance of clarity about ends (33).


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Humphreys 299

which produce experienced phenomena). Within the context of those assumptions,

explanatory strategies constitute distinct ways of tackling problems: possibilities include

the inferential, abductive and counterfactual modes of reasoning that Jackson discusses,

as well as strategies such as cross-case comparison and singular causal analysis. These

strategies then determine which more specific methods (such as regression analysis)might be appropriate.16If so, then there is nothing necessary about how philosophical

wagers are operationalised in IR: neopositivist, critical realist and analyticist methodolo-

gies in IR are complexes of assumptions, strategies and methods which fit comfortably

together, but which are linked as much by convention as by logic.

Conceiving of methodologies in this way brings out two features of how philo-

sophical wagers are operationalised in IR which speak directly to the utility of

Jacksons typology. Firstly, if methodologies are conventional complexes of philo-

sophical assumptions and explanatory strategies, then the former do not entail the

latter: philosophical assumptions determine not which explanatory strategies areappropriate, but rather the endsto which they are put. Secondly, any choice of explan-

atory strategy will therefore be shaped not only by philosophical-ontological wagers,

but also by what we are interested in, by the scope and extent of our current knowl-

edge about it, and by conventional practices within specific research traditions. In

short, while certain explanatory strategies may conventionally be associated with par-

ticular methodological traditions in IR, what fundamentally differentiates those tradi-

tions is not how they set about answering particular questions, but rather the kinds of

knowledge claims they seek to generate.

Two practical difficulties are therefore likely to accompany efforts to applyJacksons typology in IR. Firstly, philosophical-ontological wagers cannot be inferred

backwards from explanatory strategies: in order to definitively identify a methodology

at work, we need to identify the end to which inquiry is directed. The fact that someone

searches for covariation, discusses unobservables or employs counterfactual reasoning

is not sufficient to identify them as a neopositivist, a critical realist or an analyticist,

respectively.17Secondly, we are therefore heavily reliant on what researchers actually

sayabout the warrant for knowledge claims, including their conception of causation.

This may be problematic because Jackson observes that methodological pronounce-

ments cannot necessarily be taken at face value. He notes, for example, that someanalyticists erroneously persist in using the language of hypothesis-testing and gener-

alization to describe what they are doing while they are in fact crafting analytical nar-

ratives (115) and that neopositivist discussion of causal mechanisms often employs

critical realist language (109). This adds to the potential importance of his attempt to

reconstruct these methodologies, but it also exacerbates the challenges we face in

applying his typology for clarificatory and classificatory purposes.

16. While I accept Jacksons differentiation of methodology from methods (25), my argument does not

depend on drawing a hard line between explanatory strategies and methods.

17. Even if philosophical assumptions did entail particular explanatory strategies, it would not follow from

this that the reverse was also true. The issue here, however, is as much practical as logical, viz. how, in

practice, can methodologies be differentiated?


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A Caveat Concerning the Distinctiveness of Jacksons Philosophical-

Ontological Wagers

Before considering how these issues play out in interpretations of Waltzs methodology,

it is worth mentioning one further reason why the relationship between philosophical-ontological wagers and methodologies in IR may be less straightforward than Jackson

implies, viz. even his wagers are in some respects less distinctive than he suggests. If we

regard neopositivism as empiricist, limiting knowledge to what can be directly observed,

treat analyticism as a form of global anti-realism in which it is by definition impossible

to access a world beyond the language required to describe it, and regard critical realism

as asserting our ability to know the reality of a world beyond both language and observa-

tion, then it is easy to see how they differ. Yet these are caricatures. As Chalmers puts it,

no serious contemporary philosopher holds that we can come face to face with reality

and directly read off facts about it.18

Once we allow that experience itself is theory-laden, in the sense that it is mediated and active rather than unmediated (60), the posi-

tions begin to look less distinctive.19Jackson is not himself guilty of employing such

caricatures, yet his ideal-typical set-up does tend to highlight differences rather than

similarities. It is therefore worth considering whether the boundaries between his

philosophical-ontological wagers might be fuzzy. Although I can do no more here than

to identify them, important questions arise in respect of both the boundary between

neopositivism and critical realism and that between neopositivism and analyticism.

In regard to the former, an important issue is whether we can really draw a hard dis-

tinction between the observational knowledge which neopositivists regard as secure andthe knowledge of real underlying properties and dispositions which they reject but which

critical realists accept.20Indeed, one might ask to what extent neopositivists differ from

critical realists over realismat all.21Popper regarded himself as a realist (as opposed to

an instrumentalist) in the sense that he believed that science sought a true theory or

description of the world.22What he rejected is the idea that knowledge can be more than

conjectural.23Yet critical realists commitment to ontological realism (the idea that

science can in principle tell us what the world is really like) is matched by a commitment

to epistemological relativism (the idea that whatever we currently believe the world is

like is subject to future revision).24If we removed the distinctively critical realist vocab-

ulary, how many neopositivists would disagree?

Popper recognised that all observation statements are interpretations in the light of

some theory.25An important issue in respect of the boundary between neopositivism and

analyticism is therefore whether there is really a clear line between testing how

18. A.F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 3rd edn (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 1999), 228.

19. This is why Jackson speaks of phenomenalism rather than empiricism. See also Patomki,After IR, 9.

20. See Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 233.

21. According to Wight, the question is not whether to be a realist, but of what kind (Wight, Agents,

Structures and IR, 26). See also Chernoff, The Ontological Fallacy, 388.22. Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 3rd edn (London:

Routledge, 2002), ch. 3. See Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?,23841.

23. Bryan Magee,Popper(London: Fontana, 1973), 26.

24. See Patomki,After IR, 8; Wight,Agents, Structures and IR, 39.

25. Magee,Popper, 33.


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Humphreys 301

knowledge claims correspond to the world, as dualists prescribe, and exploring how they

cohere with what we already believe we know about the world, as analyticists prescribe.

In all three philosophical ontologies, the test of scientific knowledge is whether it works.

For analyticists, there can be nothing else: scientific knowledge is knowledge of what

works in a world in which we are ineluctably implicated. Neopositivists such as Popperare committed, in principle, to revealing how the world really is, but focus in practice on

what works. Critical realists justify the claim that science can reveal how the world really

is by pointing out that science works. This is not to deny that the distinct sense each

methodology gives to the notion of what works is grounded in precisely the philosophi-

cal assumptions that Jackson identifies. It is, though, to suggest that some of the practical

difficulties likely to be involved in distinguishing between individual methodologies as

they are employed in IR may derive in part from the fact that even the philosophical

wagers which underpin them are in some respects less distinctive than Jackson

indicates.

Applying Jacksons Ideal-Types: Classifying Waltz

One of the most striking features of Jacksons own attempt to apply his methodological

ideal-types in IR is his classification of Waltz as an analyticist. He offers two main

grounds for this view. Firstly, he observes that Waltzs discussion of the nature of theory

involves a rejection of the sharp distinction between theory and empirical reality upheld

by neopositivists and a distinctly instrumental view of theoretical constructs that is

incompatible with critical realism (113). Secondly, he notes Waltzs claim that neoreal-ism should deal with apparently discrepant evidence by adducing case-specific fac-

tors that interact or interfere with the structural imperative of balancing power (113) and

argues that his model of the international system is best understood as an ideal-type

(14950).

Jackson adds an important element to recent discussions of Waltzs methodology by

focusing not only on what Waltz says about the nature of theory, but also on how he

applies his theory. However, I identify two problems with Jacksons analysis: firstly,

Waltzs methodological pronouncements offer at least some support to readings of him

as a neopositivist, a critical realist and an analyticist; and, secondly, there is in fact anotable disjunction between what Waltz says and what he does, a disjunction which

Jacksons typology can help to expose, but which Jackson himself rather neglects.

Waltzs Methodological Pronouncements

In making the case that Waltzs pronouncements on the nature of theory identify him as

an analyticist, Jackson cites (11213) a notorious passage from the opening of Theory of

International Politics:

If a theory is not an edifice of truth and not a reproduction of reality, then what is it? A theory

is a picture, mentally formed, of a bounded realm or domain of activity. A theory is a depiction

of the organization of a domain and of the connections among its parts. The infinite materials

of any realm can be organized in endlessly different ways. A theory indicates that some factors


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are more important than others and specifies relations among them. Theory isolates one

realm from all others in order to deal with it intellectually.

He also cites briefer passages to the effect that theories construct areality, but no one

can ever say it is thereality, and that they should be evaluated in terms of whether theyconvey a sense of the unobservable relations of things and provide connections and

causes by which sense is made of things observed (113).26He infers from these pas-

sages, firstly, that Waltz rejects neopositivisms categorical distinction between theory

and reality and, secondly, that for Waltz, the purpose of theory is not, as it would be for

critical realists, to reveal real-but-unobservable components of the world, but is instead

to order the complex chaos of empirical reality into more comprehensible and manage-

able forms (113).

An immediate problem is that Wver and Joseph cite the same passages in support of

their respective identifications of Waltz as a scientific realist and as a neopositivist.27

Wvers argument is, firstly, that Waltz searches for non-observable mechanisms which

are always present latently but only sometimes materialise and, secondly, that Waltz

rejects a positivist view of theory as a set of testable axioms, instead regarding it as a

picture which is applied by assessing its correspondence to actual features of the observed

domain.28Josephs argument is that while Waltz strongly distinguishes between theories

and laws, and hence regards the development of theories as a creative (mental) act, there

is nothing in that which distinguishes his approach from that of contemporary neoposi-

tivist philosophers of science who recognised the limits of a more narrowly inductive

approach.29

This suggests that the passages Jackson cites are not sufficient to ground a compelling

classification of Waltz as a neopositivist, critical realist or analyticist. Other aspects of

Waltzs methodological discussion suggest a similar conclusion. For example, his state-

ment that [t]heories explain laws sounds neopositivist, but his contention that we need

theories [i]n order to get beyond the facts of observation might equally be interpreted

in a critical realist sense. Meanwhile, his statement that [a] theory, though related to the

world about which explanations are wanted, always remains distinct from that world

could be accepted by adherents of all three methodologies.30

We face similar problems when we turn to neorealism itself. A neopositivist could

interpret Waltz as developing a theoretical explanation of the recurrent formation of bal-

ances of power, citing in support his insistence that assumptions are unrealistic and his

emphasis on testing many hypotheses.31A critical realist could interpret Waltz as mod-

elling a structure possessing real causal powers, citing in support his claim that

26. The passages are from Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics(New York: McGraw-Hill,

1979), 89.

27. Ole Wver, Waltzs Theory of Theory, International Relations23, no. 2 (2009): 206, 209; Jonathan

Joseph, Is Waltz a Realist?,International Relations24, no. 4 (2010): 481.

28. Wver, Waltzs Theory of Theory, 204, 206, 211.

29. Joseph, Is Waltz a Realist?, 4803.

30. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 6.

31. Ibid., 119, 124.


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Humphreys 303

[s]tructures are causes, but not in the sense meant by saying that Acauses Xand B

causes Y, and his emphasis on explaining how states are disposed to react rather than

how they actually behave.32An analyticist could interpret Waltz as developing a deliber-

ately oversimplified model of the international system designed to illuminate certain key

features, citing in support his suggestion that we might compare features of the observeddomain with the picture the theory has limned.33

One reason for this ambiguity is that the enterprise of theory construction is, mutatis

mutandis, consistent with all three methodologies. Jacksons wagers concern the explan-

atory purposes to which theories are put, including the kinds of knowledge claims they

can generate, not the process of theory-building itself. Yet, for all the variety of claims

that can be cited in support of one or another interpretation of his methodology, Waltz in

fact says very little about the warrant for any knowledge claims that might be generated

by his theory. We are therefore forced to try to inferhis philosophical assumptions from

his broader work, an inherently problematic task. A further reason for the ambiguity isthat Waltzs methodological pronouncements exhibit some prima facie inconsistencies.

For example, he states that though balance-of-power theory offers some predictions, the

predictions are indeterminate, acknowledges the consequent obstacles to falsifying the

theory, and yet still holds out the possibility of devising tests that confirm.34It is hard

to accommodate this set of principles within any of Jacksons methodologies.

Joseph acknowledges that elements of Waltzs statements appear to support alterna-

tive readings and rests his classification of Waltz as a neopositivist largely on the fact that

Waltzs methodological discussions reproduce many elements of the debates taking

place among contemporary neopositivist philosophers of science.35

This highlights animportant indirect means of applying Jacksons ideal-types: we may be able to identify

distinctive features of the kinds of methodological debates in which researchers engage,

even if their own statements are unclear.36That said, Waltzs lack of clarity remains strik-

ing for a work that is often identified as an exemplar of neopositivist scholarship in IR.

Given that Waltz dedicates a whole chapter of Theory of International Politicsto meth-

odological issues, his ambiguity offers support for Jacksons complaints about the philo-

sophical naivety of IR, even if it also makes it difficult to apply Jacksons methodological

ideal-types for classificatory purposes.

Waltzs Applications of His Theory

The second part of Jacksons case for classifying Waltz as an analyticist rests on

Waltzs distinctly instrumental view of theoretical constructs (113). However, it is

unclear what Waltz means when he says that theories construct areality, but no one

32. Ibid., 74, 124.

33. Ibid., 123.

34. Ibid., 1234.

35. Joseph, Is Waltz a Realist?, 4836.

36. Goddard and Nexon employ this mode of reasoning to ground a structural functionalist interpretation of

Waltzs methodology. Stacie E. Goddard and Daniel H. Nexon, Paradigm Lost? Reassessing Theory of

International Politics,European Journal of International Relations11, no. 1 (2005): 961.


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can ever say that it is thereality. Is he, as Jackson suggests, laying out a monist view

in which it makes no sense to ask about the correspondence between theory and real-

ity, or is he, in Popperian fashion, emphasising both the sense in which observation

is theory-laden and the provisionality of the knowledge that theories generate?

Whichever view we take, it is important to recognise that instrumentalism is consist-ent not only with analyticism, but also with neopositivism. Indeed, Waltzs own

account of why he assumes that states seek to survive might be drawn directly from

Milton Friedman:

The assumption is a radical simplification made for the sake of constructing a theory. The

question to ask of the assumption, as ever, is not whether it is true but whether it is the most

sensible and useful one that can be made. Whether it is a useful assumption depends on whether

a theory based on the assumption can be contrived, a theory from which important consequences

not otherwise obvious can be inferred.37

Waltzs instrumentalism is therefore not sufficient to identify him as an analyticist in the

absence of further specification of the instrumental ends to which his theory is put.

Jackson seeks to provide that further specification in his contention that Waltzs model

of the international system should be understood as an ideal-type. However, there are

several problems with this argument. Firstly, Waltz neither employs the vocabulary of

ideal-types nor undertakes anything resembling Jacksons process for developing an

ideal-type (1445). Secondly, he makes no effort to lay out how case-specific factors

might be adduced to deal with discrepant evidence. Although he argues that in multipolar

systems, structural imperatives may be undermined by factors such as ideological pref-

erence, the pull of previous ties, diplomacy and the need to be attractive in person-

ality and policy, such arguments are neither a systematic feature of his work, nor

presented in the manner that Jacksons exposition of analyticism suggests they should be

(14951).38 Thirdly, he does not, except in passing, develop case-specific narratives.

Notwithstanding Jacksons proviso about divisions of labour (152), we must surely allow

that if Waltz is indeed an analyticist, he fails to follow through on that methodology with

any consistency.

If classifying Waltz as an analyticist is more problematic than Jackson suggests,

such arguments do help to draw out elements of Waltzs approach that may be lost inthe uncritical presumption that he is a neopositivist. One such inconsistency is the

disjunction between Waltzs rhetoric about theory-testing and how he applies his the-

ory in practice. Waltzs brief discussions of theory-testing provide the most powerful

evidence for a neopositivist reading of his methodology: the closest he comes to articu-

lating a warrant for knowledge claims is his insistence that testing theories always

means inferring expectations, or hypotheses, from them and testing those expectations

and his specification of seven steps for performing such tests.39 Yet, when in later

37. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 91. See Milton Friedman, The Methodology of Positive

Economics, inEssays in Positive Economics(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1953).

38. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 1646, 176.


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Humphreys 305

chapters he explores what he terms the economic and military effects of the way in

which the international political system is structured, he does not perform such tests.

He examines empirical developments through what we might regard as a neorealist

lens, emphasising the importance of differentiating between greater and lesser powers

in thinking about interdependence and the importance of polarity in thinking aboutsystem stability, but the practice certainly does not match the rhetoric.40

Just as Waltzs practice is inconsistent with his own demands about theory-testing, so

he also fails to implement the explanatory practices that Jackson associates with analyti-

cism. Nevertheless, his empirical discussions do draw on his definition of structure in a

manner not wholly dissimilar to what Jackson describes in his exposition of analyticism,

viz. he uses his conception of structure as a means of helping to make sense of and give

some order to the complexity of international politics. His implicit claim is not that neo-

realism can generate useful predictions, but rather that it provides a way of thinking

which can help to tease out features of the international system and of state behaviourwithin it (such as the tendency of balances of power to form whether individual states

intend to balance or not) which might otherwise prove difficult to understand. Jacksons

interpretation of Waltz as an analyticist highlights this aspect of Waltzs work, even if it

is ultimately hard to square with what look like distinctively neopositivist pronounce-

ments on theory-testing.

Waltz is not an outlier: his work lies at the heart of the discipline of IR, demon-

strating continued relevance both as the godfather of an ongoing and still influential

structural realist research programme and as the other in relation to which so many

critical approaches in IR define themselves. Jacksons questioning of the widespreadand often uncritical interpretation of his work as (neo)positivist is therefore sugges-

tive of the possibilities for more nuanced philosophical and methodological debates

within the discipline. That said, for all Jacksons own provocative identification of

Waltz as an analyticist, in this case his typology is far more useful as a clarificatory

than as a classificatory device. What his typology contributes to inquiry into Waltzs

methodology is primarily a framework against which to expose Waltzs own lack of

clarity, and perhaps inconsistency, concerning the philosophical warrant for what-

ever knowledge claims his theory helps to produce.41 Its force does not lie in its

ability to tidy up the discipline by (re)classifying existing scholarship, but in thegrounds it affords for arguing that researchers can and should be clearer about their

methodological assumptions and in its demonstration that in being clearer, neoposi-

tivism is not the only option.

39. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 13, 123. These steps reflect standard neopositivist procedure.

See Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1991), 51.

40. See Adam R.C. Humphreys, Another Waltz? Methodological Rhetoric and Practice in Theory ofInternational Politics,International Relations, forthcoming (2013).

41. This is in keeping with Jacksons own observation that, in many cases, reconstructing theargument of a

scholarly work along methodological lines is quite impossible, because the work contains several differ-

ent arguments that rest on philosophically divergent bases (208).


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Conclusion

In his conclusion, Jackson insists that his methodologies name four different ways in

which scientific research can unfold, not four different self-conscious research traditions

or schools of thought within the IR field (207). If his point is to preclude his methodolo-gies from being mistaken for substantive IR theories, this is most sensible. However, if

his point is that their content is entailed by their distinctive philosophical-ontological

wagers, then this cannot be accepted. A footnote to his discussion of neopositivism states

that while in principle another methodology could inhabit the quadrant of his typology

formed by the intersection of dualism and phenomenalism, in practice neopositivism

seems to have cornered that market, at least in IR. The same applies to each of the other

three quadrants: Jackson analyses the methodology which most clearly illustrates what

a particular combination of philosophical-ontological wagers means for IR research, in

part because there is actual IR scholarship utilizing that methodology (219, note 4). Inshort, what he analyses are the conventional complexes of philosophical assumptions

and explanatory strategies which have been and are employed (more or less explicitly) in

IR. This is confirmed by his insistence that typologies such as his should take their bear-

ings from the existing contrasts and distinctions that active IR scholars in fact draw in

their work (34).

If Jackson largely succeeds in producing a mapping of philosophical ontologies that

will be of use to IR scholars (32), it is quite another thing to suggest that his typology

can straightforwardly be used to map IR itself, despite his aspiration that it should cap-

ture current controversies within IR (40).42I believe that we should be sceptical about

the prospects for tidying up the discipline with respect to its philosophical assumptions,

or about any claim to definitively (re)classify existing scholarship. Jacksons typology is

best treated as a clarificatory tool: a set of ideal-types against which to compare existing

practices in IR and with which to highlight salient methodological features, including

notable silences and inconsistencies.

One such way in which Jacksons discussion is likely to prove fertile is that it provides

a basis for identifying which methodological debates researchers are engaging in, even

where they are, like Waltz, unclear or inconsistent in their own assumptions. Indeed, I

contend that it is Waltzs engagement in debates around the limits of induction, the need

for creativity in developing theoretical ideas and competing approaches to theory-testingthat,paceJackson, reveals his neopositivist affinities most strongly. Situating research-

ers such as Waltz in their methodological contexts also makes space for the idea that

extant methodologies in IR are really conventional constellations of philosophical

assumptions and explanatory strategies. If no one explanatory strategy (or set of strate-

gies) is strictly entailed by particular wagers, then the debates in which a researcher

engages and the range of explanatory strategies which he or she even considersemploy-

ing may provide our best clue as to his or her understanding of the ultimate warrant for

knowledge claims about world politics. In short, even where we cannot definitively

42. Jackson argues, drawing on Dewey, that a typology should be evaluated in terms of the ends it is intended

to serve (33), but I am not convinced that these two ends (mapping debates in the philosophy of science

and mapping IR) are wholly consistent.


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Humphreys 307

classify a researcher as a neopositivist, a critical realist or an analyticist, we can still

meaningfully debate whether he or she soundsmore like one than another and thereby

shed light on existing methodological conventions within the field.

This element of conventionality in Jacksons methodological ideal-types requires

more development than he provides. If other methodologies are indeed consistent witheach pair of wagers, then it would be helpful to know how they differ from those which

conventionally occupy each of these spaces in IR. It will also be important to expose

to critical scrutiny any claim that research needs to proceed in a particular way.

Methodologies in IR are too often presented as if they provide all-encompassing

accounts of what explanation consists in, of the proper warrant for whatever knowl-

edge claims are generated and of the relevant explanatory strategies and methods. Such

claims exhibit an element of ideology, suggesting that there is no alternative.43

Jacksons typology provides a basis for exposing the ideological element of such

claims. For example, if identifying Waltz as a neopositivist is less straightforward thanis often suggested, then what interests are served by the uncritical presumption that he

is a neopositivist? If his classification as a neopositivist seems to provide a necessary

other for critical approaches to reject, then this sheds important light on the discipli-

nary dynamics that may be at work.44

This, in turn, suggests an important limit to the engaged pluralism (207) that Jackson

advocates. He claims to have demonstrated that science in IR is irreducibly pluralist,

fully capable of being articulated in at least four different varieties (189). The warrant for

this conclusion is our inability to adjudicate the merits of the competing philosophical-

ontological wagers which underpin each of his methodologies except from within a pointof view which itself reflects some such wagers. Yet what this implies, strictly speaking,

is only a pluralism about philosophical assumptions and not about methodologies in the

round, that is, not about the explanatory strategies that are conventionally associated

with those assumptions in IR. The kind of methodological pluralism which constitutes an

appropriate response to the fact that multiple wagers receive support in the philosophy of

science does not transpose directly to the constellations of explanatory strategies with

which those wagers may be conventionally associated in IR.

Three important thoughts follow from this. Firstly, some explanatory strategies

really may be better or worse at helping us to answer particular questions and this issomething that we can and should debate. Secondly, we should, nonetheless, adopt a

critical attitude to any claim that a particular explanatory strategy represents the best or

only way to approach a particular problem. This applies especially where such claims

reflect conventional wisdom, for it is only by debating the merits of those methodologi-

cal practices which have become conventional that we make space for active considera-

tion of what the alternatives may be. Thirdly, to the extent that choices between

43. See, for example, King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, 4: All good research can be

understood indeed, is best understood to derive from the same underlying logic of inference.

44. Jacksons own willingness to re-engage long-standing debates about Waltzs methodology might prompt

us to ask what is at stake in his reclassification of Waltz as an analyticist. Is he attempting to co-opt Waltz

the analyticist in support of his contention that methodologies other than neopositivism and critical real-

ism are entitled to be regarded as forms of scientific inquiry in IR?


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Documents

Millennium Journal of International Studies 2013 Humphreys 290 308