Robert Keohane -- IR

Question 1

Keohane quote 2008

Answer 1

“I define politics as involving attempts to organize human groups to determine internal rules and externally to compete and cooperate with other organized groups; and reactions to such attempts.”

Question 2

Robert Keohane

Answer 2

• Representatives of (neo-)liberal institutionalism
  –More compatible w the idea of science
• “Power and Interdependence” (1977) (published w/ Nye, to bring interdependence. Back in and attack those of power)
• “After Hegemony” (Keohane, 1984)
• Very influential people in IR…bit of villain
• Wanted to push liberal agenda

Question 3

Keohane meaning in : “The greatest weakness of the reflective school lies (…) in the lack of a clear reflective research program (…). Until the reflective scholars or others sympathetic to their arguments have delineated such a research program & shown in particular studies that it can illuminate important issues of world polotics, they will remain on the margins of the field (…)
(1988)

Answer 3

• He wants IR to be a science, in 1988 he was president at the conference
  –“reflective school” – he called it
  – You can be part of IR but you have to do studies that prove that your studies are better than what we have —have to have research program but critical scholars don’t believe in that & if they did do that they wouldn’t be critical scholars—therefore they lose their main focus====this is the 1980s and where it kinda begins (critical scholars & feminism)
• Lots of fighting, lots going on
• For critical scholars only produce ideology, the world isn’t how they assume

Question 4

how Keohane desdcribed

Rationalist approaches

Answer 4

assumption of actors (organizations/ individuals/ etc) they do what’s in their interests

o Inspiration from rational-choice theory & statistics in economics
–Act to minimize their assets
–Economics also inspirational

o The key units are rational agents who seek to maximize utility

o Theories are detached from an objective world that they explain (world-knowledge dualism)
–There’s a world out there and our theories here, there’s no connection b/w the 2

o Positivism: knowledge is acquired by empirically testing or generating theories to provide “useful” answers

Question 5

how Keohane desdcribed

Reflectivist Approaches

Answer 5

o Inspiration from social theory, philosophy, & sociology (main sources)

o The social whole explains political practices & their meaning
–Interpret what the particular actions mean in society/society is first

o Theories are intertwined w/ the social world; both reflect & shape it (world-knowledge monism)
–Reflect -think of Cox- from particular position in society = particular questions
–Effect-reflect on society
–Can’t separate knowledge and the world

o Post-positivism: knowledge means reflecting on how the social world & understandings of it are linked