Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts

Bueger, Christian; Bethke, Felix S.

doi:10.1057/jird.2012.30

Cited by 69 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…ANT offers, in essence, a “search and find” strategy that encourages us to look elsewhere than we usually do. This type of research is especially productive if we are faced with innovations, new objects or concepts (Bueger and Bethke ), or in research fields in which a priori categories have become unproductive. For example, in the study of international organizations, ANT provides a toolbox for studying informal politics, analyzing situations in which actors refuse to comply with the identities that conventional models prescribe for them or where organizations experiment with new forms of governance that escape categories such as public/private, state/nonstate, or science/politics.…”

Section: Methodology and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization

Bueger

2013

Int Polit Sociol

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Section: Methodology and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization

Bueger

2013

Int Polit Sociol

Self Cite

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“…Empirically, this perspective has been applied to issues such as international security (Aradau 2010;Schouten 2014), state failure (Schouten 2013), practices of torture (Austin 2016) and the use of concepts in the academic discipline of IR (Bueger and Bethke 2014). At the same time, Michel Callon's more recent work has sparked a wave of new research in International Political Economy on the performative role played by economic theories and models in the configuration of markets and economic agents (Braun 2016).…”

Section: Actor-network Theory: Agency As Agencementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking agency in International Relations: performativity, performances and actor-networks

2018

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Abstract:The academic discipline of International Relations (IR) has long pondered the questions of what it means to act in international politics and who can do so. However, the particular way in which IR has approached the problem of agency has somewhat masked important dynamics in international politics. By approaching the question of agency as an analytical problem that needs to be resolved before engaging with empirical material, IR has failed to see that who can act is often uncertain and contested. This special issue examines the emergence of international agency as an empirical phenomenon. Rather than analysing what given agents do, the contributions study how practices, performances and networks create and transform agency. In this introductory article, we prepare the ground for this distinct approach to studying international politics. We review how IR has addressed the problem of agency, and we discuss three social-theoretical traditions that see agency as an emergent phenomenon: poststructuralism, performance studies and actor-network theory. Finally, we highlight four insights that emerge from the contributions and challenge how IR has traditionally imagined agency.

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“…Bruno Latour developed another account of assemblage thinking in Reassembling the Social in which he conceptualizes the social as networked interactions or, in his words, ‘a very peculiar movement of re‐association and reassembling’ (2005, p. 7). Rooted in Actor‐Network‐Theory (ANT) or the sociology of translation, Latourian assemblage thinking reflects the journey of ANT from the early generation of studies on science and the production of scientific ‘facts’ to a broader focus including research on how law is made, the state and financial markets in that they share key principles (Bueger and Bethke, , p. 35; Merlingen, ). Pertaining to assemblage, these are the notion of the generalized symmetry and anti‐dualism, a relational ontology, and the concept of translation.…”

Section: Towards a New Conceptual Approach To Eu Mediationmentioning

confidence: 99%

EU Mediation as an Assemblage of Practices: Introducing a New Approach to the Study of EU Conflict Resolution

Brandenburg

2017

J of Common Market Studies

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This article introduces a new approach to the study of EU mediation and conflict resolution. It argues that researchers have not fully accounted for the changes underway in the Union's take on mediation. By elucidating the differences between this approach and the already existing literature on EU mediation, the article advocates a practice turn and develops a framework for studying EU mediation as an assemblage of practices. It builds on Latourian assemblage thinking and complements it with the Foucauldian notion of political rationality and techne. This approach is then explored through examining the practices of EU mediation support in Myanmar, which draws attention to the contradictions and a specific set of knowledge claims on peace and conflict, and traces dissident voices and how they inform the use of mediation instruments. In so doing, it demonstrates how a practice‐oriented approach allows us to provide new insights into EU external action.

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Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts

Cited by 69 publications

References 60 publications

Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization

Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization

Rethinking agency in International Relations: performativity, performances and actor-networks

EU Mediation as an Assemblage of Practices: Introducing a New Approach to the Study of EU Conflict Resolution

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