Narrating events and imputing those responsible: Reflexivity and the temporal basis of retrospective responsibility

Abstract

By showing how a number of temporal assumptions shape three mutually exclusive narratives, the article argues for a mediated and reflexive understanding of events, one that is more open and less likely to fall into the pitfalls of a confrontation between different versions of retrospective responsibility. The article begins by looking beyond the agency and structure debate and into the temporal dimension of narrative, mainly for the sake of understanding the relationship between continuity and change. The article covers three potential narratives, focusing on their influence on the study of events, policy, and retrospective responsibility. It then illustrates their impact on mainstream understandings of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Upon describing the problems of positing strict continuity and change, both of which impact accounts of retrospective responsibility, the outline of a more reflexive, mediated approach to events and temporality is introduced, based on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. In doing so, the article demonstrates the disadvantages of Erlebnis, an approach that unreflexively applies a limited set of temporal assumptions, highlighting instead the advantages of Erfahrung, an approach that strives for a mediated understanding of events.

The question of truth: how facts, space and time shape conversations in IR

“…Behind the attempt to refute potentially incompatible claims between liberals and realists was also a concern with one approach becoming dominant. The problem of theoretical constructs coming to be reified, that is shaping the way we act towards others beyond academia, is an issue with which both critical and hermeneutical or interpretivist approaches have often grappled in IR (Amoureux and Steele, 2015; Guzzini, 2000, 2013; Ish-Shalom, 2009, 2011; Levine, 2012; Levine and Barder, 2014; Teles Fazendeiro, 2016, 2019). Inspired by Heidegger, Taylor and other contributions to philosophical hermeneutics, Jason Blakeley (2013) refers to this sort of conversation as being less about discussing facts than pondering what reality would become were it reduced to a theoretical construct: ‘theories of social science can be assessed not only in terms of how true they are but also of how true they can become’ (p. 405).…”

“…Some of Heidegger's insights relate to ongoing discussions on temporality in IR. Andrew Hom (2018Hom ( , 2020 -not unlike other contributors (Hutchings, 2008;McIntosh, 2015;Solomon, 2014;Teles Fazendeiro, 2019) -has touched upon the importance of timing in IR theorising. Building on Norbert Elias's processual sociology, he demonstrates how timing allows human communities to measure and compare change and continuity with one another (Hom, 2020).…”

Is faster better? Political and ethical framings of pace and space

“…Relative to a metaphysics of time, a social lens is more attentive to how interpretations and understandings of time matter. The point is to investigate how perceptions and arrangements of time and timing are key heuristics for thinking the world and acting (Solomon 2014;Hom 2018a), narrating events and history (Barder and McCourt 2010;Lundborg 2012;McIntosh 2015;Agathangelou and Killian 2016;Hom 2016;Fazendeiro 2018), and conceptualizing accounts of ethics and change (Connolly 2002;Hutchings 2008;Hom and Steele 2010;Fazendeiro 2018) including the use of calendar time (as duration) for structuring the distribution of democratic participation (Cohen 2018) and for managing everyday activities and subjectivities of populations (Bastian 2012).…”