Reification in IR: The Process and Consequences of Reifying the Idea of International Society

Abstract

This article studies the contentious problem of reification in international relations (IR) on the example of the idea of international society. It shows how the idea became reified, that is, how the move was made from approaching international society as one of several competing frameworks for the study of international politics to considering it an objective fact, a self-evident reality of international politics, and an entity in the possession of agency. For this purpose, I trace key writings of the English school and survey their contribution to the idea’s development and gradual reification. I posit that reification has been the outcome of individual strategies and disciplinary practices pertaining to the knowledge production process, in particular the perceived need to establish and maintain a research program while continuing to provide viable explanations of world events. In discussing the consequences, I argue that reification adversely affects not only research outcomes but also the study process. A reified category, once it becomes a default language through which to think and talk about international politics, narrows down avenues for diverging interpretations of international politics. Furthermore, endowing international society with agency hides real agents behind specific actions in international politics.

Recognition, multiplicity and the elusive international

“…In this respect, where the international has often served as an ideal limit for the 'internalism' of social theory, IR might show how it functions as a relatively autonomous historical presupposition of recognition struggles. The result, particularly in the cases of international law and decolonisation, may well reaffirm the ways that the state or international society become reified (Kaczmarska, 2019) in pursuit of an 'imperfect simulation of the invulnerability they desire, leaving others to bear a disproportionate share of the costs and burdens involved in social life' (Markell, 2003: 22). However, it also sheds light on the range of recognition practices that Brincat theorises as a sui generis sphere of cosmopolitan practices, and the dependence of domestic struggles for recognition on material relations facilitated by global markets and value chains (among others).…”

The English School as a theory and a scholarly community

“…Proponents of theory as generalisation based on empirical observation have criticized the ES for being abstract, fluffy and far removed from the concerns of the real world (Jones 1981). It has even been accused of studying its own image (Kaczmarska 2019). Empirical analyses in ES works usually seem like afterthoughts, designed as "illustrative case studies" whose sole purpose is to validate the grand theoretical argument that forms the actual contribution of the study.…”

Revisiting the expansion thesis: international society and the role of the Dutch East India company as a merchant empire

“…While some English School scholars, such as Richard Little (2004), have been prominent in calling for a deeper engagement with world history, there is still a significant need to revisit and revise the expansion narrative. The idea of an international society has been reified as a concept within IR (Kaczmarska, 2018). It is treated as an unproblematic assumption that disguises the role of imperial history in shaping European and global political order.…”