‘ought’ questions to ‘is’ questions, or place them off the agenda altogether. 15
Our metatheoretical assumptions thus
determine the macro-orientation of IR towards questions of practice, directly affecting the field’s
practical relevance
.
Secondly,
metatheoretical revolutions license new
second-order theoretical and analytical
possibilities while
foreclosing others, directly affecting those forms of scholarship widely considered most practically
relevant
. The rise of analytical eclecticism illustrates this. As noted above, Katzenstein and Sil’s call for a pragmatic approach to the study of
world politics, one that addresses real-world problematics by combining insights from diverse research traditions, resonates with the mood of
much of the field, especially within the American mainstream.
Epistemological and ontological debates are widely
considered
irresolvable dead ends
, grand theorising is unfashionable, and gladiatorial contests between rival paradigms appear,
increasingly, as unimaginative rituals. Boredom and fatigue are partly responsible for this new mood, but something deeper is at work. Twenty-
five years ago, Sil and Katzenstein’s call would have fallen on deaf ears;
the neo-neo debate that preoccupied the American
mainstream occurred within a metatheoretical consensus
, one that combined a neo-positivist epistemology with a
rationalist ontology.
This singular metatheoretical framework defined the rules of the game
; analytical eclecticism
was unimaginable. The Third Debate of the 1980s and early 1990s destabilised all of this; not because American IR scholars converted in their
droves to critical theory or poststructuralism (far from it), but because metatheoretical absolutism became less and less tenable. The anti-
foundationalist critique of the idea that there is any single measure of truth did not produce a wave of relativism, but it did generate a
widespread sense that battles on the terrain of epistemology were unwinnable. Similarly, the Third Debate emphasis on identity politics and
cultural particularity, which later found expression in constructivism, did not vanquish rationalism. It did, however, establish a more pluralistic, if
nevertheless heated, debate about ontology, a terrain on which many scholars felt more comfortable than that of epistemology. One can
plausibly argue, therefore, that
the metatheoretical struggles
of the Third Debate
created a space for
– even made possible –
the rise of analytical eclecticism and its aversion to metatheoretical absolutes
, a principal benefit of which is said
to be greater practical relevance.
Lastly,
most of us would agree that for our research to be practically relevant, it has to be good
– it has to be
the product of sound inquiry, and our conclusions have to be plausible. The pluralists among us would also agree that different research
questions require different methods of inquiry and strategies of argument. Yet
across this diversity there are several practices
widely recognised as essential to good research
. Among these are clarity of purpose, logical coherence, engagement with
alternative arguments and the provision of good reasons (empirical evidence, corroborating arguments textual interpretations, etc.).
