Recovering International Relations

Daniel J. Levine is Visiting Assitant Professor of Political Science at Colgate University.

• Tables ; Figures ; Introduction: Sustainable Critique and the Lost Vocation of International Relations ; The Lost Vocation ; Critique and the Loss of Vocation ; Sustainable Critique (1): The Problem of Reification ; Sustainable Critique (2): Reification in International Theory ; Sustainable Critique (3): Chastened Reason ; Plan of the Work ; Chapter One: "For We Born After:" The Challenge of Sustainable Critique ; Between Comte and Catastrophe ; Sustainable Critique as an Ethical Commitment: The Animus Habitandi ; The Ethical Lacuna in IR: Three Examples ; From Critique to Sustainable Critique ; 'Non-Identity' and Negative Dialectics ; A Logical Impasse? ; Chapter Two: Sustainable Critique and Critical IR Theory: Against Emancipation ; A New Hope: Emancipation in Critical IR Theory ; Post-National Liberalism and Pragmatism ; The Adornian Alternative: Constellation and a Hermeneutic Turn ; Concretizing the Constellation in IR: Allison's Essence of Decision ; Toward Sustainable Critique: Concluding Thoughts ; Chapter Three: The Realist Dilemma: Politics and the Limits of Theory ; The 'Dutch Boy Syndrome': Morgenthau's Despairing Vocation ; 1. Morgenthau's Positive Dialectics ; 2. The Limits of Positive Dialectics: Reification, Despair, Backlash ; 3. From Reification to Sustainable Critique: Morgenthau's Missed Opportunity ; Reification by "Ontological Smuggling": Waltz's Middle-Range Realism ; Epistemological Lowballing: Wendt's 'Third Way' ; Concluding Thoughts: Critical Realism and Sustainable Critique ; Chapter Four: Communitarian IR Theory: "The Common Socius of us All" ; IR-Liberalism: Two Traditions ; Between Community and Individual ; Plan of the Chapter ; Metaphysical Communitarianism: Functionalism ; 1. The Fabian Impasse ; 2. The Mitranyan Breakthrough ; The 'Wise Android': Deutsch's Cybernetic Turn ; 'Third-way' Communitarianism and the Primacy of Vision: Adler ; Concluding Thoughts: From Communitarian to Individualist IR ; Chapter Five: Individualist IR Theory: Disharmonious Cooperation ; IR-Liberalism: From Communitarian to Individualist ; Plan of the Chapter ; Metaphysical Individualism: Ernst Haas and the Renewed March of Reason ; 1. Against Communitarianism: Neo-Functionalism and 'Managed Gesellschaft' ; 2. From Neo-functionalism to Liberal Nationalism: Taking up the Gauntlet of Reflexivity ; Middle-Range Individualism: Keohane's Disharmonious Cooperation and 'Humility' ; 1. Complex Interdependence and the Middle-Range Turn ; 2. Liberal Institutionalism's Unsustainable Reflexivity ; "Third-Way" Individualism: Multiple Paradigms and the 'Pirandello Problem' ; Conclusion: Toward Sustainably Critical International Theory ; The 'Hermeneutic Sphere': Toward a Sustainably Critical Research Program ; Sympathetic Knowledge ; A Working Example: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and IR ; 1. Building up the Hermeneutic 'Third Axis' ; 2. Constructing the Constellation: an Analytical Table of Contents ; The Constellar Production of Compassion ; Politics without Compassion: More of the Same? ; Works Cited

...this already shows how thought-provoking and engaging Levine's work is. He deserves the highest praise, not only for the vigor of his argument but also for the clarity of his thought and style.. This might well be the best introduction to critical international relations theory. ... Highly recommended.