Suchergebnisse

Replies to Doty's critique of Wight's work on the agent-structure problematic (both, 1999). Wight argues that participants in scholarly exchanges bear irrevocable responsibilities that cannot be denied by appeals to differences in interpretation. The possibility of differing interpretations does not mean that all interpretations are equally valid, & invalidating an interpretation is not an act of intellectual closure. The possibility of being wrong constitutes an ethicopolitical moment in all dialogical exchanges that all parties should acknowledge. In fact, the possibility of being wrong is part of the structure of the Derridean moment of undecidability. Doty's form of radical subjectivism is simply the mirror image of radical objectivism & is actually a denial of the possibility of being wrong. 10 References.

David Campbell's recent review article of single-authored monographs on the Bosnian conflict serves as a vehicle for him to sketch the outlines of what he calls 'a different objectivity'. The article is interesting insofar as it represents a serious attempt by a self-proclaimed postmodernist/poststructuralist writer, although perhaps not a card carrying one to use his own phrase, to grasp the epistemological nettle. For despite the many trenchant critiques of prevailing epistemologies by post-modernist writers and much talk of a 'postmodern epistemology', there has been very little, if any, attempt to elaborate just what such an epistemology might involve. Campbell highlights what is a stake here by noting that 'how one goes about making a judgement as to which narrative of the Bosnian War is better raises the thorniest of historiography's issues.' Unsurprisingly, Campbell's answer to this issue is the standard postmodern fallback position of Nietzscheian perspectivism.

Although the agent-structure problem has been the subject of intense debate within International Relations the focus has been on epistemological problems or reconceptualizations of structure. This article attempts to redress the balance between agents and structures by outlining a theory of agency that shows the manner in which agency is embedded within, and dependent upon, structural contexts. The article takes as a starting point Roxanne Lynn Doty's poststructuralist attempt to address the agent-structure problem and provides a critique of her attempt to locate agency in the indeterminancy of structures. Doty's poststructuralist approach to this problem re-inscribes structuralist determinism predicated upon empiricist ontology. Specifically, it is argued that Doty's approach to this perennial problem rests upon — (i) a mischaracterization of the problem; (ii) an oppositional logic; and, (iii) a series of misunderstandings of the accounts of agency and structure embedded within contemporary approaches to this problem. The article suggests a multi-layered approach to the issue of agency in an attempt to go beyond the aporia identified by Doty.