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The search for dialogue as a hindrance to understanding: practices as inter-paradigmatic research program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2014

Erik Ringmar
Erik Ringmar*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden
*
E-mail: erik@ringmar.net
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Abstract

In a recent article Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot argued that attention to ‘practices’ could help IR scholars overcome ontological gaps and provide a new basis, on which the discipline could be established. Four such dichotomies are particularly salient: between the material and the meaningful, the rational and the practical, between agencies and structures, and between the forces of stability and of change. By failing to provide a theoretical basis for a synthesis, however, this project will fail. What a ‘practice’ is, and how ontological gaps should be understood, cannot be determined outside of the context of a theory. The article reviews theoretical attempts to deal with the dichotomies Adler and Pouliot identified and investigates the role of practices in the study of international relations.

Keywords

practicespractice theorytacit knowledgePierre Bourdieuontologyparadigm
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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