Reflectivism
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Reflectivism is a broad umbrella label, used primarily in
International Relations theory International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain causal and constitutive effects in international politics. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories as a ...
, for a range of theoretical approaches which oppose rational-choice accounts of social phenomena and, perhaps,
positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
more generally. The label was popularised by
Robert Keohane Robert Owen Keohane (born October 3, 1941) is an American academic working within the fields of international relations and international political economy. Following the publication of his influential book ''After Hegemony'' (1984), he has beco ...
in his presidential address to the
International Studies Association The International Studies Association (ISA) is a US-based professional association for scholars and practitioners in the field of international studies. Founded in 1959, ISA has been headquartered at the University of Connecticut in Storrs since ...
in 1988. The address was entitled "International Institutions: Two Approaches", and contrasted two broad approaches to the study of
international institution An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states an ...
s (and international phenomena more generally). One was "rationalism", the other what Keohane referred to as "reflectivism". Rationalists — including realists, neo-realists, liberals,
neo-liberals Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
, and scholars using
game-theoretic Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has applic ...
or expected-utility
models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...
— are theorists who adopt the broad theoretical and
ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
commitments of rational-choice theory.


Rationalism vs. reflectivism

Keohane characterised rationalism in the following fashion: : ationalists acceptwhat Herbert Simon has referred to a "substantive" conception of rationality, characterizing "behaviour that can be adjudged objectively to be optimally adapted to the situation" (Simon, 1985:294). As Simon has argued, the principle of substantive rationality generates hypotheses about actual human behaviour only when it is combined with certain
auxiliary Auxiliary may refer to: * A backup site or system In language * Auxiliary language (disambiguation) * Auxiliary verb In military and law enforcement * Auxiliary police * Auxiliaries, civilians or quasi-military personnel who provide support of ...
assumptions about the structure of
utility function As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosopher ...
s and the formation of expectations. :Since this research program is rooted in
exchange theory Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. The theory also involves economic relation ...
, it assumes
scarcity In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good. ...
and competition as well as
rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abil ...
on the part of the actors. Rationalistic theories of
institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s view institutions as affecting patterns of
costs In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which ...
. Keohane went on to contrast this with the approach of "reflective" scholars: :These authors, of whom the best-known include
Hayward Alker Hayward R. Alker (1937 – 2007) was a Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California School of International Relations, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale University. Alker was also former Pre ...
, Richard Ashley,
Friedrich Kratochwil Friedrich Kratochwil (born 1944 in Břeclav, Moravia) is a German university professor who studied at the University of Munich before migrating to the United States, then subsequently returning to Europe. He received a PhD from Princeton Universi ...
, and
John Ruggie John Gerard Ruggie (18 October 1944 – 16 September 2021) was the Berthold Beitz Research Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and an affiliated professor in international legal studie ...
, emphasize the importance of the "
intersubjective In philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, intersubjectivity is the relation or intersection between people's cognitive perspectives. Definition is a term coined by social scientists to refer to a variety of types of human inter ...
meanings" of international institutional activity (Kratochwil and Ruggie, 1986:765). In their view, understanding how people think about institutional norms and rules, and the
discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...
they engage in, is as important in evaluating the significance of these norms as measuring the behavior that changes in response to their invocation. :These writers emphasize that individuals, local organizations, and even states develop within the context of more encompassing institutions. Institutions do not merely reflect the
preferences In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theo ...
and power of the units constituting them; the institutions themselves shape those preferences and that power. Institutions are therefore constitutive of actors as well as vice versa. It is therefore not sufficient in this view to treat the preferences of individuals as given
exogenous In a variety of contexts, exogeny or exogeneity () is the fact of an action or object originating externally. It contrasts with endogeneity or endogeny, the fact of being influenced within a system. Economics In an economic model, an exogeno ...
ly: they are affected by institutional arrangements, by prevailing norms, and by historically contingent discourse among people seeking to pursue their purposes and solve their self-defined problems. : would be fair to refer to them as "
interpretive __NOTOC__ An interpretive discussion is a discussion in which participants explore and/or resolve interpretations often pertaining to text (literary theory), texts of any medium containing significant ambiguity in meaning. Education Interpretiv ...
" scholars, since they all emphasize the importance of historical and textual interpretation and the limitations of
scientific models Scientific modelling is a scientific activity, the aim of which is to make a particular part or feature of the world easier to understand, define, quantify, visualize, or simulate by referencing it to existing and usually commonly accepted ...
in studying world politics. But other approaches also have a right to be considered
interpretive __NOTOC__ An interpretive discussion is a discussion in which participants explore and/or resolve interpretations often pertaining to text (literary theory), texts of any medium containing significant ambiguity in meaning. Education Interpretiv ...
. I have therefore coined a phrase for these writers, calling them "reflective", since all of them emphasize the importance of human reflection for the nature of institutions and ultimately for the character of world politics. Reflectivism and rationalism are typically used as labels applying not just to the study of international institutions, but of international relations more widely, and even the social world as a whole. Sociologies and histories of the International Relations discipline have sometimes used the opposition between these approaches to describe one of the central fault-lines within the discipline.


Reflexivity

There may be another sense, not specifically discussed by Keohane, in which the label is apt. Reflectivist scholars tend to emphasise the inherent reflexivity both of theory and of the social world it studies. Unlike the term ''reflectivism'', the concept of "reflexivity" has wide currency outside of international relations, having come to prominence in
social theory Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories rela ...
in the latter part of the 20th century. Reflexivity refers to the ways in which elements and phenomena in social life have the capacity to "fold in on", or be "directed towards", themselves. That is, they can produce effects on, or have implications for, their own features, dynamics and existence. An example is the "
self-fulfilling prophecy A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. ...
" (or "self-disconfirming prophecy") — a situation in which merely describing, predicting, imagining or believing something to be the case may eventually result in its actually coming to be the case. More generally, reflectivists emphasise the significance of human
self-awareness In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ...
: the ways people observe, imagine, describe, predict and theorise about themselves and the social reality around them, and the
recursive Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...
effect this "self-knowledge" or these "reflections" have on that social reality itself. Some scholars link reflexivity with the broader debate, within International Relations theory and social theory more generally, over the relationship between "
agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...
" and "
structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
" in the social world. That is, the relationship between people's capacity to "freely" choose their actions and/or to "make a real difference" to the world around them, and the social "
structures A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
" in which people are always embedded, and which may powerfully shape – often against their will or in ways they are unaware of – the kinds of things they are able to do. Reflectivists also often claim that studying and ''theorising'' about international relations can be, should be, and are necessarily, reflexive. For one thing, they claim, theories about social reality may affect – might change – social reality itself. Some critics of (neo-)realism have raised the possibility that realist theories, for instance, may act as
self-fulfilling prophecies A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. T ...
. To the extent that they are taken by theorists and practitioners to be the "common sense" of international politics, diplomacy and policy-making, those theories may encourage precisely the kind of mistrust, ruthless competition and amorality that they posit to be natural and inherent features of the international realm. Familiar methodological examples of the capacity of observation and theorising to affect the object/phenomena of study include the "
observer-expectancy effect The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, expectancy bias, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence t ...
" and long-running concerns among anthropologists and ethnographers over the possible effect of
participant observation Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology (incl. cultural an ...
on the very people and behaviours being studied. Furthermore, reflectivists argue, those theories invariably reflect in important ways the social context in which they were produced; so in a sense the social world shapes the theories made of it. There is often a
normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
or ethical aspect to the emphasis on reflexivity. Reflectivists often argue that theorists should be as self-aware as possible — to reflect as much as possible on the influences ( assumptions,
bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, ...
es, normative commitments, etc.) that feed into and shape the theories they produce. In addition, they should be able to hold their own theories to the standards and arguments they set out in those same theories. And finally, they should reflect on the likely and possible effects of their theorising. Some reflectivists (e.g. those of a
post-structuralist Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
persuasion) have argued that theorising should itself be understood as a practice, like the human practices that theories study; that it is an act (conscious or unconscious) of intervention into social reality, and that as such it is never "innocent" or "neutral", and there is a degree of responsibility for its consequences that theorists cannot (and should not try to) escape.


Reflectivism and post-positivism

Reflectivist approaches include
constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
,
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
,
post-colonialism Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is ...
and
Critical Theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
. The challenge launched by these approaches against rationalist approaches, which have largely dominated the IR discipline for the past three decades, was linked to the "Third Debate in International Relations" between positivists and post-positivists/ anti-positivists. (The first two disciplinary "Great Debates" are supposed to have pitted (1) realists vs. so-called "
idealists In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...
", and (2) behaviouralists vs. so-called "traditionalists", the latter favouring historical methods and insights from
political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
.) Although the large majority of reflectivists oppose
positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
, it might be a mistake to equate reflectivism with post-positivism or anti-positivism, as (conventional) constructivists who are positivist in orientation would nevertheless fall under Keohane's description. Confusion may be compounded by the fact that in International Relations theory, rationalism and positivism can often be (erroneously) equated. There are many positivist political scientists who do not adopt rational-choice assumptions. Some mainstream International Relations scholars, dismissing the importance or value of non-positivist approaches to social science, have reframed the rationalism-reflectivism debate narrowly, as a debate between rationalism and ("conventional") constructivism, construed as the two major
social theories Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relat ...
(or "
ontologies In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definition of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, and entities that substantiate one, many, or all domains ...
") of (mainstream) International Relations theory. The rationalism-constructivism debate drew considerable attention within the mainstream at the turn of the 21st century, with some rejecting the starkness of the opposition itself and asserting a fundamental compatibility, or possibility of synthesis, between the two approaches.


Criticism of reflectivist approaches

The main criticisms of reflectivist approaches stem from the
epistemological Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...
differences between reflectivism and what in the social sciences has come to be known as
positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
. Since the 1970s, mainstream International Relations theory has become increasingly, and more insistently, positivist in epistemological orientation. The typical reflectivist rejection of positivist assumptions and methods has led to criticism that the approach cannot make reliable statements about the outside world and even that it has repudiated the entire "social science enterprise". Such criticisms are widespread in American political science, and reflectivism is not generally popular in U.S.-based IR scholarship, especially when compared with scholarship originating in Europe and the third world.See e.g. Ole Waever, "The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations", ''International Organization'' 52, 4 (1998); Thomas Biersteker, "The Parochialism of Hegemony: Challenges for 'American' International Relations", in Arlene Tickner and Ole Waever (eds.), ''International Relations Scholarship Around the World: Worlding Beyond the West''. Routledge (2009).


See also

*
Antipositivism In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance that proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that ...
*
Postpositivism Postpositivism or postempiricism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism and has impacted theories and practices across philosophy, social sciences, and various models of scientific inquiry. While positivists emphasize ...
*
Self-reflection Self-reflection is the ability to witness and evaluate our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. In psychology, other terms used for this self-observation include 'reflective awareness', and 'reflective consciousness', which origi ...
*
Sensemaking Sensemaking or sense-making is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. It has been defined as "the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing" ( Weick, Sutcliffe, ...


References

{{Positivism Philosophical theories International relations terminology International relations theory Social theories