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On context, facts, and norms: response to Hall and Kratochwil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Markus Fischer
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Extract

Hall and Kratochwil raise several serious claims in their critique of my recent article on feudal Europe. In order to demonstrate that these claims are unwarranted and that my study is sound, I will address the following points: (1) the relevance of context to empirical analysis, (2) counterfactual evidence and the representativeness of sample, (3) understanding the normative argument of critical theory, and (4) the accuracy of my citations.

Type
Dissent and Debate
Information
International Organization , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , Summer 1993 , pp. 493 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1993

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References

1. Fischer, Markus, “Feudal Europe, 800–1300: Communal Discourse and Conflictual Practices,” International Organization 46 (Spring 1992), pp. 427–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Rodney Bruce Hall and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, “Medieval Tales: Neorealist ‘Science’ and the Abuse of History,” International Organization, this issue. This article forms the basis of much of my discussion and will be quoted without further footnote citations.

3. Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 463Google Scholar.

4. See ibid., pp. 437,438,445,451–52, and 458–60, respectively, for the quotations.

5. Ibid., p. 433.

6. For a listing of the works, see the footnote citations in ibid., pp. 427–66.

7. See Duby, Georges, The Chivalrous Society, trans. Postan, Cynthia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 16Google Scholar; and Fourquin, Guy, Lordship and Feudalism in the Middle Ages, trans. Iris, and Sells, A. L. Lytton (New York: Pica Press, 1976), p. 67Google Scholar.

8. Hallam, Elizabeth M., Capetian France 987–1328 (London: Longman, 1980), p. 33Google Scholar.

9. Reynolds, Susan, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 117Google Scholar.

10. Ibid., p. 118.

11. Also it ought to be mentioned that Reynolds's qualified statement that “one reason for suspecting that the French evidence may have been interpreted too blackly is that so much of it comes from the great churches” is shifted to a much more assertive meaning by Hall and Kratochwil when they state that Reynolds “argues further that even for France the state of order had been interpreted ‘too blackly’ because the good records of the period … exist precisely because they were kept by the churches.” For the quotation from Reynolds, see ibid., emphasis added; for the quotation from Hall and Kratochwil, see “Medieval Tales,” this issue, emphasis added.

12. Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 430Google Scholar.

13. The quotations may be found in ibid., pp. 435, 443, 444, 451, and 455 (the last two), respectively.

14. Ibid., p. 434.

15. See Ruggie, John G., “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” World Politics 35 (01 1983), p. 274CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cox, Robert W., “Postscript 1985,” in Keohane, Robert O., ed., Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 244–45Google Scholar.

16. Ruggie, , “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity,” pp. 274–75Google Scholar.

17. Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 431Google Scholar.

18. Ashley, Richard K., “The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Towards a Critical Social Theory of International Politics,” Alternatives 12 (10 1987), pp. 403–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quotation is drawn from pp. 428–29.

19. Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 430Google Scholar.

20. “The Germanic tribal chiefs represented the principle of inherited charisma and election by acclamation. The Catholic church represented the principle of hierarchy and law. The two principles merged when the Carolingian kings were consecrated by the Pope in Rome.” See Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 23, emphasis addedGoogle Scholar.

21. This method of annotation (also applied here) was requested by the editor to reduce the number of footnotes from an initial 275 to around seventy-five. See Elias, Norbert, Power and Civility, trans. Jephcott, Edmund (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982) for the work in questionGoogle Scholar; and Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 438, for the citation in my own workGoogle Scholar.

22. Baldwin, Marshall W., The Mediaeval Church (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1953), pp. 5–6, 28Google Scholar.

23. See Baldwin, , The Mediaeval Church, p. 29Google Scholar: “Actually, of course, this ideal rule [of ecclesiastical self-investiture] was widely flouted, and the abbot was frequently appointed by the local feudal proprietor.”

24. Fischer, , “Feudal Europe, 800–1300,” p. 461Google Scholar.