Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T11:37:44.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theory, history, and the global transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2016

Barry Buzan  and
George Lawson
Barry Buzan
Affiliation:
London School of Economics, London, UK
George Lawson*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics, London, UK
*
E-mail: g.lawson@lse.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This response concentrates on two sets of issues raised by the contributors to the symposium: the first centers around theory, the second around history. On the former, our argument is that, contrary to some of the comments made by our interlocutors, the book contributes to theoretical debates ranging from issues of causation to those concerning history as a theoretical enterprise. We use these arguments to engage with, and extend, historical questions raised about the book, paying particular attention to the issue of comparisons across time. Our overarching reaction to the symposium is positive – the book has generated an exciting range of responses. This makes us hopeful that The Global Transformation will stimulate both intra- and inter-disciplinary conversations, even if these conversations sometimes emerge from frustration with paths not taken and issues not addressed.

Type
Symposium: Theory, History, and the Global Transformation
Information
International Theory , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 502 - 522
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, Andrew. 1988. “Transcending General Linear Reality.” Sociological Theory 6(2):169–186.Google Scholar
Acharya, Amitav. 2014. “Global International Relations and Regional Worlds.” International Studies Quarterly 58(4):647–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acharya, Amitav, and Buzan, Barry, eds. Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Julia. 2005. The Familial State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Adams, Julia, Clemens, Elisabeth E., and Orloff, Ann Shola, eds. 2005. Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Alexandrowicz, Charles H. 1967. An Introduction to the History of the Law of Nations in the East Indies: 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Allen, Robert. 2009. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Perry. 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Barkawi, Tarak, and Lawson, George. 2016. “The International Origins of Social and Political Theory.” Political Power and Social Theory (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Bayly, C.A. 2004. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bell, Duncan. 2007. The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order 1860-1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Duncan. 2012. “The Project for a New Anglo Century: Race, Space and Global Order.” In Anglo-America and its Discontents, edited by Peter Katzenstein, 33–56. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bilgin, Pinar. 2016. “How to Remedy Eurocentrism in IR? A Complement and a Challenge for The Global Transformation.” International Theory 8(3):492–501.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1988. “Vive la Crise! For Heterodoxy in Social Science.” Theory and Society 17(5):773–787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenner, Robert. 1985. “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism.” In The Brenner Debate, edited by T.H. Aston, and C.H.E. Philpin, 213–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buck-Morss, Susan. 2000. “Hegel and Haiti.” Critical Inquiry 26(4):821–865.Google Scholar
Bull, Hedley, and Watson, Adam, eds. 1984. The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, and Lawson, George. 2014. “Rethinking Benchmark Dates in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 20(2):437–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buzan, Barry, and Lawson, . 2015. The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, and Lawson, George. 2016. “The Impact of the ‘Global Transformation’ on Uneven and Combined Development.” In Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development Over the Longue Durée, edited by Alexander Anievas, and Kamran Matin, 171–184. London: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, and Little, Richard. 2001. “Why International Relations Has Failed as an Intellectual Project and What to Do About It.” Millennium 30(1):19–39.Google Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 2004. “Causation: One Word, Many Things.” Philosophy of Science 71(5):805–819.Google Scholar
Christian, David. 2004. Maps of Time. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Ian. 2007. International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eckstein, Arthur. 2009. Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War and the Rise of Rome. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Elman, Colin, and Elman, Miriam Fendius, eds. 2001. Bridges and Boundaries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Erikson, Emily. 2016. “The Global Origins of Economic Theory.” In Global Historical Sociology, edited by Julian Go, and George Lawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Fieretos, Orfeo. 2011. “Historical Institutionalism in International Relations.” International Organization 65(2):367–399.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1988. Plough, Sword and Book. London: Paladin.Google Scholar
Go, Julian, and Lawson, George, eds. 2016. Global Historical Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, Stacie, and Nexon, Daniel. 2005. “Paradigm Lost?” European Journal of International Relations 11(1):9–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstone, Jack. 2002. “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History.” Journal of World History 13(2):328–389.Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip. 2003. The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Colin S. 2012. War, Peace and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hintze, Otto. 1975 [1906]. “Military Organisation and the Organisation of the State.” In The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, edited by Felix Gilbert, 178–215. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, John. 2012. The Eurocentric Origins of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, John, and Lawson, George. 2008. “What is History in International Relations?” Millennium 37(2):415–435.Google Scholar
Iriye, Akira. 2014. Global Interdependence: The World After 1945. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Patrick. 2006. “The Present as History.” In The Oxford Handbook on Contextual Political Analysis, edited by Robert Goodin, and Charles Tilly, 490–505. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Patrick. 2010. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Keith. 1991. Re-Thinking History. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jones, Eric. 1981. The European Miracle: Environment, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Stuart, Little, Richard, and Wohlforth, William, eds. 2007. The Balance of Power in World History. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Keene, Edward. 2002. Beyond the Anarchical Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Paul. 1989. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Kurki, Milja. 2006. “Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International Relations Theory.” Review of International Studies 32(2):189–216.Google Scholar
Kurki, Milja, and Suganami, Hidemi. 2012. “Towards the Politics of Causal Explanation.” International Theory 4(3):400–429.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, Ray. 2005. The Singularity is Near. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Lawson, George. 2012. “The Eternal Divide? History and International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 18(2):203–226.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel. 1995. “Causal Explanation in Social Science.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 34:31–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, Richard. 2005. “The English School and World History.” In International Society and its Critics, edited by Alex J. Bellamy, 45–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Magubane, Zine. 2016. “Following ‘the Deeds of Men’: Race, ‘the Global’ and International Relations.” In Global Historical Sociology, edited by Julian Go, and George Lawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Schensul, Daniel. 2006. “Historical Context and Path Dependence.” In Historical Context and Path Dependence, edited by Robert E. Goodin and Charles Tilly, 454–471. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen, eds. 2010. Explaining Institutional Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Reuschemeyer, Dietrich, eds. 2003. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mayall, James. 1990. Nationalism and International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merton, Robert. 1984. “Socio-Economic Duration: A Case Study of Concept Formation.” In Conflict and Consensus, edited by Walter Powell, and Richard Robbins, 262–85. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Ian. 2014. War: What is it Good For?. London: Profile.Google Scholar
Nexon, Daniel. 2009. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Osterhammel, Jürgen. 2014. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, Translated by Partick Camiller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Owens, Patricia. 2015. Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Andrew. 2016. “The Global Transformation, Multiple Early Modernities and International Systems Change.” International Theory 8(3):481–491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Andrew, and C. Sharman, Jason. 2015. International Order in Diversity: War, Trade and Rule in the Indian Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Philpott, Daniel. 2001. Revolution in Sovereignty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2013. Individual Rights and the Making of the International System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2014. Individual Rights and the Making of the International System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2016. “Theory, History, and Great Transformations.” International Theory 8(3):422–435.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Emily. ed. 2012. A World Connecting, 1870-1945. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Justin. 1994. The Empire of Civil Society. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Justin. 2010. “Problems in the Theory of Uneven and Combined Development Part II: Unevenness and Multiplicity.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23(1):165–189.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Justin. 2016. “International Relations in the Prison of Political Science.” International Relations 30(2):127–153.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John. 1993. “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.” International Organization 47(1):139–174.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. 2005. Logics of History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shilliam, Robbie. 2009. “A Fanonian Critique of Lebow’s Cultural Theory of International Relations.” Millennium 38(1):117–136.Google Scholar
Shilliam, Robbie. ed. 2011. International Relations and Non-Western Thought. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shilliam, Robbie. 2016. The Black Pacific. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Philip. 2001. The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steinmetz, George. 2011. “Bourdieu, Historicity, and Historical Sociology.” Cultural Sociology 5(1):45–66.Google Scholar
Suganami, Hidemi. 2008. “Narrative Explanation and International Relations: Back to Basics.” Millennium 37(2):327–356.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Shogo, Zhang, Yongjin, and Quirk, Joel, eds. 2014. International Orders in the Early Modern World: Before the Rise of the West. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. 2012. “Theorizing in Sociology and Social Science.” Theory and Society 41(1):1–40.Google Scholar
Swedberg, Richard. 2014. The Art of Social Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tavoy, Iddo, and Timmermans, Stefan. 2014. Abductive Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tickner, Arlene, and Blaney, David, eds. 2012. Thinking International Relations Differently. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992 . Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2004. Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tin-bor Hui, Victoria. 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vitalis, Robert. 2015. White World Order, Black Power Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1983. Historical Capitalism With Capitalist Civilization. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 2001 [1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1998. “On Constitution and Causation in International Relations.” Review of International Studies 24(5):101–118.Google Scholar
White, Hayden. 1975. Metahistory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Wohlforth, William. 1999. “The Stability of a Unipolar World.” International Security 24(1):5–41.Google Scholar
Zarakol, Ayşe. 2011. After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live With the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Andrew. 2010. Alabama in Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar