Divide et Impera: Notes on the disciplinary politics of IR and Middle East Studies

1
Divide et Impera Notes on the disciplinary
politics of IR and Middle East Studies

• Andrea Teti
• Department of Politics
• University of Exeter
• a.teti_at_ex.ac.uk

2
Introduction

• The problem diverging clusters of
  interdisciplinary scholarship?
• Implications for scholarship policy
• Views of the ME from IR MES criticisms
• Track records of cross-fertilisation
• Constructivism the cultural turn
• Disciplinary Politics the IR/MES divergence

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Perspectives on the Middle East

• Views from IR A region like any other
• IR Sovereignty, (in)security, (inter)dependency
• a region like any other
• Criticisms from MES
• heroic generalisation, Materialist,
  Culture-blind
• Views from MES A region like no other
• MES
• Distinctiveness
• Criticisms from IR
• Under-theorised, subjective, blinded by culture
• can Constructivism cross-fertilise?

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Track records of cross-fertilisation 1900-50

• Universal structures of knowledge
• Europe holistic approach
• Oriental Studies classical civilisation idea
  of cultural unity
• Gibb and Bowen
• AS/MES as taxonomy data-gathering
• USA Rise of social science
• Separation of Disciplines from Areas
• Creates first Discipline-Area gap
• Hierarchy theorygtfact?DgtAS (under)devt
• Interdisciplinarity history Oriental Studies

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The 1950s A new kind of Orientology

• AS/PolSci divide institutionalised
• Private Foundations 1952-1966, 270m
• NDEA (1958) 1959-67, 167m (13 MES)
• Bridging the Gap 2
• Accepts AS/PolSci division
• Aim achieve systematic body of universal
  knowledge
• by applying Modernisation Th.
• Interdisciplinarity Area Studies PolSci

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The 1960s-70s Institutionalisation and Fracture

• Full institutionalisation of MES
• MESA (1966), MES (1964)
• and full political-intellectual rupture
• AMES (68), MERIP (71), Orientalism (78)
• Bridging the Gap 2 3
• MES have been stamp collecting, neglecting to
  identify essential structures (Halpern),
  displacements of affect (Binder)
• ? PolSci methods objectify knowledge

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After 80s

• 1970s Mainstream (PolSci O.S.) vs. Opposition
  (Marx Critical)
• Bridging the Gap 4 5 MES pseudo-discipline
• Cure social scienceagain
• Triumph of Disciplines dissolving MES
• ACLS pulls AS funding ? themes/Globalzn.
• Old NDEA funding ? DoD
• Khalidi (1994) MESA Presidential Address

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Summary of Disciplinary History

• 1940s interdisciplinarity Oriental Studies
  contemporary history
• 1950s interdisciplinarity PolSci/Comp ME
  area studies (modernisation) New Orientology
• 1960s systematising knowledge contra stamp
  collecting
• 1970s Entrenchment - Mainstream
  (PolScihistoriogr.) vs. Opposition
  (Marxianculturalist) contra displacements of
  affect
• 1980s interdisciplinary trickle (Hinnebusch,
  Bromley, Ayubi) Khalidi collapsing Area
  Studies!

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Constructivism the Cultural Turn

• Can Constructivism cross-fertilise?...
• Constructivism
• Agency-structure co-constitution
• ideas as constraint on practices v.v.
  material/ideational
• IR Identity ? praxis, saving generality
• MES Theoretical sophistication, but emph.
  historical path dependence

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Constructivism the Cultural Turn

• Can Constructivism cross-fertilise?...
• without disciplinary imperialism?
• Power (more than guns and tanks)
• discourse/identity (transformative,
  constraint/leverage, conscious/not)
• material/ideational (contra tyranny of
  materialism)
• historicism/generality (saves both)
• more advantages shared foundational and
  analytical categories

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Shared Territories

• Analytical Categories
• State, elites, interest groupsSeale (elites)
  Realism or Constructivism
• Theoretical underpinnings
• Existence, unity and fixity of object of study
  (nocturnal realism)
• Reliance on empirical data (diurnal
  empiricism)
• Methodological disagreements (history vs.
  science)
• but neutrality of observer/ation viz. object
• Aim discovery of general laws of a Laplacian
  political universe
• Results?
• A. Culture-sensitive IR Theory-sensitive MES
• B. Barnett, Lynch and? (cf. Mitchell, Jankowski)
• so why the continued lack of convergence?

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Disciplinary Politics and the IR/MES divide

• Inadequacy of explanations for lack of
  convergence
• Alternative Organisation of knowledge
  Disciplinary Power (Foucault)
• Institutional environment state private
  funding Policy agendas etc. ? Inertia in
  education training programmes
• Coercive productive techniques career
  advancement incentives
• publishing (books articles) grants (private
  state, conditions of-) tenure (US), RAE (UK),
  patronage (Eur.)
• Technologies of disciplinary power
• hierarchical organisation normalising judgement
  and examination ? mainstreaming ? field
  divergence
• The exercise of discipline presupposes a
  mechanism that coerces by means of observation
  Techniques that make it possible to see, induce
  the effects of power, and means of coercion
  make those on whom they are applied clearly
  visible. DP (1984186)

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Disciplinary Politics I Hierarchical Organisation

• Architecture of field (spatial nesting)
• ? rendering visible in order to act on those it
  shelters
• Hierarchy based on learning ? position
  f(knowledge) ?
• Inertia ? verticality
• Role of gatekeepers ? (who defines what counts
  as knowledge?)
• ? emergence persistence of a mainstream

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Disciplinary Politics II Normalising Judgement

• At the heart of all disciplinary systems
  functions a small penal mechanism. It enjoys a
  kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its
  specific offences, its particular forms of
  judgement. (1984194)
• micropenality of activity (negligence, lack of
  zeal)
• micropenality of the body (incorrect
  attitudes)
• reproduce a disciplinary mainstream
• the indefinite domain of the non-conformant is
  punishable (1984194)

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Disciplinary Politics III Examination

• Examination hierarchical observation
  normalising judgement
• Examination est. the conditions of possibility
  for production of knowledge
• Est. what counts as knowledge (e.g. history vs.
  PolSci/IR vs. Marx vs. Posties)
• Theory/fact, Universal/Particular ? Disciplines
  vs. Areas ? Hierarchy DgtA
• Operates via resource allocation (hiring, grants
  tenure (US), RAE (UK), patronage (Eur.))
• Effect (re)production of mainstream
• Conclusion ? mainstream ? (intellectual
  converngence ? conditions of possibility)

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Conclusions

• Disciplinary history
• repeated unheaded calls for interdisc.
• organisation of knowledge area/discipline
• Constructivism more frustrated potentialwhy?
• Organisation of knowledge
• Hierarchy, Normalisation, Examination ? emergence
  persistence of a mainstream
• Plans impact on policy production