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“Things of Networks”: Situating ANT in International Relations

2013; Oxford University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/ips.12026_4

1749-5687

Daniel H. Nexon, Vincent Pouliot,

Peacebuilding and International Security

We come to this forum not to advocate for actor-network theory (ANT) but to raise friendly questions about its role in International Relations (IR). As outsiders to ANT, we recognize that these issues may be addressed within that broader literature. But since we are proponents of the use of frameworks that share with ANT a commitment to the analytical priority of processes, relations, and practices, we also have a particular interest in its development within our field. This forum arrives at an interesting moment for IR. Scholars working within a broadly social-constructionist framework increasingly draw upon relational and practice-theoretical approaches. Relational theories, ranging from those using the methodology of social network analysis (SNA) to post-structuralist modes of analysis, are recasting how we think about levels of analysis, actors, and the importance of social position. Practice theory revisits basic dichotomies that organize IR theory, including rationality and practicality, subjectivity and objectivity, and the ideal and the material. Relationalism and practice-theoretical accounts have demonstrated their utility in overcoming analytical problems involving, for example, the agent-structure problem and the relationship between continuity and change (Jackson and Nexon ; Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery ; Adler and Pouliot ).