Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T10:44:00.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Change in and through practice: Pierre Bourdieu, Vincent Pouliot, and the end of the Cold War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2015

Sebastian Schindler  and
Tobias Wille
Sebastian Schindler*
Affiliation:
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Main), Germany
Tobias Wille*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Main), Germany
*
E-mail: schindler@hsfk.de; wille@soz.uni-frankfurt.de
E-mail: schindler@hsfk.de; wille@soz.uni-frankfurt.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The end of the Cold War led to intense debates about how change happens in international politics. In this article, we argue that practice theory has great potential for illuminating this question. Drawing on Vincent Pouliot’s empirical analysis of NATO-Russia relations after the end of the Cold War, we elaborate how change happens in and through practice. We show that post-Cold War security practices are inherently unstable, because there is a fundamental uncertainty about whether the Cold War is really over or whether the Cold War logic of bipolar confrontation still applies. Uncertainty about the meaning of the past destabilizes present practices and thus makes sudden and drastic change possible. To date, many contributions to the literature on international practices have, however, failed to grasp the inherent instability of practice. We argue that this failure is due to a particular conception of change that can be found in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. Through a close reading of Pouliot’s Bourdieusian analysis of post-Cold War politics, we demonstrate the limitations of such a perspective, notably that it is unable to grasp how change originates in practice.

Keywords

international practicespractice theorysocial changePierre BourdieuCold WarNATO-Russia diplomacy
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 330 - 359
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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

Adler, Emanuel, and Pouliot, Vincent, eds. 2011a. International Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Adler, Emanuel, and Pouliot, Vincenteds 2011b. “International Practices.” International Theory 3(1):1–36.Google Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2008. “The Diplomacy of Opting Out: A Bourdieudian Approach to National Integration Strategies.” Journal of Common Market Studies 46(3):663–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ed. 2013. Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR. Milton Park: Routledge.Google Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca 2014. “Symbolic Power in European Diplomacy: The Struggle Between National Foreign Services and the EU’s External Action Service.” Review of International Studies 40(4):657–681.Google Scholar
Auchter, Jessica. 2014. The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badiou, Alain. 2001. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bigo, Didier. 2011. “Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations: Power of Practices, Practices of Power.” International Political Sociology 5(3):225–258.Google Scholar
Boltanski, Luc. 2011. On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1988. Homo Academicus. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1996. The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Passeron, Jean C.. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loic. 1989. “Towards a Reflexive Sociology: A Workshop with Pierre Bourdieu.” Sociological Theory 7(1):26–63.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loic 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1985. “Rethinking Classical Sociology: The Sociological Vision of Pierre Bourdieu.” Theory and Society 14(6):745–775.Google Scholar
Bueger, Christian, and Gadinger, Frank. forthcoming. “The Play of International Practices.” International Studies Quarterly.Google Scholar
Bueger, Christian, and Gadinger, Frank 2014. International Practice Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1982. “Différance.” In Margins of Philosophy, edited by Alan Bass, 3-27. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Duvall, Raymond D., and Chowdhury, Arjun. 2011. “Practices of Theory.” In International Practices, edited by Emanuel Adler, and Vincent Pouliot, 335–354. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. 2011. “Advancing a Reflexive International Relations.” Millennium – Journal of International Studies 39(3):805–823.Google Scholar
Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew 2012. Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edkins, Jenny. 2003. Trauma and the Memory of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
French, Brigittine M. 2012. “The Semiotics of Collective Memories.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41(1):337–353.Google Scholar
Gheciu, Alexandra. 2005. NATO in the ‘New Europe’: The Politics of International Socialization after the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Giroux, Henry. 1983. “Theories of Reproduction and Resistance in the New Sociology of Education: A Critical Analysis.” Harvard Educational Review 53(3):257–293.Google Scholar
Go, Julian. 2008. “Global Fields and Imperial Forms: Field Theory and the British and American Empires.” Sociological Theory 26(3):201–229.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, Martin. 2010. “Seeing the Facts and Saying What You Like: Retroactive Redescription and Indeterminacy in the Past.” Journal of the Philosophy of History 4(3):296–327.Google Scholar
Guzzini, Stefano. 2000. “A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 6(2):147–182.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1995. Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory, Translated by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamati-Ataya, Inanna. 2013. “Reflectivity, Reflexivity, Reflexivism: IR’s ‘Reflexive Turn’ – and Beyond.” European Journal of International Relations 19(4):669–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Lene. 2011. “Performing Practices: A Poststructuralist Analysis of the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis.” In International Practices, edited by Emanuel Adler, and Vincent Pouliot, 280–309. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harker, Richard K. 1984. “On Reproduction, Habitus and Education.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 5(2):117–127.Google Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 2010. “The Logic of Habit in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 16(4):539–561.Google Scholar
Jackson, Peter. 2008. “Pierre Bourdieu, the ‘Cultural Turn’ and the Practice of International History.” Review of International Studies 34(1):155–181.Google Scholar
King, Anthony. 2000. “Thinking with Bourdieu against Bourdieu: A ‘Practical’ Critique of the Habitus.” Sociological Theory 18(3):417–433.Google Scholar
Koslowski, Rey, and Kratochwil, Friedrich V.. 1994. “Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire’s Demise and the International System.” International Organization 48(2):215–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuus, Merje. 2014. Geopolitics and Expertise: Knowledge and Authority in European Diplomacy. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Lawson, George. 2010. “Introduction: The ‘What’, ‘When’ and ‘Where’ of the Global 1989.” In The Global 1989: Continuity and Change in World Politics, edited by George Lawson, Chris Armbruster, and Michael Cox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leander, Anna. 2002. “Do We Really Need Reflexivity in IPE? Bourdieu’s Two Reasons for Answering Affirmatively.” Review of International Political Economy 9(4):601–609.Google Scholar
Leander, Anna 2008. “Thinking Tools.” In Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide, edited by Audie Klotz, and Deepa Prakash, 11–27. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Leander, Anna 2011. “The Promises, Problems, and Potentials of a Bourdieu-Inspired Staging of International Relations.” International Political Sociology 5(3):294–313.Google Scholar
Lebow, Richard N. 1994. “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism.” International Organization 48(2):249–277.Google Scholar
Lundborg, Tom. 2012. Politics of the Event: Time, Movement, Becoming. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. “The False Promise of International Institutions.” International Security 19(3):5–49.Google Scholar
Mérand, Frédéric. 2010. “Pierre Bourdieu and the Birth of European Defense.” Security Studies 19(2):342–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, Iver B. 2002. “Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy.” Millennium – Journal of International Studies 31(3):627–651.Google Scholar
Neumann, Iver B. 2012. “Euro-Centric Diplomacy: Challenging but Manageable.” European Journal of International Relations 18(2):299–321.Google Scholar
Neumann, Iver B., and Pouliot, Vincent. 2011. “Untimely Russia: Hysteresis in Russian-Western Relations over the Past Millennium.” Security Studies 20(1):105–137.Google Scholar
Nora, Pierre. 1989. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations 26:7–24.Google Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent. 2007. “‘Sobjectivism’: Toward a Constructivist Methodology.” International Studies Quarterly 51(2):359–384.Google Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent 2008. “The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities.” International Organization 62(2):257–288.Google Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent 2010. International Security in Practice: The Politics of NATO-Russia Diplomacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent, and Mérand, Frédéric. 2013. “Bourdieu’s Concepts: Political Sociology in International Relations.” In Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, edited by Rebecca Adler-Nissen, 24–44. Milton Park: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ringmar, Erik. 2014. “The Search for Dialogue as a Hindrance to Understanding: Practices as Inter-Paradigmatic Research Program.” International Theory 6(1):1–27.Google Scholar
Roth, Paul A. 2012. “The Pasts.” History and Theory 51(3):313–339.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1981. Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1985. Islands of History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schindler, Sebastian. 2014. “Man versus State: Contested Agency in the United Nations.” Millennium – Journal of International Studies 43(1):3–23.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. 2005. Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Michael J. 2002. “Bourdieu, the State and Method.” Review of International Political Economy 9(4):610–618.Google Scholar
Swartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Villumsen Berling, Trine. 2012. “Bourdieu, International Relations, and European Security.” Theory and Society 41(5):451–478.Google Scholar
Walt, Stephen M. 1997. “The Gorbachev Interlude and International Relations Theory.” Diplomatic History 21(3):473–479.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1987. “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory.” International Organization 41(3):335–370.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander 1992. “Anarchy is What States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46(2):391–425.Google Scholar
Wight, Colin. 2006. Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Michael C. 2007. Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security. Milton Park: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wohlforth, William C. 1994. “Realism and the End of the Cold War.” International Security 19(3):91–129.Google Scholar
Zehfuss, Maja. 2007. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar