Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T07:24:06.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

White Man’s IR: An Intellectual Confession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2016

David A. Lake
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing largely on my own career in academia, I elaborate on the need for greater gender, racial and other forms of diversity in International Relations. Although theories are thought to be “objective,” what goes into those theories and, in turn, their explanatory power is ultimately shaped by subjective, lived experiences. Different individuals with different life stories will develop different intuitions about how the world “works,” and thus will write different theories to capture those intuitions and, in turn, larger patterns of politics. I explain here how my life experience as a privileged white male has shaped the intellectual contours of my work on international hierarchy. Building from this foundation, I then explore how professional practices elevate as gatekeepers individuals with generally similar life experiences and, thus, intuitions about what constitutes “good” work in the field, which in turn reinforces those professional practices and priorities. The final section focuses on problems of eroding the disciplinary hierarchy and broadening the pipeline into the profession.

Type
Praxis
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 1112 - 1122
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 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

Acharya, Amitav. 2007. “International Relations Theory and Western Dominance: Reassessing the Foundations of Interantional Order.” Presented at Seminar Series, Centre for International Studies, Febuary 22, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Adamson, Fiona B. 2016. “Spaces of Global Security: Beyond Methodological Nationalism.” Journal of Global Security Studies 1(1): 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akhtar, Parveen, Fawcett, Paul, Legrand, Tim, Marsh, David, and Taylor, Chloe. 2005. “Women in the Political Science Profession.” European Political Science 4: 242–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Political Science Association. (APSA). 2004. “Women’s Advancement in Political Science: A Report of the APSA Workshop on the Advancement of Women in Academic Political Science in the United States.” Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Axelrod, Robert. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Axworthy, Lloyd. 2001. “Human Security and Global Governance: Putting People First.” Global Governance 7: 19–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayoob, Mohammed. 2002. “Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism.” International Studies Review 4(3): 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandes, Lisa, Buker, Eloise, Burgess, Constance Cook, Flammang, Janet, Geiger, Shirley, Okin, Susan, Yoon, Bang-Soon, and Ackelsberg, Martha. 2001. “The Status of Women in Political Science: Female Participation in the Professoriate and the Study of Women and Politics in the Discipline.” PSOnline http://www.apsanet.org/portals/54/Files/Status%20of%20Women/200106WmnReport.pdfGoogle Scholar
Brems, Christiane, Baldwin, Michael R., Davis, Lisa, and Namyniuk, Lorraine. 1994. “The Imposter Syndrome as Related to Teaching Evaluations and Advising Relationships of University Faculty Mentors.” Journal of Higher Education 65(2): 183–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breslin, Shaun and Christou, George. 2015. “Has the Human Security Agenda Come of Age? Definitions, Discourses and Debates.” Contemporary Politics 21(1): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clance, Pauline R. and Imes, Suzanne A.. 1978. “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therpetic Intervention.” Psycholotherapy: Theory, Reserach & Practice 15(3): 241–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Dara Kay. 2016. Rape During Civil War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Colgan, Jeff. Forthcoming. “Gender Bias in IR Graduate Education? New Evidence from Syllabi.” PS: Political Science and Politics.Google Scholar
Cooley, Alexander. 2005. Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States, and Military Occupations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Curley, Melissa. 2012. “Human Security’s Future in Regional Cooperation and Governance?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 66(5): 527–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, Jack. 2006. “Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy: American Power and International Society.” European Journal of International Relations 12(2): 139–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, Tim. 2003. “Society and Hierarchy in International Relations.” International Relations 17(3): 303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1953. The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 1990. Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 2000. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 2004. The Curious Feminist: Search for Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michael. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Sheridan, A.. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Frieden, Jeffry A., David, A. Lake, and Schultz, Kenneth A.. 2016. World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Greenhill, Kelly. 2011. Weapons of Mass Migration: Force Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Grieco, Joseph M., John Ikenberry, G., and Mastanduno, Michael. 2015. Introduction to International Relations: Enduring Questions and Contemporary Perspectives. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, Penny. 2007. “Refashioning IPE: What and How Gender Analysis Teaches International (Global) Political Economy.” Review of International Political Economy 14(4): 719–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancock, Kathleen J. 2009. Regional Integration: Choosing Plutocracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobson, John M. and Sharman, J. C.. 2005. “The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics: Tracing the Social Logic of Hierarchy and Political Change.” European Journal of International Relations 11(1): 63–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Homolar, Alexandra. 2015. “Human Security Benchmarks: Governing Human Wellbeing at a Distance.” Review of International Studies 41(5): 843–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jost, John T., Rudman, Laurie A., Blair, Irene V., Carney, Dana R., Dasgupta, Nilanjana, Glaser, Jack, and Hardin, Curtis D.. 2009. “The Existence of Implicit Bias Is Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Refutation of Ideological and Methodological Objections and Executive Summary of Ten Studies that No Manager Should Ignore.” Research in Organizational Behavior 29: 39–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kang, David C. 2003/04. “Hierarchy, Balancing, and Empirical Puzzles in Asian International Relations.” International Security 28(3): 165–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keene, Edward. 2007. “A Case Study of the Construction of International Hierarchy: British Treaty-Making Against the Slave Trade in the Early Nineteenth Century.” International Organizaiton 61(2): 311–39.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2d, enlarged ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lake, Brenden M., Ullman, Tomer D., Tenenbaum, Joshua B., and Gershman, Samuel J.. 2016. “Building Machines That Learn and Think Like People.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.00289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 1988. Power, Protection, and Free Trade: The International Sources of American Commercial Strategy, 1887–1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David A. 1993. “Leadership, Hegemony, and the International Economy: Naked Emperor or Tattered Monarch with Potential?” International Studies Quarterly 37(4): 459–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 1999. Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in its Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David A. 2009a. Hierarchy in International Relations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David A. 2009b. “Hobbesian Hierarchy: The Political Economy of Political Organization.” Annual Review of Political Science 12: 263–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 2011. “Why ’Isms’ Are Evil: Theory, Epistemology, and Academic Sects as Impediments to Understanding and Progress.” International Studies Quarterly 55(2): 465–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 2014. “Crises of Authority: Domestic Structures and the Chaning American Imperium.” In Power in a Complex Global System, ed. Pauly, L. W. and Jentleson, B.. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
MacNell, Lillian, Driscoll, Adam, and Hunt, Andrea N.. 2015. “What’s In a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching.” Innovative Higher Education 40(4): 291–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maliniak, Daniel, Powers, Ryan, and Walter, Barbara F.. 2013. “The Gender Citation Gap in International Relations.” International Oganizaiton 67(4): 889–922.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCormack, Tara. 2008. “Power and Agency in the Human Security Framework.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 21(1): 113–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCormack, Tara. 2011. “Human Security and the Separation of Security and Development.” Conflict, Security and Development 11(2): 253–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moss-Racusin, Corrine A., Dovidio, John F., Brescoll, Victoria L., Graham, Mark J., and Handelsman, Jo. 2012. “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Studies.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(41): 16474–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nau, Henry R. 2009. Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, Ideas. 2d ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Oye, Kenneth A., ed. 1985. Cooperation under Anarchy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Page, Scott E. 2007. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Soceities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Paris, Roland. 2001. “Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?” International Security 26(2): 87–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, V. Spike. 2003. A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive, and Virtual Economics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Phillips, Katherine W. 2014. “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter.” Scientific American, October 1.Google Scholar
Preston, Michael B. and Woodard, Maurice. 1984. “The Rise and Decline of Black Political Scientists in the Profession.” PS: Political Science and Politics 17(4): 787–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2005. “Liberal ierarchy and the Licence to Use Force.” Review of International Studies 31(SupplementS1): 71–92.Google Scholar
Rich, Wilbur. 2007. African American Perspectives on Political Science. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Fiona. 1997. “Feminist IR/IPE Theory: Fulfilling Its Radical Potential?” Review of International Political Economy 4(4): 773–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Fiona. 2008. “The Importance of Care in the Theory and Practice of Human Security.” Journal of International Political Theory 4(2): 167–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1969. “Models of Segregation.” American Economic Review 59(2): 488–93.Google Scholar
Sjoberg, Laura. 2013. Gendering Global Conflict: Towards a Feminist Theory of War. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Sjoberg, Laura. Forthcoming. “Revealing International Hierarchy through Gender Lenses.” In Hierarchies in World Politics, ed. By Zarakol, Ayse. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steinpreis, Rhea E., Katie, A. Anders, and Ritzke, Dawn. 1999. “The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study.” Sex Roles 41(7): 509–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Vattel, Emer de. 2008 (1758). The Law of Nations. Edited and with an Introduction by Bela Kapossy and Richard Whatmore. University Park, IL: The Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Vitalis, Robert. 2000. “The Graceful and Generous Liberal Gesture: Making Racism Invisible in American International Relations.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29(2): 331–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vitalis, Robert. 2015. White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Katja. 2000. Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: Transaction Costs and Institutional Choice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander and Friedheim, Daniel. 1995. “Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State.” International Organization 49(4): 689–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarakol, Ayse and Mattern, Janice Bially. 2016. “Theorising Hierarchies in World Politics.” International Organization 70(3): 623–654.Google Scholar