Historical Sociology and International Relations: Geopolitics, Capitalism and State System

2013-06-01
This article attempts to critically adress the development of the relation between historical sociology and international relations theory. It evaluates the main stages of the historical sociological approaches in IR and the main issues of contention. Historical sociological approaches to IR have evolved from a Weberian stage in 1970s and 80s to a point where it is heavily dominated by historical materialist approaches today. The focus of these debates is to develop a historical materialist undersanding of the "international" so far dominated by ahistorical and positivist conceptions. The article discusses the relation between capitalism and the state system and the concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) as the major points of discussion within the historical materialist historical sociology The article concludes by adressing some of the crucial issues of contention for the future development of a historical sociological analysis of IR.
ULUSLARARASI ILISKILER-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Suggestions

Critical analysis on marxist orthodoxies: a contribution of social history of political theory
Koçak, Berkay; Birler, Reşide Ömür; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2017)
This thesis aims to identify the different approaches to historical materialism in a way describing the existing controversy between Political Marxism and mainstream (Orthodox) Marxism especially concentrating on their perspectives viewing the history of political thought. As the unique effort to understand the origins of political theory, the discipline namely ‘the social history of political theory’ -which was founded and developed by Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942-2016)- is revisited and reevaluated in compar...
Identity representations in the narratives on the EU-Turkey relations
Özbey, Ebru Ece; Hauge, Hanna-Lisa; Rumelili, Bahar; Eralp, Atila (2019-3-19)
This study aims to situate contemporary debates on the EU-Turkey relations in a broader historical context. It argues that understanding from where current narratives come and identifying their constituents, and particularly the narrators’ mutual perceptions on each other, which have endured through decades or even centuries, contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship in critical ways. The paper is based on the results of two historically oriented studies carried out within the framework of t...
Geopolitics and the study of international relations
Gökmen, Semra Ranâ; Polat, Necati; Department of International Relations (2010)
This study seeks to examine the main theories and theorists of geopolitical imagining and argue for an intrinsic relation between traditional geopolitics and the development of international relations both in theory and practice. By doing so the study aims to pursue an assessment of the insights of critical geopolitics, as reflected in the works of John Agnew, Geraróid Ó Tuathail (Gerard Toal), Simon Dalby, Klaus Dodds and others, for the theory of IR, more specifically its dominant paradigm realism. The ai...
State intervention in Turkey: an assessment of the relationship between the political and the economic spheres
Güney, Atilla; Kaya, Raşit; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2002)
This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between the political and economic spheres in Turkey in the context of critical political theory. In addition to the historical analysis of the issue of state intervention, the thesis tries to offer a new framework for explaining the mediation between the crisis and the restructuring of the politics-economy relation through the evaluation of alleged transformation of the 1980s in Turkey. In this context, the conception of the reformulation of this relation...
Critical theory, deliberative democracy and international relations theory
Akdenizli, Dilek; Yalvaç, Faruk; Department of International Relations (2005)
In the 20th century, Critical Theory has been very influential on every discipline of social sciences including international relations. According to Critical IR Theory, traditional theories are problem solving and try to explain repetition and recurrence, rather than change; however, the main subject matter of an IR theory should be the change itself. The idea of change is also constitutive of Habermasian political thought. Jürgen Habermas, as a critical theorist, has developed the model of Deliberative De...
Citation Formats
F. Yalvaç, “Historical Sociology and International Relations: Geopolitics, Capitalism and State System,” ULUSLARARASI ILISKILER-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, pp. 3–28, 2013, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/53617.