CHAPTER 17
HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: THE DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Johnson O. Ndubuisi, PhD
Introduction
History and international studies are siamese twins sharing an umbilical cord that cannot be separated because the root of international relations as the reductionists have tended to brand it, is in itself a product of history. Several attempts were made to sidetrack history from the domain of international relations by the positivist political scientists after the World War I while inheriting the field of international relations. Without recourse to history, some international relations scholars and practitioners alike attempted to fashion out a discipline that they perceive could be distinct from history which happens to be the progenitor of any international discourse probably because it was not essentially coined or code-named international studies ab initio. This is a question of a progeny wishing away its forebearer as aptly captured by Thompson (1999) who stated thus:
Perhaps because it is a child of history, international relations, as it has developed, has tried to distance itself from historical discourse, through methodological and theoretical innovations seeking general knowledge about international and global politics. In this flight from the old ways of history, researchers have tended to down-play the historical content of their own work, and, at times, to embrace an easy historical empiricism. This uncritical view of the past has contributed to an often licentious historical method, with history serving less as an independent body of evidence than as a trove to be plundered …
However, in spite of this onslaught of ignominy by the overzealous positivist scholars, it remained impossible to wish away history as their reference point for even the theories they tinkered out from the ash heap of history. Though this could be termed a weakness on the part of history, however, the temporary loss of grip of the discipline of international relations to the ‘prison yard’ of political science and the eventual come back of history to assume its responsibility and pride of place in the discourse of international phenomena as a distinct and specialized area of study within its domain, also add to the dimensions in the growth and development of the discipline of history and international studies, which began in the remote past, prior to the origin of international relations in the twentieth century. International relations were instituted by the quest to usher in a new world order without wars through what was termed a proper study of international events following the publication of Paul Reinsch’s book ‘World Politics’ (1900) and ‘Carnegie Endowment of Peace’ (1910). Efforts were then directed at acquiring systematic knowledge of the behavior of states in international system so that areas of conflict could be located and ways to resolve them could be found. This led to the introduction of various approaches for the attainment of peace. Thus, between the periods after the World War I and 1950’s alone as surveyed by Thompson, the discipline had undergone four stages which were classical in nature, while the fifth approach underpinning the scientific era came in the sixties. These were practically when history was relegated. However, the latest and the present stage, which is the sixth stage of development representing a reconciliation between the classicaland scientific approaches has witnessed the full return of history in the realm of international studies discourse (www.preservearticles. com, 2019) as a result of various changes and recent occurrence in this age of globalization which could not be effectively explained by mere theories, hence the need for a blend of history and other approaches to strike holistic balance in the study of the global phenomena.
Be that as it may, the immediate objective of this study is not to engage in unwieldy contestations regarding whose domain international studies belong, but to trace the dimensional trajectory and tortuous route which history has rode on to come to grapple with international studies as this will contribute in deepening our understanding and evolution of the discipline - history and international studies.
To this end, the study presents this treatise in the following dimensions: conceptual clarifications of international studies and international politics/ relations; the era of diplomatic history; the period of international relations in the ‘prison yard of political science; the struggle to problematize international studies; the era of history and international studies.
Conceptual Clarifications
Scholars have made conscious attempts to define conceptually, international studies, international relations and international politics. While some see these concepts as distinct from each other, some others conceive them as virtually the same and a matter of semantics and coinage. However, from the descriptions, we can decipher where there are differences and areas of convergence.
International Studies
Generally, the term international studies refer to a specialized university degree and programme concerned withthe study of ‘the major political, economic, social, and cultural issues that dominate the international agenda’ (The British International Studies Association, 2016). In specific terms, it refers to ‘the contemporary and historical understanding of global societies, cultures, languages and systems of government and of the complex relationships between them that shapes the world we live in’ (Flinders University, 2010). International Studies is sometimes also referred to as global studies. The terms can be used interchangeably depending on the perceptional inclination of the user.
Difference and Relationship between International Studies and International Relations
The terms and concepts of international studies and international relations are strongly related; however, international relations focus more directly on the relationship between countries, whereas international studies typically encompass all phenomena which are globally oriented.
Origin of the Discipline of International Studies
The origin of the discipline of international studies is strongly associated with the history of the study of international relations, as described in the International Relations entry. However, the study of international studies as a specialized area ofstudy that is distinct from international relations is a product of the 20th century, as the world became increasingly complex due to emergent globalization phenomenon whereby there is a high degree of proliferation of non-state issues and actors alike rather than only inter-country relations. Specifically, the discipline was greatly influenced by the establishment of the International Studies Association, which was established in 1959 by a ‘group of academics and practitioners’with the aim of ‘seeking to pursue mutual interests in world affairs through the organization of a professional association’ (International Studies Association, 2010a; International Studies Association, 2010b).
The establishment of the association reflected the increasing interest in global issuesand reflected the need for international academic dialogue. Throughout the later stages of the 20th century and into the 21st century, many education institutions worldwide developed International Studies degrees (both undergraduate and postgraduate) in different forms. Some schools domiciled it within the arts while others domiciled it in the social sciences. Also, in some climes, international studies have been designated as a standalone discipline. However, whether stand alone or not, it is a discipline that is mostly embedded in History and is the reason for the name – history and international studies.
As mentioned earlier, the increasingly globalization (increasing interconnectedness) process and the toll it has brought to bear on nation states has continued to generate even greater interest in, and increasing popularity, relevance and necessity of the discipline of international studies, much more in the context of the twenty-first century. The discipline has become increasingly popular in various universities across regions of the globe – Europe, North America, Australia, South America, Asia and Africa.
For instance, the increasing popularity of the discipline in Australia prompted the International Studies Association (ISA) therein to establish an Asia-Pacific Regional Section of the ISA at the University of Queensland in 2009, which has been viewed as an indication of the growth of this area of specialization in Australia (International Graduate, Australia, 2010).
Sequel to domiciliary issues and the development of the course content for the discipline, many educational institutions have developed International Studies degrees and courses in order to engage students with the increasing number of issues and phenomena which have arisen in an increasingly globalized world. As such, most education providers justify the need for the degrees by relating the increasing importance of the discipline with real-world situations and employment opportunities. For example, the University of Technology Sydney states that the purpose of their International Studies degree is to ‘prepare graduates for careers and contributions in a world of social and cultural diversity being transformed by globalization, allowing students to draw connections between global phenomena and local practices in work and life’ (University of Technology Sydney, 2010). On the flip side, some universities try to relate international studies with other industries. Monash Universityfor instance, describes the relevance for International Studies thus:
as the world globalizes and nations and economies become more integrated, it is important to understand our world and the ideas and beliefs of our neighbors and trading partners. In order to compete in the international marketplaces of products, ideas and knowledge we need to understand and respect the cultures and beliefs of other (Monash University, 2010).
Furthermore, international studies is offered in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at many universities either as part of an arts degree or as a specialist arts degree across universities in all regions of the globe. However, generally international studies encapsulate the following areas of study in multidisciplinary dimension:
the political, social, economic and cultural relationships within the international system
foreign policy, diplomacy and other modes of interaction between the countries of the world
the significance of foreign societies, cultures, and systems of government
the international movement of people as immigrants, refugees, workers, students, tourists and investors
the role of international organizations
the globalization of the world economy
foreign languages
history (Flinders University, 2010).
The approach adopted in the teaching of international studies differs across countries. For example, in Australia, the course is mounted mostly within universities and as a holistic study of international affairs and phenomena (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2010).
There are also, several International Studies programs in Canada, Chile, that offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Whereas in the United Kingdom (UK), the British International Studies Association (BSI) develops and promotes the study of International Studies, Global Politics and related subjects through teaching, research and the facilitation of contact between scholars. However, International Studies is often related to or attached to the study in International Relations (University of Oxford, 2012) and not as separate entities. In the United States, it is situated as an admixture of foreign relations think tanks and institutional based research study. For instance, The Centre for Strategic and International Studies is a foreign policy think tank which aims to ‘provide strategic insights and policy solutions to decision makers in government, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society’ (Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2010) ; The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies is a research center based at Stanford University which is a ‘primary center for innovative research on major international issues and challenges’ (Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, 2010). While both institutions focus primarily on the study of international affairs and relations in relation to US foreign policy, the undergraduate International Studies program at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York is a holistic program that more closely follows the Australian model. There is also Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh in United States (Brustein and King, 2004).
In Netherlands, international studies are domiciled in the History Department and is named History and International Studies. For instance, at VU Amsterdam History and International Studies is a unique programme combining approaches from history and the social sciences to understand how societies have been connected throughout history. The programme offers a combination of history courses, modern language units and research skills from the fields of global history and international relations. The students are introduced to the field and approaches of global history and taught to reflect on the relationship between history and contemporary debates on issues such as democracy and authoritarianism, global inequality, or climate change. Courses discuss the history of Europe and the world from antiquity to the present, electives organized around different themes such as politics and economy; migration and ethnicity; culture and religion or heritage and memory etc.
In the case of Nigeria, the sub-discipline of History and International Studies arose as a child of circumstance. The initial post-colonial Nigerian history scholars were immersed in nationalist history without much reference and attention to that of international. It was when it faced the crisis of relevance and dwindling student enrolment that Dr. Ndulife Njoku (then head of History Unit) in 1995 approached Professor Uzoigwe (then Dean of College of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Imo State Univesity, Owerri) to consider a name change as a possible solution to the above challenge that confronted dwindling student enrollment in History programme at Imo State University. Upon using the university administrative apparatus to secure the Senate approval of the name change, other universities in Nigeria joined in this revolutionary approach to the study of history by copying the Imo State University initiative. This brought about tremendous revival of history in Nigerian universities (Uzoigwe, 2008). “It is perhaps, in other to avoid any further problems with the obviously irked political scientists that Nigerian historians delineated theirs as International Studies instead of Relations” (Aja, 2016, cited in Ugwujah, 2018, p.164).
Dimensions of International Studies
The evolution of international studies right from the Greek era to the era of the state system, the world wars and the post world war events through the era of what is perceived as post positivist/post-international period culminate dimensions of international studies, in other words – different ways in which international studies is represented in each era till the present period that we have the designation – history and international studies. The scope, content and course of history make the discipline a pivot and as well a key resource base of international studies.
As a field of enquiry, History is concerned with the ‘how’,‘why’ and ‘when’ of events and situations. Historians are not only concerned with what happened in the past; they are also interested in explaining how it happened and why it was so. In this vein, Marwick (1970) posits that there are three levels of meaning of history: first, history connotes the entire human past as it actually happened. Second, history connotes man’s attempt to describe and interpret the past. Third, history denotes a field of study/discipline. There are many subgenres of history, these include political, economic, social, military/strategic, diplomatic/international
history/relations, among others.
The Golden Era of History and World Affairs
The Greek Dimension: Evidence abound that suggest that international studies or international history was phenomenon could be traced backto the ancient times though it was not yet specifically addressed as international studies. For example, the ancient Greeks under the auspices of Peloponnesian League related with each in the Greek city-state system. There were Greek history scholars who wrote and taught how best the Greek international system could be preserved. Kalijarvi (1961), for instance, writes that ancient Greece was a torchbearer in the evolution of international studies. According to him, disputes were arbitrated, criminals extradited, ambassadors, messengers, heralds, diplomatic officers, and secretaries exchanged; temples accorded immunity from attack or violation; and cooperation among states fostered. International law then was very much observed. It covered items already mentioned and in addition such subjects as asylum, naturalization, immunity of monuments from destruction, diplomatic privileges, consular regularization and the pacific settlement of international dispute. So numerous were the subjects of interstate relations that classical scholars often assert that every international institution in the present time had its antecedent in ancient Greece.
As mentioned, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is both a seminal historical work and the founding text of international relations. Thucydides’ celebrated explanation of the cause of the Peloponnesian War is that “what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta” (Thucydides,1972: I 23). This emphasis on power distribution and uneven development was a quantum leap in the study of international relations, quite unlike Herodotus who was content to explain the Greek–Persian conflict solely on the basis of mythical incidents and human passions.
Furthermore, the theme of Polybius’s History (1922–1927) is the rise of Rome to “universal” dominance within little more than a century (264–146 bce). The major contribution of Polybius to international relations was his “world systemic” approach. Echoing modern calls for systemic as opposed to “reductionist” approaches to international relations, he insisted that only universal history was meaningful history; local histories were bound to distort the picture by unduly magnifying relatively minor factors and events. Granted that the Roman state did not cover the whole known world or even the whole civilized known world (to the east of the Roman domains the Persians remained independent), but in Polybius’s time the Mediterranean basin was basically a self-contained international system. Polybius consciously aimed at providing political guidance to his readership. Among others, he set out to demonstrate the dynamics of security dilemma and imperialism, that is, how the Romans’ quest for security insensibly led them on the path to empire. In addition, Polybius (1922–1927:VI) delved into the domestic structures of Rome and pointed out their profound impact on its international relations.
Ibn Khaldûn (1967) wrote a history centered on the Arab and Berber dynasties, mentioning also the non-Arab states of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. This was the laboratory that enabled him to work out a pattern of what many centuries later would be called “power transition” (Organski,1968:338–376). His account of the rise and decline of states under the influence of their domestic structures still retains its intellectual power.
The Roman Dimension: The Romans on their part, made some invaluable contributions to the evolution of international studies. For example, while theGreeks established their empire by the might of sword, the Roman public intellectuals contrived a strategic formula – the power of persuasion and where this failed, the sword (Johari, 2014). This does not yet suggest that there was a distinct discipline assigned as International Studies. More so, scholarship as it is presently, was not departmentalized in Greco-Roman civilizations. Renaissance Italy was a political minefield, where backstabbing dukes, ambitious republics, and disloyal mercenaries created a laboratory for political innovation. This environment produced professional armies, the roots of state finance, and modern diplomacy, a legacy Italy left for the rest of Europe (Play.acast.com., 2019).
It was at this juncture that Niccolo Machiavelli, the first great Italian historian, and one of the most eminent political writers of any age or country (Machiavelli, 2013), wrote on the strategy for the conduct of diplomacy and foreign affairs by statesmen.
For instance, Machiavelli in The Prince, actively encourages imperialism. He stated that this tutorial (The Prince) would not only be useful to the Italian Prince, but also to other kings of France. According to Machiavelli,
the basic challenge facing all conquerors is twofold. The people one has conquered and seeks to rule are offended by and therefore resist the rule of the conqueror. At the same time, the inhabitants who supported the conqueror initially will almost certainly have their hopes disappointed by the new regime and are therefore likely to turn against the new prince. These challenges are less grave when the conquered territory shares a language and customs with the conquering principality. In such cases, it suffices to eliminate the bloodline of the native prince without antagonizing the conquered people by changing their taxes or laws. Before long, the conquered territory will be absorbed into the conqueror’s state. (On the other hand) The challenge of conquering lands with alien languages and customs is greater (Bennett, 2015, p.3).
Machiavelli gave recipe for overcoming the above challenges of kings and principalities going imperial. Thus, in order to succeed, one needs “great fortune and great industry”. But as is typical, Machiavelli does not counsel resignation or moderation but rather offers five general guidelines for meeting the challenge, the spirit of which is to assure that one is and remains the most powerful force in the territory. First, one must prevent foreign powers from getting involved. Second, one must either live in or, what is even better, colonize the conquered territory. Third, one must put down the powerful there. Fourth, one must ally with neighboring lesser powers. And finally, one must always look to the future and emerging threats (Bennett, 2015).
Thus, Machiavelli indicates that the challenge of conquering and holding territories will vary according to the character of the regimes in those territories. Empires, such as Persia and Turkey, while difficult to acquire, are relatively easy to maintain. Once one has eliminated the emperor, the people are easy to rule as they are accustomed to submission. Kingdoms with intermediate aristocratic powers, such as France, and republics, while easier to acquire than empires, are more difficult to maintain, as the nobles in the former and the people in the latter, are not so submissive. One must be much harsher in such regimes than in empires, eliminating the aristocratic bloodlines in the former and destroying the tradition of freedom and dispersing the people in the latter (Bennett, 2015).
Machiavelli does not insist upon any moral restrictions in maintaining conquered territory. At the same time, he counsels against unnecessary cruelty. Indeed, it is in this context that he offers the famous or infamous dictum “that men should either be caressed or eliminated, because they avenge themselves for slight offenses but cannot do so for grave ones” (Bennett, 2015). Thus, Machiavelli urges an imperialism that is as harsh or as gentle toward one’s new subjects as well as to other countries as is necessary in order to maintain one’s conquests. On the whole, the only key consideration for the prince is the acquisition and maintenance of power. It is within this framework that Machiavelli being the reigning historian of the Renaissance age adumbrated the present internal studies.
The Modern European State Dimension
The concepts of the European state system and the balance of power played a prominent role in the works of several 19th-century political historians. Among them, Arnold Heeren (1834) elaborated on the idea that the European states constituted an international system; however, he insisted on excluding the Ottoman Empire from that system. The works of Leopold von Ranke, the exemplar of the 19th-century political historian, are also permeated by the concepts of great powers and the balance of power (Von Laue, 1950; Gilbert, 1990:26, 29–30). Ranke found it natural to focus on the great powers, because great powers are the most influential international actors; in this focus, Ranke echoes many a present-day political realist such as Waltz (1979) and Mearsheimer (2001).
As posited by Koloipoulos (2017), during the very long period prior to the post World War era, insights on international relations were embedded in historical texts. Still, even within this older historical literature it is not out of place to find variations along the lines of International Relations and History.Some of the works are closer to modern international relations than others. On the whole, the emergent discipline of international relations inherited the bulk of the intellectual baggage from the earlier historical literature.
The Era of International Relations in the Domain of Political Science:
In the post-Westphalian order, the origins of the study of international relations as a distinct field of enquiry began in the years following the First World War. Johari (2014: 39) further explains that “chairs were created in leading American and English Universities so as to understand international political developments”. Among the earliest practitioners of the new discipline were historians, international jurists and scholars of politics. However, the outbreak of another disastrous global war in 1939 was taken by a new generation of younger scholars to signal, among other things, the failure of the idealism of InternationalRelations the faultiness of the historical approach to the study of International Relations. Taking inspirations from the earlier writings of social theorists like Talcott Parsons and Almond, post-World II scholars of International Relations subscribed strictly to the course of empiricism. Johari (2014: 58) notes that, Karl Deutsch, David J. Singer, Richard Snyder, H.W Bruck, B. Sapin and a very large number of new scholars devised new methods, tools, strategies, paradigms and the like, in attempt to understand and explain international political reality in exclusively empirical terms. They discarded every consideration of normativism and instead sought to convert the study of international politics into a science.
We need not over flog the fact of history that international history has a longstanding pedigree. To this extent, diplomatic history was one of the components and drivers of the modern codification of the historical method. In the 19 century reflections of Leopold Von Ranke, one sees how charting the actions of State leaders, governments and foreign ministries (Grosse Politik) formed a crucial field in the codification of a discipline that aimed to reconstruct past events with absolute precision, using solid documentary sources; and in doing so, to make full use of the vast accumulated depository of materials produced by the bureaucracies in charge of State diplomacy ever since the structure of the modern
State consolidated, and there formed in parallel a European system of states (Di Nolfo, 2006, p.26).
This tradition of historical research in what has come to be known as international studies has survived through the ages until the post-World War I. Great historians have always used foreign policy to offer a broad and pervasive representation of the spirit of an age. In a few instances, the broad horizon of problems and choices that were discussed took on a meaning that was much deeper and broader than the simple discussion of viewpoints espoused by a limited circle of statesmen and bureaucrats. To mention one classic Italian case, Federico Chabod’s investigation into the history of Italy’s post-unitary foreign policy opened with a volume of premises that actually provided a great fresco of cultures and mentalities, passions and material dimensions – in addition to the intentions and thoughts of the country’s individual protagonists. In its comprehensive complexity, this made an important contribution to the broader history of Italy (Chabod, 1951).
This era is equally a period characterized as the period of ‘Lessons of History’.
The English School approach he pioneered sought instead to use the historical record to demonstrate that theorizing about relations between states is dependent on recognizing fundamental lessons about the actual historical practices undertaken by actors within International Relations. History thus provides the empirical material for understanding the function and evolution of what Bull sawas the fundamental institutions constituting an international society: the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war, and the concert of great powers (Bull, 1977). The English School’s treatment of history allows for an understanding of how to extend the element of international society that provides the basis for order between sovereign states (Bull, 1977).
The Era of Thrusting International Studies into the ‘Prison Yard of Political Science’ (Rosenberg, 2016):
It was the rise of the behaviouralists, especially among political scientists that seemed to have pushed history to the fringes, seeking, as it were, to claim for political science, the new discipline of International Relations. However, this did not come without some reactions by leading Diplomatic historians. For instance, Fry (1987: 5) a leading American historian contends that, Diplomatic historians stood among the founders of international relations but have been elbowed aside, and some of the fault lies with them. They allowed history to become a mere preface to current events, their empiricism to become little more than a source of data for social scientists, and their intellectual preferences to be used as a bulwark against science itself. They all too frequently dismissed international relations or mistook it for journalism (Fry, 1987, p.5).
The above contention does not only describe the attitude of some American historians to International Relations but applies to Nigerian historians as well. Even with advent of the post-behavioural paradigm, which American scholars refer to as ‘the return of history’, the empiricists continue to berate those whoemploy the historical approach in the study of international relations (IR). In the Nigerian situation, political scientists often argue that historians are not methodologically equipped to make any meaningful contributions to IR. Nigerian historians who have an interest in IR have since countered this claim by producing studies on varying aspects of the discipline of International Relations. In fact, the founding Director-General of Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Dr. Lawrence Apalara Fubunmi, was a historian who had studied the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in the Sudan for a PhD (Ujah, 2018).
Prior to the era of ostracization of history from international studies, put differently, emasculation of international studies via occupation and domination of international relations by scholars and practitioners of political science, the discipline of International Relations passed through two distinct phases. The first phase was characterized by a high degree of historical accuracy and strict adherence to the principles of historical research and documentation. In this phase, the accounts of history were presented in a descriptive and chronological manner without what the opponents referred to as much reference to how specific and situations fitted into the general pattern of international conduct (Thompson, 1952).
The second phase featured a rejection of the methodology and orientation of the diplomatic historians which appeared to have had a free course in the first phase. To that extent, Thompson (1952) expressed those two general approaches emerged in the second phase of the evolution of the discipline. First, the diplomatic historians of the period continued to present their study in the strictest historical methodology and regarded less of the current events approach emphasized bythose who had rejected the approach of the first phase. Second, the new methodology championed by the scholars of the second phase placed the teacher of international relations in the position of an expositor and interpreter of the immediate significance of “current events” (Maliniak, et al, 2007). In addition, little or no attempt was made by these writers of the second phase to relate history to the contemporary problems of the international system. The approach of the second phase, therefore, was accused of not developing firm methodological foundations by which the events of the present could be related to the long run of history.
The third phase was characterized by the disenchantment of scholars of International Relations with the normative traditions of the discipline. Thus, they were moved to adopt a new approach which stressed the institutionalization of international relations through international law and organization (Thompson, 1952). It was not a surprise then that the idealism of the founders of the League of Nations marked a significant to rub off on the academic persuasions of the writersof the third phase. In effect, they all subscribed to the assumption that the peace of the international system would be best preserved by international cooperation and thus, devoted their energies to promoting international cooperation via international law and organizations.
The next phase, which was the fourth phase, marked the complete rejection of history in the evolution of International Relations. This is a phase which Thompson referred to as a behavioral revolution. This phase emerged because the idealism of the inter-war scholars was unable to forestall another global war and, considering that power politics continued to subsist as the basic element of international relations. Therefore, scholars and practitioners of International Relations began to emphasize on political power, rather than law and institutions as the essential dynamic in international relations (Thompson, 1952).
This period can also be described as the era of ‘escape from history’ (Glencross, 2010). Here escape from history connotes a period in which scholars of international relations theorizes from history in order to identify a ‘fundamental caesura’ in the history of international relations that makes the present very much unlike the past. In this way of thinking, what separates the past from the present or future is the ability to transcend violent inter-state conflict at least within a subset of certain states. From this perspective, the history of international relations is there to reveal the presence of this caesura and explain its causes. In this new political context, the old lessons are no longer applicable precisely because of a new ability to establish an order that can triumph over the imperfections caused by the division of the globe into sovereign states – an order from which the possibility of backsliding is also discounted (Glencross, 2010).
Here two International Relation theories fit into this category: democratic peace theory and neo-functionalism. The first proclaims the inherent potential for a global escape from history, whilst the original globalist ambitions of the second have (in the face of the paucity of regional integration worldwide) have been reduced to explaining the seemingly sui generis phenomenon of European political integration. Democratic peace theory is a highly contested paradigm which contends that liberal democratic states have a unique ability to construct enduringly peaceful relations amongst one another (Doyle, 1983; Lipson, 2003; Levy and Razin, 2004). In the perception of Kenneth Waltz, this is a “second image” theory that identifies various features of the domestic political system to explain the nature of the resulting peaceful international relations betweendemocratic states. These features include constitutional checks on executive power, electoral checks on aggressive politicians, political transparency and openness that enable credible commitments to be made to other states as well as the shared value of resolving disputes through dialogue and negotiation. Moreover, given their transparency and checking mechanisms, domestic democratic systems are more amenable to the creation of institutions forpacific inter-state cooperation that become a mutually reinforcing mechanism for international peace (Lipson, 2003).
However, all these explanatory elements have been subject to criticism based on the empirical record of state belligerence in the post-Westphalian era, which is a minefield of coding and assorted interpretative choices for defining democracy and war (Davis, 2005: 77). In addition, the record of peace between democratic dyads over time is statistically questionable when tested against the null hypothesis (Spiro, 1994), whilst democratizing countries have statistically been shown to be more belligerent than authoritarian ones (Mansfield and Snyder,2005). However, the purpose here is only to explain the specific genre of historical consciousness present in democratic peace theory. This becomes apparent in the extent to which this theory of IR suggests that democratic states have succeeded in making an irreversible escape from a seeming intractable cyclical history of violent conflict. This claim could readily be found in Kant, who is traditionally taken as the intellectual progenitor of this theory. Already the title of his famous essay offering a rival international order to balance of power, Perpetual Peace [1795], indicates the possibility of effecting a move beyond the pernicious history of inter-state war. Peace in perpetuity, to be accomplished by a treaty between well-ordered republics, thus marks a caesura with flawed balancing and dynastic rivalries between European monarchs. Escape from history means overturning the state of nature between sovereign states by domestic regime changes, rather than submission to a new sovereign authority. Moreover, relations between republics – re-conceptualized as democracies today – are essentially a “separate peace” (Doyle, 1983: 226; Lipson, 2003) that leaves untouched relations with non-democracies as well as those between non-democracies.
In this way the escape from history is exclusive to a particular set of sovereign states based on their domestic regimes. At the same time, the promise of democratization across the globe carries with it the prediction that eventually the entire international arena could escape from the shared history of inter-state war thereby becoming a global state (Archibugi, 1995). Neo-functionalism, on its own part, equally posits a dramatic historical rupture but only in the specific case of European international relations – although potentially the new model could spread elsewhere. This rupture is based less upon democratic homogeneity (albeit a necessary but not sufficient condition) than on the post-war establishment of supranational institutions, starting with the European Coal and Steel Community. This institutional rupture, the theory claims, fundamentally changed the incentive structure of socio-political actors, thereby rendering the historical lessons of realism, international institutions as well as federal union, inapplicable. Instead, the process of European integration is read as a radical new departure that transcends power politics but without recreating a federal sovereign state writ large (Glencross, 2010).
The intellectual background to neo-functionalism was functionalism tout court: a radical attempt to rethink the conditions for world peace after the envisaged defeat of totalitarianism (Mitrany, 1943). The essential tenet of this theory was a critique of the shibboleth of sovereignty. According to this interpretation of international politics, pre-1939 collective security failed because the legal restrictions placed on state sovereignty – self-help, in effect – could not change the essential political reality of sovereignty, understood as the bundle of powers exercised by states. Hence, the functionalist blueprint for a “working peace system” was intended to undermine the sovereign capacities or capabilities of states by redistributing these powers to executive agencies rather than to rely on a straitjacket of legality to curb sovereign states. Furthermore, the theory assumed that individual loyalty to the state was a product of government performance and hence that a shift in the locus of executive decision-making would inevitably correspond with a transformation in political loyalties (Glencross, 2010).
Subsequently, Ernest Haas’ “neo” variant of functionalism retained many of the key elements of Mitrany’s thought but applied the theoretical framework to an empirical study of the course of European integration as well as to the integrative potential of other regional and international organizations. As defined by Haas (1968, p.16), political integration is ‘the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the preexisting national states’. As compared with the rest of the world, Western Europe was in a privileged position to be able to escape from its history since this kind of integration ‘fares best in situations controlled by social groupings representing the rational interests of urban-industrial society; groups seeking to maximize their economic benefits anddividing along regionally homogeneous ideological-political lines’ (Haas, 1961: 378). In these propitious circumstances, the creation of supranational institutions pooling states’ decisionmaking and executive capacities provided the impetus for an alternative to the nation-state, federalism and also collective security. Moreover, this mechanism did not require a conscious devotion to a particular political project; history could be escaped by default rather than by design.
“Spillover” was the hypothesis supposed to distinguish the new theory of functionalism, derived from the European experience, from its empirically ungrounded predecessor (Rosamond, 2005). The central claim of spillover is that actors who have created an institutional order for integration but who are unequally pleased with the results will ‘attempt to resolve their dissatisfaction either by resorting to collaboration in another, related sector or by intensifyingtheir commitment to the original sector, or both’ (Schmitter, 1969, p. 162). This means task expansion will take place ‘without necessarily implying any ideological commitment to the European idea’ (Haas, 1958, p. 297). Thus, supranationalism, once adopted in a specific policy sector, creates an inherent pressure for further integration, thanks simply to institutional design predicated on ‘upgrading of the parties’ common interests’ (Haas, 1961: 368) through an institutionalized mediator – in the case of the European Coal and Steel Community, the High Authority (the predecessor to today’s European Commission). In this way, neo-functionalism claims there is an ‘impetus toward extension [of sectoral integration] to the entire economy even in the absence of specific group demands and their attendant ideologies’ (Haas, 1958, p.297).
However, Haas’ explanation of the dynamics of European integration has beenthe subject of important criticism in the wake of the empirical reality of EU consolidation (Moravcsik, 1998; Parsons, 2003). Nevertheless, it remains a salient theoretical paradigm in EU studies (Schmitter, 2003) precisely because of the inherent failure of supranational integration to materialize elsewhere, including amongst the global subset of democratic countries. This therefore requires an explanation for the specific peculiarity of the EU’s assumed escape from history. The inherent failures of the theories aimed at relegating history from the study of the international system, coupled with the recent global events in which the parameters of government are broken by other non-state actors and trans-regional nature of human security and insecurity, international practitioners began to make a detour to the once discarded history leading to the reawakening of historical consciousness in international studies.
The Era of Resonation of History – History and International Studies in Perspective
This is the critical stage in the dimensions of history and international studies. It serves as a melting point in the evolution of international studies as domiciled in the domain of historical scholarship. This revolution began with campaigns made by historians from the time the discipline of international relations emerged and domesticated in the realm of political science. It is a stage termed post – Behaviouralism or ‘the return of history’. This approach or dimension was championed by David Easton, who in his inaugural address at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association called for an abandonment of the crazed quest of ‘scientifizing’ international relations (Thompson, 1952).
The supporters of Easton describe the Eastonian Approach as a new revolution in the study of international relations; and it is argued that, this Eastonian Approach signifies abandonment of the ‘hard-nosed empiricism’ and instead, reaffirmation of norms and values in political analysis. The scholars of this latest phase are exhorted to give up the ‘mad craze for scientism’ and instead, make their research socially relevant (Thompson, 1952, pp. 433-34). In this new phase, attention has been made to return to history in the study of international phenomenon in another dimension. After all, Mackay and Laroche, 2017) quoting Ricoeur, 1965, pp. 26 & 27) averred that ‘International Relations (IR) theory in the last two decades, has made more and better use of history. In so doing, IR scholars have turned – or, more accurately, returned – to theories of history. This theoretical work has been intellectually productive, but to date has gone under-documented’.
Hedley Bull, a leading English School scholar chastised positivist scholars for their ‘lack of any sense of inquiry into international politics as a continuing tradition to which they are the latest recruits’ (Bull, 1966, pp. 375-6). This kind of a-historical modelling, whose causal mechanisms explicitly fail to cover particular periods of international politics, contravened the historical consciousness present in the work of Bull and other English School scholars: the notion that their method for analyzing history can provide certain lessons for the future. In essence, such knowledge is by definition historically situated as notably the product of the transition from a European to a global international order based on the spread of the sovereign state, a form of political organization once restricted to Europe alone (Bull, 2000; Watson, 2009). In this way, the lessons of history genre of historical consciousness in International Relations theory accepts that the future evolution of international politics – as suggested by the English School’s analytical category of world society – ‘is not beholden’ to current conditions.
This era comes with the realization that the awareness of the historicity behind the ideal-type of “international society” is only possible through a lessons-basedengagement with the historical record. The lessons of history provided by English School theory are not only positive in the sense of appeals, for the sake of international order, to strengthen the institution of diplomacy or extend membership of the concert of great powers to new states. In addition, this form of historical consciousness allowed Bull to mount a powerful critique of those who claimed the sovereign state’s dominant role was deleterious to international order. There the lesson of history was ‘the positive functions that the state and the states-system have fulfilled in relation to world order’ (Bull, 1979: 115), which makes possible the fundamental claim that without these two ‘there would be no world order at all’ (Bull., 1979, p. 123).
This resonation of history and international studies is a period in which scholars, realizing the immutability of historical consciousness from international relations began to question how realistic is the so-called trans-Atlantic divide. According to Hobson and Lawson (2008), to some extent, history has always been a core feature of the international imagination. On both sides of the Atlantic, leading figures in the discipline such as E. H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, Hedley Bull and Stanley Hoffman have all employed history as a means of illuminating their research. Indeed, Wight (1966) made searching the key prerequisite (desiderata) of international historyand the sine qua non of international theory.
Hobson and Lawson (2008) argue that although often considered to have been banished by the scientific turn in International Relations (IR) during the Cold War, atleast in the United States, history never really went away as a tool of International Relations theory. And in recent years the (re)turn of history has been one of the most striking features of the various openings in International Relations theory ushered in by the end of the Cold War; questioning the relationship between history and International Relations, and the status of International Relations’s recent historical (re)turn.
Hobson and Lawson (2008) assert that Fred Northedge’s original goal in setting up Millennium was to provide a (British) counterweight to the ‘ahistorical positivist project’ that had engulfed mainstream American International Relations. Thus by bringing history back in, albeit in a critical way, Northedge’s thinking reflected a now commonly held assumption that there is a transatlantic divide that separates a historically informed British International Relations from (what he described as) a ‘historyless’US mainstream.
But in certain key respects, Hobson and Lawson (2008) Lawson argue that these perceptions no matter how common they seem are misrepresentations, reflecting a series of widely held antinomies that are falsely assumed to underpin the discipline. They contend that the juxtaposition of history-less/ahistorical US International Relations versus British historical International Relations is misleading because history isimportant to mainstream US International Relations. Moreover, Hobson and Lawson also find problematic the type of binary engendered by Robert Cox’s distinction between critical (historical) theory and history-less/ahistorical problem-solving theory. Even the apparently archetypal version of ahistoricist International Relations such as Waltzian neorealism who claim to have laid history aside from international relations has been historically ‘filled in’ by theorists such as Robert Gilpin, John Mearsheimer, and Colin and Miriam Elman (Gilpin, 2001; 1981; Mearsheimer,2003; Elman and Elman,2001). Also, Robert Keohane, Lisa Martin and others have applied historical analysis to a rational choice neoliberal (Keohane and Martin, 1995). Indeed, this point is becoming increasingly accepted.
This era has also been referred to as the period of ‘revenge of history’ which shares the notion that state sovereignty, which is fundamentally self-centred and ultimately autonomous in executing its own preferences, can always eventually trump institutional cooperation, historical norms, democratic peace or evensupranational political integration. Classical realism presents this element of revenge in an axiomatic form whereas structural realism couches it in the idiom of positivist social science (Glencross, 2010). Indeed, Stanley Hoffmann, a critic of both neo-functionalisms as well the liberal institutionalist perspective on European integration, is a clear example of the classical realist form of this genre of historical consciousness. Instead of believing in the immanent supranational logic of neo-functionalism or the appeal of a well-designed federation based on appropriate institutional lessons, he discounted Europe’s ability to build a successful alternative form of political authority that could successfully transcend sovereignty and balance of power considerations in international politics. Instead, he argued that history – in the shape of the nation-state – would have its revenge on the attempt to reconfigure drastically the political organization of Europe.
This was because either integration would lead to a federation, thereby recreating the nation-state, or else existing nation-states would refuse to continue down the path of ever closer union. Hence hierarchy or anarchy was the binary choice facing the continent; history could neither provide useful lessons for overcoming this dilemma nor could this historical straitjacket be overcome through novel institutional means (Hoffmann, 1966).
The classical realist notion of the revenge of history provided for a critique of thedeliberate strategy of ambiguous integration devoid of political finality. On this reading, the functionalist integration of matters of low politics created an institutional project amenable to states and leaders divided on fundamental questions of high politics (Hoffmann, 1966). Chief amongst these were the future international role of the consolidated European polity – whether it would be asecurity community – but also other vexing questions such as membership and the politics of welfare. Consequently, the functionalist logic was viewed by Hoffmann as a fundamental gamble. The wager was one of ‘substituting motion as an end in itself, for agreement on ends’ (Hoffmann, 1966, p. 883).
Revenge of history thus does not place history or historical methods on a pedestal to explain why realist theorists have shown such little interest in the contemporary revival of the English School. Rather, the historical record is used to demonstrate the futility of imagining either an escape from history (with the partial exception provided for by the invention of nuclear deterrence) or perfectibility based on lessons from the conduct of states or the institutions they have designed together. In this way, history is treated as proof of the continuity of units’ intractable self-interest and fickleness in an anarchic world even though changes in the nature of those units and the systems they form is mysteriously inexplicable (Buzan and Little, 1996).
A shared concern with world order, particularly in the form of inter-state cooperation that confounds neo-realism’s obsession with relative gains and the security dilemma, permeates liberal institutionalism. This branch of International Relations theory similarly evinces the lessons of history genre of historical consciousness because of its use of history to theorize possibilities for inter-statecooperation. According to this theoretical perspective, the history of institutions (supranational such as the UN, EU or WTO as well as transnational, such as NGOs or MNCs) reveals examples of why and under what conditions states cooperate. Liberal institutionalism thus uses the historical record to provide positive lessons about successful cooperation yielding absolute or joint gains (Ikenberry, 2001; Keohane and Martin, 1995) or, conversely, negative lessonsof failed or flawed institutional cooperation resulting in defection or, more likely, policy blockage based on states’ entrenched preference for relative gains (Mastanduno, 1991; Snidal, 1991).
Successful cooperation in a stable world order, according to Ikenberry (2000), is based on the creation, after major inter-state conflict, of institutions to provide for the strategic restraint of the most powerful state. Although these institutions are attempts to regulate world order in a way that favours the victor, the historical record suggests institutions’ ability to deliver a stable order is based on the credibility of strategic restraint, namely by preventing the arbitrary exercise of power by dominant actors. Here the historical record invoked by Ikenberry suggests these institutions, especially post-1945 ones created under the leadership of a democracy, the US, such as the UN, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), are singularly better able to deliver order as compared with earlier balance of power provisions (Ikenberry, 2000). These institutions have been successful because they achieve quasi-constitutional restraints on the dominant state in the international system, which in turn is a transparent democratic state that thereby provides other countries with ‘some measure of assurance that American policy [will] be steady and predictable’ (Ikenberry, 20002, p.46). Consequently, participants in this web of US-led institutional arrangements are severely constrained from pursuing an alternative order such as balancing or the establishment of competing institutions (Ikenberry, 2000, p.253). In this way, the liberal institutionalist lesson of history is clear for today: incorporating new actors into a stable global order is dependent on the US adhering to its self-binding commitments or even creating novel institutions in this same vein.
Liberal institutionalism also provides an historical account of when international institutions fail to have the desired effect of (sufficiently) taming state selfishness and enabling stable cooperation. Here the lesson of history is that international institutions are most successful when they act as autonomous agents capable of changing state preferences, as in the EU example, rather than as merely oversight mechanisms for binding rules, for instance the UN (Jervis, 1999). Moreover, institutionalist theory also suggests that states’ encounter with today’s multiplicity of international institutions gives rise to problems of selection and creation that establishes a status quo bias (Jupille and Snidal,2005). This bias entrenches imperfect cooperation in the absence of high stakes and long time horizons as well as hegemonic leadership (Jupille and Snidal,2005). In this way, liberal institutionalism adopts a genre of historical consciousness that does not necessarily offer positive lessons for rational institutional design. Consequently, this branch of IR theory also identifies negative lessons from history that reveal historical shortcomings in institutionalized cooperation. As with the English School, therefore, the lessons of history are both positive and negative. Overall, theoretical work across this genre assumes continuity in the nature of themodern international system as defined by state sovereignty – this is what makes historical lessons still applicable today and in the future. Similarly, history will not have its revenge by laying waste to the attempt to use these lessons for instruction about improving the conduct of international relations. This is because the historical consciousness underlying both the English School and liberal institutionalism presupposes that adopting historical lessons enables the taming of certain egregious aberrations of the sovereign state system as well as cautioning against unwise radical new reforms (Glencross, 2010). At this juncture history came back powerfully to contest and reclaim what used to be in its domain, though in its own dimension – international studies given the series of events that has strongly debunked much of the behavioural assumptions thereby setting the stage for a return to history for explanation and interpretation of these post-behavioural puzzles in a post-international milieu. This return of history to international studies has been variously christened – History and International Studies, International History, History and Diplomatic Studies, History and Strategic Studies, History and International Relations, Global History, among others in various Nigerian universities and beyond, all in the domain of history Departments; a departure from the immediate past when history allowed itself to be given a remote back seat in the study of the international system.
Concluding Remarks
The study has been able to trace the dimensions of international study from the ancient Greek era to the present. Though there was no special study prior to the post-World War I designated as international study, however, a deeper insight into the nature, context, content and practice of inter-state and cross-national relations over the years show that history was the leading discipline that chronicled inter-national relations before the receding of history after the behavioural revolution of the 1950s. However, some scholars of history remained resolute, particularly some of those with realist inclination until the period well into the post-Cold War, when the post-international events culminated to the rearing up of, appreciation and renewed interest of history in the realm of international studies. However, some scholars have cautioned and advocated for a more polycentric approach to the study of international affairs, a little more than the traditional approach to international studies by practitioners of history.
Among these advocates for a polycentric approach is Glencross (2010), thatexplores the disciplinary dialogue between history and International Relations theory, whichremains a lively dialogue as shown by the recent “historical turn” and the continuing use of historically rich case studies to construct and test IR theory. Glencross’s work takes a novel approach for studying this dialogue by examining the importance of historical consciousness to theory-building and knowledge production in International Relations. Historical consciousness here is defined as the understanding of the temporality of historical experience, that is how past, present and future are thought to be connected for the sake of producing historical knowledge. Glencross maintains that existing methodologicaland epistemological discussions of the relationship between history and International Relations overlook this dimension of the study of history by focusing instead on how to do history in International Relations andcriticizing the (frequent) misuse of the historical record.
In this vein, David Reynolds calls for a mestized form of new internationalHistory. According to him, this history should retrieve its transnational characteristics, which are central to the history of the last forty years (i.e. from international capital markets to global corporations, from peace movements to terrorist networks, from movies and popular music to the internet and the world-wide web). Such a history should be capable of broadening both its methods of research and its objects of inquiry, while preserving some of its foundational elements, especially its attention to the nature, use, projection and effects of Power, the analysis of which remains central to the study of international relations (Reynolds, 2016).This is partly due to the fact that after decades of philosophical, historical and political debates on the decadence and crisis of the modern State, we are still very far from any real dissolution of it when it comes to forms of controlof everyday life or the machinery of world governance. The State and its actions definitely need placing within a more complex frame, including a greater plurality of actors and subjects than in the past. Reynolds however, warned that excessively de-centering the meaning and weight of statehood, can lead to an impasse, where many contemporary dynamics would become almost incomprehensible.
It behoves us, nevertheless, to be wary of ‘fashion and certain caricatures’ of the new methods and approaches that this global turn seems to be imposing. Thus, it is relatively easy to avoid the totalizing misunderstanding that lurks beneath the label ‘global history’ manifestly it is impossible for one author or group of researchers to assemble in their analysis a comprehensive plurality of cultural, linguistic, social, ethnic and political phenomena. Even leaving aside the monumental erudition needed to produce such global history, historians have to reckon with the immense problem of the huge archival asymmetries that exist today. ‘The great risk is of gradually eclipsing that distinctive mark of historical research: which is careful philological assessment of primary sources (Pomeranz, 201).
Another seeming elusive temptation in this realm is to study local and global links through a monographic perspective. Distinctions here are crucial: such an approach can be very fruitful where the interplay between the two dimensions – the micro and the macro; the local and the global helps to better understand complex historical processes, by highlighting important turning-points, which can symbolize and represent a season or an era (Trivellato, 2000; Andrade, 2009). After all, eventhough most practitioners of history and international relations believe that the differences between the disciplines are real and important enough (Schroeder,2001), on the other hand, there is no absolute consensus as to what exactly these differences are. Opinions seem to cluster around three possible lines of demarcation: (1) past versus present, (2) idiographic versus nomothetic, and (3) description versus analysis. These lines are better viewed as continuum rather than rigid categories, given that both history and international relations are quite heterogeneous (Levy, 2001, pp. 40, 42–45); thus, although some historians have explicitly rejected the aforementioned lines and offered convincing counterexamples (Ingram,1997, pp.53–54), it does seem that this demarcation captures the difference between international relations and history.
The past versus present continuum is arguably the most obvious difference between the two disciplines. In this vein, history deals with the past and international relations deals with the present; even in the numerous instances when international relations deals with historical cases, it does so with an eye to the present, whereas history tends to deal with the past for its own sake (Lebow, 2001, p.111). In the same vein, international relations often aim consciously at policy relevance, a tendency relatively absent from history. Nevertheless, the past–present distinction is not as neat as one might think. To start with, the present is not so self-intelligible: historical context may matter a lot, and past influences may persist for long (Bloch, 1992, pp.29–39). Moreover, historians often do have an eye for the present, or even for the future (Gaddis, 2004, p.10); indeed, they use the pejorative term “antiquarian” for those among them who are considered bound to the past (Burrow,2008, p.468). Finally, salient past events still command widespread interest for their own sake, and international relations scholars who analyze them in the course of their theoretical quests cannot help improving the general understanding of those particular events (King, Keohane, & Verba,1994, p.35).
On account of the idiographic versus nomothetic distinction, International relations scholars explicitly aim to arrive at general propositions of wider applicability (Kaplan, 1961, pp. 8–10, 14; Waltz,1979, pp.1–17). On the contrary, although there are a few historians that, after Carl Hempel, search for “covering laws” in history (Trachtenberg, 2006, pp.1–4), historians can be happy with pure idiography (Samuel Eliot Morison, quoted in McClelland,1961, p.34) or at least be reluctant to generalize from particular cases, because they place a high value on contingency (Wright, 1965). Moreover, even historians who castigate political scientists/international relations scholars for their own brand of generalizations declare that historians “generalize for particular purposes; hence [they] practice particular generalization” (Gaddis, 2004, p.62).
For the description versus analysis distinction between history and international relations (Aron, 1966, p.2; Wohlforth, 2001, p.356), both can be conceived as ends of a continuum that history should deal with what happened and how, leaving aside the question of why it happened, which is be purely descriptive, that is. Overall, historians have a greater taste for detail than International Relation scholars; in fact, the very use of the word detail is problematic, given that historians may argue that the so-called details are actually essential for highlighting the unique aspects of the case under examination. In the end, it all comes down to a different mix of what, how (what often subsumes how), and why. As was pointed out, historians do use theories; in fact, some of them have protested their depiction as mere fact-mongers by political scientists/international relations scholars (Ingram, 1997, pp.53–54). However, the problem is that more often than not their theories are unarticulated (Kaplan,1961, p.6; Elman & Elman,2001, p.7), hence difficult to put to test and check for internal consistency (Koliopoulos, 2017).
There is therefore need to bridge the gap by sustaining the strength of each of the disciplinary divide so as to have the robust treatment, description, explanation and analysis of the nuanced phenomena of the international system, which none of the disciplinary divide can exhaust on its own. It should, however, be noted that there are no known-clear cut differences between International Relations, International Studies, or International Affairs. Most European and American Universities use these terms interchangeably – the subject-matter essentially remains the same. It is nothing other than the methodological differences that cause a rift between historians and political scientists (Ugwujah, 2018). Sequel to the above, Maliniak, et al, (2007, p.2), quipped that “International Relations scholars teach and think that paradigms divide the discipline when they do not”. Historians were initially preoccupied with analyzing international relations deductively and are given to view history as providing the needed raw materials for any meaningful analyses ofinternational behaviour. Whereas, most historical scholars of InternationalRelations believe that all they needed to do is to interpret their historical data accurately to be able to explain the general and specific patterns of international interactions; political scientists, on the other hand, reject the deductive approach and insist on the study of international relations based on scientific methodologies. On this premise Kaplan (1966) admonishes political scientists to regard history merely as a source for raw material and go beyond mere interpretation. “The scholar of International relations”, in his viewpoint, “should be interested –in all systems – past, present, future, and hypothetical (Kaplan, 1966).
In spite of the seeming disciplinary divide, Lawson (2007) counsels that history and social science should not be consid¬ered as autonomous enterprises separated by virtue of distinct orientations, approaches and subject matters, but as a common enterprise. Therefore, by focusing on events, by ordering and sequencing these events into intelligible narratives, recognizing how people act within certain contexts that can only be discerned from the vantage points of researchers’ historically situated positions, history does not abhor social science; rather, it requires it. As such, the choice is not one between a historical enterprise which can do with or without theory, but acceptance of the fact that history isa social science of a kind. It is an approach that employs, narrates and analyzes causal stories. In this way, history takes its place as an indispensable part of the panoply of social sciences just as social science appears as one among many story telling enterprises. Both are necessarily implicated in each other, something made clear by a focus on context, eventfulness, narrative and ideal typification. Every researcher of international relations ought to follow at least two mutually reinforcing steps in arriving at plausible conclusion: first, awareness of the way in which diverse theoretical schools interpret, assess and adjudicate a particular historical subject matter; and second, maintaining an eye for variance, conflict and heterogeneous opinion at least as much as convergence, clusters and patterns of received wisdom (Lustick, 1996). On the whole, researchers should look to history in order to be wrong, to look for interpretations, surprises and contradictions which do not fit with prevailing theoretical explanations (Trachtenberg, 2006). This can be successfully achieved by the use of counterfactuals. As Lebow (2010) points out, counterfactual work is useful in its capacity for research¬ers to go ‘beyond themselves’, breaking the spell of tendencies to see history as closed rather than open, and in linear rather than nonlinear terms.
Counterfactual readings serve as powerful forms of demystification, help¬ing to remove forms of cognitive bias which tend to see history as post factum determi¬nant rather than as context-bound narrative. This in itself serves to empower researchers to realize the limits of their claims about the social world, which requires a degree of humility about what we can know; an understanding that theoretical explanations are always partial, provisional and contained within tightly bound historical domains (Lebow, 2010). It follows that historians being what they are, are on some level, we are differentiated not simply by our choice of theory but also by our selection of a particular historical mode of explanation. As such in developing this selection, it should become clear that both social science and history form part of a single intellectual journey, one in which ‘both are permanently in view and in which neither serves as the under-labourer — or colonizer — of the other’ (Lawson, 2007).
From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that a mutual co-existence and complementarity of history and political science is by no means intractable since in practical terms, they are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the methodologies championed by both sides reinforce rather than obstruct each other. The narratives and deductionist approach of the historian may have one or two things to contribute to the inductionist approach of the political scientist. Interestingly, historians are beginning to utilize theories and some useful social science models in the explanation and analyses of historical events. The political scientist on their own part has to depend on the facts of history for testing and validating his hypotheses. Besides the penchant to decipher patterns from the past, students of history can begin to explain the relationships among various events (Mingst, 1999). Thus, the synergy of the historical traditional approach and the political scientist’s inductive paradigm would most likely propel and promote the overall interest of International Studies.
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