Symposium: The Practice Turn in International Relations

[This is a post-publication review symposium] The relationship between theory and practice has been a traditional concern, not to say obsession, of International Relations ever since it became a discrete field of study. In the traditional neopositivist framing, theory frames and disciplines practice, such that scholarly experts can provide valid advice for policymakers to follow -- as long as the "gap" between the academy and the world of practical politics is effectively "bridged." Alternative methodologies suggest a more complex relationship, either deriving theory from political practice, or otherwise advocating a mode of theorizing that is closer to the practical world. Into this morass wades "practice theory," or perhaps better, a practice sensibility. This "practice turn" reformulates the meaning of "theory" such that the distinction between theory and practice is, so to speak, dis-solved: theorizing is a practical activity, and practice is shot through with theoretical import. Understood as a methodological move, the "practice turn" in International Relations thus goes far beyond a mere alteration of independent or dependent variable, and far beyond a change in the level of analysis. Because the epistemic status of theory is different for a scholar committed to a practice sensibility, explanations that such scholars generate are distinctive from explanations produced through a covering-law model of explanation or through qualitative-comparative case study techniques. Practice-sensibility explanations handle agent-structure issues differently, treat the relationship between stability and change as a more internal relation, and emphasize creativity and contingency in ways that go well beyond identifying a causal "role of ideas." [...]