Methodological Nationalism in International Relations: A Quantitative Assessment of Academia in Turkey (2015-2019)

Yıl 2022, Cilt: 11 Sayı: 1, 29 - 47, 19.01.2022

Mustafa Onur Tetik

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.1060190

Öz

This article seeks to expand the discussion on Methodological Nationalism (MN)within the discipline of International Relations (IR), to contribute to MN literature from the perspective of IR studies and to evaluate the prevalence of MN in the field by the quantification of selected works. To achieve these goals, the article, firstly, recapitulates the general MN literature and critically evaluates this discussion in IR. Later, it identifies the forms of MN as they appear in IR with two faces: Level of analysis (nation-as-arena) and unit of analysis (nation-as-actor). Secondly, the article proposes a method to assess the prevalence of MN through quantification. Finally, the article applies its method to IR works to address the question of how widespread MN is in academia in Turkey. The findings demonstrate the proportional pervasiveness of MN within the IR community of Turkey, which is part of the “periphery” in the discipline. The findings also let us draw some hypothetical conclusions, which have the potential to be a springboard for further research on the MN-IR nexus.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Methodological nationalism, level of analysis, International Relations, Turkish academia, quantitative assessment

Kaynakça

• Adamson, Fiona B. “Spaces of Global Security: Beyond Methodological Nationalism.” Journal of Global Security Studies 1, no. 1 (2016): 19–35.
• Amelina, Anna, Thomas Faist, Nina Glick Schiller, and Devrimsel D. Nergiz, eds. Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for Cross-Border Studies. New York: Routledge, 2012.
• Amelina, Anna, Thomas Faist, Nina Glick Schiller, and Devrimsel D. Nergiz. “Methodological Predicaments of Cross-Border Studies.” In Anna Amelina et al., Beyond Methodological Nationalism, 1–22.
• Aydın, Mustafa, and Korhan Yazgan. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler akademisyenleri eğitim, araştırma ve uluslararası politika anketi – 2011.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 9, no. 36 (2013): 3–44.
• Aydın, Mustafa and Cihan Dizdaroğlu. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler: TRIP 2018 sonuçları üzerine bir değerlendirme.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 16, no. 64 (2019): 3–28.
• Aydinli, Ersel and Gonca Biltekin. “Time to Quantify Turkey’s Foreign Affairs: Setting Quality Standards for a Maturing International Relations Discipline.” International Studies Perspectives 18, no. 3 (2017): 267–87.
• Aydinli, Ersel, and Julie Mathews. “Turkey: Towards Homegrown Theorizing and Building a Disciplinary Community.” In International Relations Scholarship around the World, edited by Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver, 208–22. Oxon: Routledge, 2009.
• Balcı, Ali, Filiz Cicioğlu and Duygu Kalkan. “Türkiye’deki uluslararası ilişkiler akademisyenleri ve bölümlerinin akademik etkilerinin Google Scholar verilerinden hareketle incelenmesi.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 16, no. 64 (2019): 57–75.
• Bartelson, Jens. “From the International to the Global?” In The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations, edited by Andreas Gofas, Inanna Hamati-Ataya and Nicholas Onuf, 33–45. London: Sage Publications, 2018.
• Beck, Ulrich. “The Cosmopolitan Condition: Why Methodological Nationalism Fails.” Theory, Culture & Society 24, no.7-8 (2007): 286–90.
• –––. “The Social and Political Dynamics of the World at Risk: The Cosmopolitan Challenge.” Paper presented at the 26th Annual Congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), Ankara, 2012. Accessed September, 18, 2021. https://www.aesop-planning.eu/download/file/en_GB/aesop-silver-jubilee-congres-is-ankara-11-15-july-2012-facts-figures/lecture-by-ulrich-beck.
• Beck, Ulrich, and Edgar Grande. “Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn In Social and Political Theory And Research.” The British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010): 409–443.
• Beck, Ulrich, and Natan Sznaider. “Unpacking Cosmopolitanism for the Social Sciences: A Research Agenda.” The British Journal of Sociology 57, no. 1 (2006): 381–403.
• Berkowitz, Bruce D. “Levels of Analysis Problems in International Studies.” International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations 12, no. 3 (2008): 199–227.
• Bilgin, Pınar. “Uluslararası ilişkiler çalışmalarında “merkez-çevre”: Türkiye nerede?” Uluslararası İlişkiler 2, no.6 (2005): 3–14.
• Bilgin, Pınar, and Oktay F. Tanrısever. “A Telling Story of IR in the Periphery: Telling Turkey About the World, Telling the World About Turkey.” Journal of International Relations and Development 12, no. 2 (2009): 174–79.
• Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage Publications, 1995.
• Chernilo, Daniel. “The Critique of Methodological Nationalism: Theory And History.” Thesis Eleven 106, no. 1 (2011): 98–117.
• –––. “Methodological Nationalism and the Domestic Analogy: Classical Resources for Their Critique.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23, no. 1 (2010):87–106.
• Cox, Robert W. “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory.” In Neorealism and Its Critics, by Robert O. Keohane, 204–54. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
• Eagleton, Terry. Ideology: An Introduction. London: Verso, 1991.
• Erozan, Boğaç. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler disiplininin uzak tarihi: Hukuk-ı Düvel (1859-1945).” Uluslararası İlişkiler 11, no. 43 (2014): 53–80.
• Ertosun, Erkan, “Türkiye’de siyasi tarih çalışmaları: metodoloji sorunu ve bir çözüm önerisi olarak örnek olay çalışması.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 12, no. 48 (2016): 117–33.
• Gille, Zsuzsa. “Global Ethnography 2.0: From Methodological Nationalism to Methodological Materialism.” In Anna Amelina et al., Beyond Methodological Nationalism, 91–110.
• Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
• Gusterson, Hugh. “Realism and the International Order After the Cold War.” Social Research 60, no. 2 (1993): 279–300.
• Halliday, Fred. “State and Society in International Relations: A Second Agenda.” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 16, no. 215 (1987): 214–30.
• Hameiri, Shamar. “Beyond Methodological Nationalism, But Where to for the Study of Regional Governance?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 63, no. 3 (2009): 430–41.
• Hatzopoulos, Pavlos. The Balkans Beyond the Nationalism and Identity. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.
• Hellmann, Gunther. “Methodological Transnationalism – Europe’s Offering to Global IR?” European Review of International Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 25–37.
• Hobden, Stephan. International Relations and Historical Sociology. London: Routledge, 1998.
• Hobson, John M. “The Historical Sociology of the State and the State of Historical Sociology in International Relations.” Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 2 (1998): 284–320.
• –––. “The Poverty of Marxism and Neorealism: Bringing Historical Sociology back in to International Relations.” La Trobe Politics Working Paper no. 2. Melbourne: La Trobe University, School of Politics, 1994.
• Hollis, Martin, and Steve Smith. Explaining and Understanding International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• İşeri, Emre, and Nevra Esentürk. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler çalışmaları: merkez-çevre yaklaşımı.” Elektronil Mesleki Gelişim ve Araştırma Dergisi 2 (2016): 17–33.
• Kelman, Herbert C. “The Role of the Individual in International Relations: Some Conceptual and MethodologicalConsiderations.” Journal of International Affairs 24, no. 1 (1970): 1–17.
• Koos, Agnes Katalin, and Kenneth Keulman. “Methodological Nationalism in Global Studies and Beyond.” Social Sciences 8 no. 327 (2019).
• Lacher, Hannes. “Putting the State in Its Place: The Critique of State-Centrism and Its Limits.” Review of International Studies 29, no.4 (2003): 521–41.
• Lake, David A. “The State and International Relations.” In The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, edited by Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, 41–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Martins, Herminio. “Time and Theory in Sociology.” In Approaches to Sociology, edited by John Rex, 246–95. Oxon: Routledge, 2015.
• Mongia, Radhika. “Interrogating Critiques of Methodological Nationalism Propositions for New Methodologies.” In Anna Amelina et al., Beyond Methodological Nationalism, 198–218.
• Moul, William B. “The Level of Analysis Problem Revisited.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 6, no. 3 (1973): 494–513.
• Ongur, Hakan Övünç, ve Selman Emre Gürbüz. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler eğitimi ve oryantalizm: disipline eleştirel pedagojik bir bakış.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 16, no. 61 (2019): 23–38.
• Özcan, Gencer. “‘Siyasiyat’tan ‘Milletlerarası Münasebetler’e: Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler disiplininin kavramsal tarihi.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 17, no. 66 (2020): 3–21.
• Pries, Ludger. “Configurations of Geographic and Societal Spaces: A Sociological Proposal between ‘Methodological Nationalism’ and the ‘Spaces of Flows’.” Global Networks 5, no. 2 (2005): 167–90.
• Pries, Ludger, and Martin Seeliger. “Transnational Social Spaces: Between Methodological Nationalism and Cosmo-Globalism.” In Anna Amelina et al., Beyond Methodological Nationalism, 219–38.
• Rosenberg, Justin. “Why is There No International Historical Sociology?” European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 3 (2006): 307–40.
• Ruffa, Chiara. “Case Study Methods: Case Selection and Case Analysis.” In The SAGE Handbook of Research Methods in Political Science and International Relations, edited by Luigi Curini and Robert Franzese, 1133–147. London: Sage, 2020.
• Saldana, Johnny. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. London: Sage Publishing, 2012.
• Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
• Sezer, Burcu. “Türkiye’de kültürel iktidar tartışmaları: Cins Dergisi üzerinden bir değerlendirme.” Master’s Thesis, Ankara University, 2019.
• Shaw, Martin. Theory of the Global State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Singer, J. David. “International Conflict: Three Levels of Analysis.” World Politics 12, no. 3 (1960): 453–61.
• –––. “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations.” World Politics 14, no.1 (1961): 77–92.
• Smith, Anthony D. Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979.
• Sutherland, Claire. “A Post-Modern Mandala? Moving beyond Methodological Nationalism.” HumaNetten 37 (2016): 88–106.
• Tabak, Hüsrev. “Metodolojik ulusçuluk ve Türkiye’de dış politika çalışmaları.” Uluslararası İlişkiler 13, no. 51 (2016): 21–39.
• –––. “Transnationality, Foreign Policy Research and the Cosmopolitan Alternative: On the Practice of Domestic Global Politics.” In A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy, by Hazal Papuççular and Deniz Kuru, 41–68. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
• Temby, Owen. “What are Levels of Analysis and What do They Contribute to International Relations Theory?” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 24 no. 4 (2015): 721–42.
• Tickner, Arlene B. “Core, Periphery and (Neo)Imperialist International Relations.” European Journalof International Relations 19, no. 3 (2013): 627–46.
• Turan, İlter. “Progress in Turkish International Relations.” All Azimuth 7, no. 1 (2018): 137–42.
• Vergin, Nur. “Bilim Camiası ve Tanınma İsteği.” Doğu-Batı Düşünce Dergisi 7 (1999): 43–61.
• Waltz, Kenneth N. Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959.
• –––. Theory of International Politics. Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2010.
• Weiß, Anja, and Arnd-Michael Nohl. “Overcoming Methodological Nationalism in Migration Research Cases and Contexts in Multi-Level Comparisons.” In Anna Amelina et al., Beyond Methodological Nationalism, 65–90.
• Wendt, Alexander. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Wilson, Matthew J. “The Nature and Consequences of Ideological Hegemony in American Political Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics 52, no. 4 (2019): 724–27.
• Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina Glick Schiller. “Methodological Nationalism and the Study of Migration.” European Journal of Sociology 43, no. 2 (2002): 217–40.
• Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina Glick Schiller. “Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology.” International Migration Review 37, no. 3 (2003): 576–610.
• Wolfers, Arnold. “The Actors in International Politics.” In Theoretical Aspects of International Relations, edited by William T. R. Fox, 83–106. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959.
• Yalçınkaya, Alâeddin, and Ertan Efegil. “Türkiye’de uluslararası ilişkiler eğitiminde ve araştırmalarında teorik ve kavramsal yaklaşım temelinde yabancılaşma sorunu.” Gazi Akademik Bakış 3, no. 5 (2009): 1–20.
• Yazgan, Korhan. “The Development of International Relations Studies in Turkey.” Ph.D. diss.,University of Exeter, 2012.
• Yiğit, Celil. “Türk akademisinin realizmle imtihanı veya realizmi kullanma kılavuzu.” Panorama, March 18, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2020. https://www.uikpanorama.com/blog/2020/03/18/turk-akademisinin-realizmle-imtihani-veya-realizmi-kullanma-kilavuzu-celil-yigit/.
• Yurdusev, A. Nuri. “'Level of Analysis' and 'Unit of Analysis': A Case for Distinction.” Millennium 22, no. 1 (1993): 77–88.
• Zipp, John F. and Rudy Fenwick. “Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? The Political Orientations and Educational Values of Professors.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 70, no. 3 (2006): 304–26.