Week 4 Post Blog

"The Plight of the Individual" 

or 

"How Courtney has been Driving Herself Crazy Trying to Understand Interests and Ideas"

First, I am so very glad that we spent a second week on interests and ideas.  While I am sure that I have still not fully grasped all the inner workings of these concepts, I feel slightly more prepared to speak on it in the future.  So a huge thank you my classmates for helping shed light on these elusive subjects.  The two by two we discussed on Tuesday seemed unhelpful at first, but after going through one piece at a time, I am more comfortable with the material. And today, I would like to recap some of what I learned and what questions it created in my mind. 

Professor Shirk mentioned that one way to view the two by two was by considering the top two blocks as “nurture” and the bottom two blocks as “nature” when thinking about the development and implementation of interests and ideas.  While he cautioned us not to draw too much from this parallel, I found the mental visual extremely helpful.   Taking it back one step, I think maybe we can more safely say that the top two blocks may be considered integration and the bottom two construction?  With impermeable autonomy and attunement, we see actors working together within themselves to achieve goals and promote interests.  With permeable autonomy and attunement, we see actors shaping and molding those within their societies and communities to reach those same goals and interest. 

I know we are not supposed to necessarily be thinking about how this relates to individuals as much as states and actors and such, but I just can’t seem to help it.  The plight of the individual is to observe and be inundated with all of the ideas and interests around them and then decide for themselves through “gut feelings” or strategic calculations what right looks like.  Talk about a hard decision.  I turn on the TV or get on Facebook and everybody and their mother’s ideas and interests bombards me.  What if I choose the wrong one?  If I used my gut feeling, does that make it right for me?  What affect does my choice have on other people?  Is there a way to determine right and wrong?  These questions plague me on a daily basis.  **If anything or everything I said is just completely wrong and way out in left field, feel free to let me know in the comments, and then point me in the right direction.  I will not be offended at all.  These past two weeks have been a struggle intellectually, but I am thankful for the challenge!

Week 4 Pre-Class Blog – Reflections on Module 2 Presentations

I have just gone through the Module 2 presentations that had posted at the time of this writing and felt the need to express how grateful I was to get so many perspectives on interests and ideas, not to mention the choice of incidents themselves.  It was difficult to know which to comment on as time was a factor, but they all warrant some praise.  To keep this on topic, each influenced my ideas about the issue at hand.

Kyra’s presentation on the Paris Climate Change Agreement probably resonated most greatly for me.  Her reasoned case for the “shared technology” model has influenced my initial aversion to the metaphor to great degree.  While I had been sold on the concept, it was the metaphorical translation that worried me – it was interesting to see that play out in my own thinking.    Dan McDevitt’s analysis China’s snub of Carter in 2014 not only called up recent events, but had me thinking about connections I had not considered before in relation to internal actors, special regions struggling to maintain autonomy in the wake of China’s increased power and posturing. 

I could go through the list… my fellow bloggers on this team, Dan Silva, Jesse and Courtney, each brought unique insight to the topics they chose to present.   While Jesse shared concern about technical difficulties with his audio, it was easy to follow his train of thought, especially with the script below each slide.   The important points shared were not lost. It was both instructive and thought-provoking.

On Malala, I was drawn first by the topic and then by its visual appeal.  The influence of ideas on the interests stated immediately called out to me, particularly the effect of Malala’s father on her fortitude and sagacity.  But, for that very reason, the fact that my mind was moving along another tangent altogether before viewing it, the presentation had impact – I gained much.  There are things one can miss in focusing on a particular argument or train of thought.  To the point we have been making as a group, there is no one right answer.  It is the dialogue and consideration of so many that informs us most effectively. 

Jesse makes this point beautifully at the end of his presentation of the Soviet-Afghan War.   And, that he chose that particular topic, tells me history is not lost in our discussions.   Dan Silva elegantly makes a similar case in his analysis of Brexit.  And, there, I had further interest in historical background. We are influencing each other in the best possible way.   

Images chosen speak to the heart, and our choice of those also leads the viewer in emotional direction.  Even visual backgrounds sway us.  The gray and red in Jesse’s color scheme complimented the topic.  Dan’s was clean – precise, fitting a discussion on economic choice - and stark given the decision so influenced by things not that.   And Courtney’s, with the ink stain against a soft background, immediately set the tone for presentation on an influential schoolgirl who defied violence. The images are big and bold – books and faces.  In each of these, I not only heard and saw, I felt. 

In sum, the exercise, the interplay of ideas and preferences, the comments to each other and the nuanced means by which we, as individuals convey meaning in class beyond our respective vocabularies, all subtly shape mine, and by extension, my own next conveyance of those and the impact they have on others - and so on.

Week 3 Post Class Blog

I would like to take this wonderful blogging opportunity to expound a little more on the question we all addressed in our presentations this week.  Do ideas or interests carry more weight?  After ruminating on this topic for the last few days, I think, personally, interests are more important than ideas overall, specifically on an individual level; however, I don’t necessarily disagree with Goldstein and Keohane that ideas also move the world and can be used to explain human actions. 

The fact that ideas help shape and form our interests is clear.  Ideas are the broad brushstrokes of life that help people identify their place in the world.  But lately, it seems that more and more people are questioning, if not abandoning these ideas they were socialized into (as Professor Jackson mentions in his lecture).  Why is this?  Since, as Dan mentions in his blog, there is no scientific theory or mathematical equation to help us determine the answer, I propose that the human element is a work.  Humans have a tendency to e predictably irrational, not always following the rational path laid out for them (as has been discussed in my economics class this semester) and this plays into interest development.  As ideas are influencing individuals, something inside them say, “whoah, wait a second, what?” and then “is there an alternative?”, “what about x, y, and z?”.  And then bam! Interest!

Interests are what move people to action.  Because it takes longer to develop an interest, the interest becomes more deeply rooted, and people tend to feel more strongly about them.  Those limiting environmental factors Professor Jackson talks about provide stimulating opposition to really test their preferences.  And thus, I believe that interest are often more important than ideas because in order to have an interest, one has to put more thought into beliefs and external circumstances to really search out their answers.

Week 3 (Post-Class): The Foundations of Politics, Part II

The Foundation of Politics, Part II

Responses to my Blog-mates, the Professor, and IR Academia as a Whole

     Whenever someone tells me that they are studying Political Science, in my mind, I always imagine them saying "I am studying Political Science*". This is of course, simply my opinion on the matter based on my frustration with academia's take on international relations. Specifically, I'm am getting at a fact that many of my fellow bloggers have discussed, politics is not a hard science like physics or chemistry. Numbers, in the metaphorical sense, do not, and cannot, solely explain historical decisions or predict future ones with great accuracy in the realm of world politics. Yes, I will admit that my opinion is influenced by a 'rationalist' perspective and so I don't think that it is impossible to 'logic' and 'reason' one's way toward a future prediction, but any answer comes attached with an asterisk. In political science and international relations any political theory is just that, a theory. Due to the intensely complex workings of human society and highly relativistic take on 'facts' that motivate decision-making and ideological subscription, a theory likely will never truly become a law. Why is this the case? In science laws do not change, in the field of human behavior, certain degrees of change are entirely possible. On the whole, in my opinion, the study of politics, and politics itself, remains just as much an art, in the academic sense, as it is a science.

     Where am I going with all of this? Well I'm taking a stab at political theorists that attempt to build theories without the inherent recognition of the flexibility of the human experience. Realism and Liberalism are model culprits here. Turning to this week's readings, both articles (Laffey and Weldes, as well as Goldstein and Keohane), attempt to remedy this situation by discussing the importance of ideas; or as I like to think of them: perspectives. The latter, Goldstein and Keohane, take a disconnected approach to explaining the influences of 'ideas' and 'interests' on political decision-making. My disagreements with this particular point-of-view was the subject of Part I of this series of posts. As Professor Shirk commented on the earlier post, Laffey and Weldes begin to look at ideas as 'symbolic technologies.' In their work, they describe a definition of 'ideas as capital' and in doing so, the authors reach a much closer understanding of the importance and characteristics of individual and societal perspective (in the form of ideas) on decision-making (1997).

     One area where I do disagree with Laffey and Weldes is their relative dismissal of rationalist though. I say relative for a specific reason, that is, Laffey and Weldes take a look at rationalism as it is currently defined, their rejection of it is relative to this particular understanding. My opinion on the matter, as previously stated in our group blog, is that rationalism is entirely applicable, it just needs to be redefined. Too many academics, and worse yet, practitioners, view the world through rational eyes, and harmfully, view rational thought solely through their own point-of-view and decision-making process. To counter this, I propose a new evolution of rationalist theory called relative-rationalism. This new concept embraces the universal importance of perspective ('ideas'). For instance, if one were to apply Laffey and Weldes' explanation of 'ideas' to the motivations and actions of a certain state, I would argue that by-and-large, from the perspective of the state in question, their actions remain rational despite not necessarily appearing so to other states. Thus, relative-rationalism. This new definition of rationalism would allow it to be reconciled with the importance of 'ideas'. Some may argue that this runs contrary to rationalism itself, I disagree, this is rationalism in its true, human-centric form.

     In the end, this line of thinking leads me to the point-of-view that Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity is the only fundamental, permanent law that can be applied to political science.

     What do you all think?

Complexity and Conceptual Inclusion: Week 3 Post-Class Blog

This is an incredible discussion – so happy for my blog team.  I agree that the complexity of human being, societies and political dynamics requires inclusion of both interests and ideas. To Jesse’s point and to Dan’s, I would add cultural influences that, again, I feel are distinct from the these - values, beliefs, norms, mores, etc., as I feel those are established at a more intrinsic level.  

To expand on my initial train of thought, it would seem important to make the distinctions without metaphorical reference for the sake of international discourse on motivational emphasis of the actors.  While I favor Laffey and Weldes’ perspective over that of Goldstein and Keohane, and intend to take the “social and meaningful context” tack in the Module 2 presentation, I am concerned about wrapping terms in ever more academic rhetoric.  The metaphor itself, while creating a more feasible tool for theorists – I do like the concept of “symbolic technology” as a device -  puts a monkey wrench in an otherwise cogent argument regarding elitism: In their conclusion, Laffey and Weldes state, “A case in point is the emphasis on elites in the ‘ideas’ literature.  Implied by the model is a view of the world that sees foreign policy as the business of elites … the model enters directly into the reproduction of existing relations of authority. Foreign policy then just is elite business (222).”  What makes this any different?  What takes it out of the elitist realm?  Redefinition to bring it into the lay world and out of the elitist realm would require language that speaks to an international lay audience.  If upending absolution of responsibility by "non-elites" in the realm of foreign policy is the aim (Laffey and Weldes, 222), not only the model, but the nature of the dialogue must change.  It needs to less arcane to be accessible to that greater audience with whom responsibility would be shared. 

Further, going back to definitional clarity, technology would imply ideas are solely external and utilitarian.   I would argue ideas are multifaceted and to discuss them otherwise, to strip them bare of origin for the sake of their broader application to a collective, renders our assessments on their impact wanting.   Dan, Jesse, and Courtney all speak to the need to consider the interwoven components motivating political actors rather than attempting to view these as separate and distinct drivers toward social and political activity.  And, Courtney notes that emphasis matters.  To assess motivational factors together is the only way to distinguish, not only the degree to which these influence together, but at which point the scale is tipped to one or the other.  

The McDonald’s example works here.   If the motivation to move away from Styrofoam is both profit and responsibility driven, that provides us two fronts from which to encourage future positive action.  The pressure we apply or the means by which we incentivize like environmental responsibility must then be defined by comparable degree.  In the short term, we have positive outcome, regardless motivation.  In the long term, we need to consider the gamut of motivational factors to encourage direction sustainably.   While profitability is the raison d’etre for a capitalist entity, it may be possible to shift the motivational scales so that an environmentally friendly business model carries greater weight in terms of profitability than it had in the past.  Ideas that emerge from within the organization – innovative concepts, or “symbolic technologies,” become more greatly influenced and more often generated by environmental “ideal interests.”   

Reference:

Laffey, Mark and Jutta Weldes, "Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations,"  European Journal of International Relations 3:2 (1997).