practice workshop

Summary: I argue in this paper for an actionable approach of policy analysis. In a nutshell my argument is the following: policy making as practice is the extension of governance into real time. This forward-looking process of extension involves social, natural and artifactual agency. I speak of agency because each of these three exerts a more or less autonomous influence upon the other. The effect of this is that policy makers, human agents, continuously run into resistances for which they have to find accommodations. This dialectic of resistance and accommodation can be called a dialogue. This dialogue proceeds through regularized forms of acting on the situation at hand. Moreover, the dialogue of resistance and accommodation does not only determine policy outcomes, but also has a constitutive element to it: goals, problems, values, possibilities, instruments, networks, emerge out of the dialectic of resistance and accommodation, and sustain one another. This image of social agency intertwined with natural and artifactual agency introduces a radically decentered image of policy making. Policy making is no longer the prerogative of one, favored actor (usually government), but the emergent outcome of the dialectic of resistances and accommodations in which social, natural and artifactual agency try to capture each other. Capture means that some form of temporary alignment between heterogonous elements has been attained. Finally, decenteredness also refers to cultural multiplicity and heterogeneity. Policy making always takes place in a pluralist universe, and practice, in the sense described here, consists in large part of coming to terms - aligning, stabilizing - the disparate elements of that universe. The argument is developed by working through an extended policy example: the legalization of prostitution in The Netherlands.

Abstract: The paper makes use of the concept of anchoring practices in an attempt to render the functioning of productive power specific and amenable to empirial analysis. We study the World Bank, and explore in some detail how the productive power often attributed to IOs function. The practice of systematically measuring and producing knowledge about developing countries, we argue, can be seen as an anchoring practice that define core features of the broader relationships between the Bank and its member states. This is most clearly expressed in the so-called Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) performed annually as key component of the Performance-Based Allocation system within the Bank. The CPIA, we argue, is constitutive of the power of the Bank in world politics. In this respect, the specific workings of IOs in world politics cannot solely be read off from their bureaucratic culture, but must be attentive to the (anchoring) practices through which it governs and interacts with states and other actors.

Abstract: Why do we need a discussion of the concept of practice? First of all, the concept of practice which has been so vigorously debated in other social science disciplines (for example Schatzki et al 2001) is so strikingly absent from the discussions in IR that it needs attention. The concept is most commonly adopted in common sense meanings which risk overlooking epistemological limitations and baggage inherent in the concept. Second, this paper will argue that the constellation in which the concept of practice in IR currently finds itself draws heavily on the basic objectivist distinction between theory and reality, which has long been the favourite scapegoat of all constructivist and post-structuralist writings within IR and security studies. The dissolution of the distinction between theory and reality has been a pastime for many social science scholars – and rightly so. But the lack of attention towards how the distinction between theory and practice in its current form has let objectivist traits sneak in through the back door in IR even within what has been called reflectivist approaches may compromise the way ahead for practice theoretical approaches. Without adequate attention to how the concept of practice seems to function as a “little brother” to the theory/reality-distinction in an overall theoretical constellation which includes both different types of actors (science/policy) and different types of sources (spoken/practised), the distinction between theory and reality risks being reproduced in the practice turn called for in this workshop and the good epistemological intentions of constructivist/post-structuralist writings may stand on shaky ground. It is thus high time for IR and security studies to turn attention to what has been called the “practice turn in contemporary theory” (ibid.). Without this attention the insights from the long debates about the social construction of reality in post-structuralism may be lost or compromised. The paper argues that the problem of practice has entered the debate in IR and security studies in a constellation primarily comprising of 1) a distinction between science and policy practice leading to the common sense statement that practice is policy practice. This contention is often depicted as an image of a gap between scholars and practitioners. Second, the constellation consists of 2) a distinction between a spoken (inferior) source of knowledge and a practiced (superior) source of knowledge leading to the liberalist/realist understanding that practice is what we do and what we can rely on as a source of knowledge. Often practice is considered to be recurring or invested with regularity which can be studied with greater precision that the spoken word (considered just rhetoric). In a general sense, these two axes have shaped how practice is conceptualised in the wider IR and security studies debate.

'Culture, Terror and Practice in International Relations - An Invitation to Practice Theory'

Abstract: Several IR scholars have claimed recently that ‘practice’ needs to receive different attention in our daily work, needs to be ‘returned’ to our theorizing, that practice is a concept under theorized in IR, in sum a turn to practice is what we need. Once again we see the call for a new turn – a practice turn. In this paper we inquire into the question of what IR theorists mean when they call for a (re-) turn to practice. We demonstrate that scholars stress practice, not because they plainly want to focus on world political action (a position that we call a vulgar understanding of practice), but as they see in practice theory a promising new social ontology. Such an ontology, first, helps to re-focus on action, while not falling into the traps of utilitarian or norm-based understandings of action. Second, practice theory as a part of the larger domain of cultural theorizing is a counter-offensive against these tendencies reducing social science and IR to a study of discourses. Third, the ontology of practice theorists helps to re-think some of the major problematiques in IR and social science. We are invited to see the relations between agency, practice and orderliness in a new way. We are encouraged to place social change and stability at the centre of research and to re-considerate the material dimensions of our being. Finally, practice theories suggest liberating us from too tight methodological and epistemological clothes, and taking responsibility towards our scholarly practices, instead. We adopt three strategies to stress these points. First we show how a classification narrative by Andreas Reckwitz can provide us with a map in which we usefully can sort practice theory in. This classification also provides us with a negative backdrop of what practice theory is not, by contrasting it to its culturalist (br)others. Second, we puzzle with the practice theory vocabulary to identify its coherence and multiplicity. We discuss practice-structure relations, change, the ‘material’ and implications for research practice. Practice theorists, although seeing the social as gaining its stability by routine, differ over there emphasis on complexity and contingency. Finally, as a third strategy, we discuss the illustrative example of new global terrorism as a field of practice, to show how practice theory can be practiced in IR. We do not suggest that practice theoretical research is superior to other ways of doing IR, but emphasize what we might lose, if practice is not woven into IR considerations.

'Polity formation through critique and justification. A practice perspective on the self-understanding of the EU'

This paper offers a brief exploration of some possibilities that an import of elements of “practice thought” into the realm of the study of the European Union polity might provide. It does so by way of re-conceptualising the question of the normative underpinnings/ the legitimacy of the EU polity. The paper therefore starts with two key questions on European integration: how can we conceptualise the European Union? And what holds it together as a political entity? It then distances itself from two standard answers – culturalism and deliberation – on theoretical grounds but also due to lacking empirical evidence. Instead it suggests a) on a general level to conceptualise a polity as a set of institutionalised political and administrative practices; and b) more specifically, that the European polity has been constituted by specific practices in response to ‘problematic’ situations, with the self-understanding of the Union explicable through the use of evaluative constructs. These orders of evaluation are used for both the identification/criticism of problematic situations as well as for the justification of envisaged common actions. This conception of analysing the EU polity is advanced by addressing three themes of practice thought: 1. “Given and yet open situations”, 2. “Active human beings and practices of justifications”, 3. “Concepts of evaluation: plurality and interpretation”. It concludes on the question of the fruitfulness of using the label “practice turn/ thought” for the construction of such an approach.

This paper seeks to reconstruct and analyze insider knowledge at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). Epistemologically, the paper is located at the confluence of two distinct streams of knowledge—practical and theoretical. In the spirit of “grounded theory,”1 the objective is to understand the world and its politics from the practitioners’ point of view. While theoretical abstraction often yields to important conceptual advances, induction and ethnography allow the researcher to counter the “scholastic fallacy”—the tendency for social scientists to impose more logic on practices than they can have. Rational choice theory, for instance, substitutes the calculating mind of the observer for the practical sense of the agent, deducing from the enacted practice its modus operandi. By opposition, this paper takes the “practice turn” to analyze practitioners’ first-hand experiences at the NRC and recover what I call the logic of practicality in world politics.

'Social Engineering as Security Policy? Politicization, Scientification and Securitization Between Ideology and Practice'

Abstract: This paper suggests that American Depression-era social engineering can be tentatively understood not only in terms of scientization and technocracy as is common, but also as neutralization, politicization and securitization with reference to a latent social war between capital-labour as well as a manifest crisis as war analogy/metaphor, both presenting existential threats to liberal democracy, calling for emergency measures, and requiring acceptance by the audience. However, as a rhetorical practice, social engineering may serve not only to reduce the sector of “normal politics” as implied by the securitization approach, but also to expand it, as neutralization, politicization, scientization, and securitization interconnect with logics of crisis vs. normalcy, politics vs. technology and practice vs. ideology/theory as well as facts vs. values. Social engineering aspired to a (metaphorical) reconciliation of these oppositions in an attempt to rhetorically bypass conceptual deadlock and political stalemate. The critique of social engineering as scientism and technocracy tends to obscure the multiple meanings, the rhetorical practices, and the very in-betweenity of social engineering by accepting these separations. As the Second World War—rather than social war or crisis as war—normalized the “application” of social science to social problems and marginalized value-neutral scientism, social engineering lost its rationale. Hence, if security concerns can be shown to have influenced the rise and fall of social engineering in the USA (as well as the entry of social science into public policy) to what extent are we then justified in studying it through the theory of securitization and analyze it as a kind of security policy?

'How to trace practices interpretatively - designing an ethnography in a non-yet-existing setting '

Abstract: This article moves from deconstruction to reconstruction in research methodology and the-ory building. At the beginning, we show why the hope of many political scientists that war-ranted knowledge in practical matters can be obtained through standard social scientific methodologies is mistaken. We do so by subjecting two versions of the underlying belief in the "epistemological project" to critical scrutiny. First, we discuss Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which for centuries provided the most developed epistemological position. Second, we critically reflect upon the "unity of science" position by showing how a series of more recent epistemological debates in mathematics and logic have ended in impasse. After re-visiting Kant’s critical epistemology and other attempts to set knowledge on secure founda-tions, in section two we argue that the time has come for a pragmatic turn in theorising. In sections three and four we suggest that a coherent pragmatic approach consists of two elements: the recognition of knowledge generation as a social and discursive praxis, and the recognition that research should be oriented towards the generation of useful knowledge. After providing some concrete suggestions for abduction as a pragmatic research strategy, in the conclusion we deflect some predictable anxieties that our ideas would imply an end to the scientific search for sound and solid knowledge.

Participants: Friedrich Kratochwil (EUI), Hendrik Wagenaar (U Leiden), Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI, Oslo), Vincent Poulliot (U Toronto), Trine Villumsen (U Copenhagen), Frank Gadinger (U Mainz), Michael Williams (U Aberystwyth), Rita Abrahamsen (U Aberystwyth), Giovan Franscesco Lazara (U Florence), Elisabetta Brighi (U Oxford), Xymena Kurwoska (EUI), Volker Balli (EUI), Carl Marklund (EUI), Christian Büger (EUI), Niklas Rajkovic (EUI); Christian Thauer (EUI)

	The (Re-)turn to Practice: Thinking Practices in International Relations and Security Studies Documentation of a workshop held at the European University Institute, May 2007

- Outline
International Relations and Political Science more general have seen in recent years a range of calls to return to practice. This proposed return (or turn) in line with recent social theorizing has however been understood quite differently. For some the call meant no more than to retrain from the ivory towers and engage with professionals of politics more actively. Others have argued for giving practice a pivotal ontological status, for setting up on new epistemological foundations and for mobilizing the anthropological-ethnographic spectrum of methods for studying politics. In sum, the call for practice has been a call for re-thinking political science practice. The practice theory project is however still in its beginning. Scholars studying politics and international relations are still in the defence, facing the value added question. Hence what is needed is exploring and demonstrating the benefits practice theory inspired perspectives can offer and detailing in what way such a kind of research can mild or even overcome persistent problematiques in the social sciences. Together with the move to positive heuristics and results, there is further need of clarification. Practice has been conceptualized quite differently. While the concept of practice is under-theorized in the majority of political science theories, it has been re-introduced and embedded in very different vocabularies and traditions. Practical philosophers in the footsteps of Aristotelian phronesis, Pragmatists following Dewey and Mead, Ethnomethodologists following Garfinkel and Goffmann, Cultural sociologists following late Foucault, Bourdieu, de Certeau, Serres and Deleuze have introduced different meanings of practice and embedded them in different ontological vocabularies. Most directly this concerns the questions how the concept of practice relates to institutions and organisations, if practice is more than tacit knowledge and if it is meaningful to differentiate between discourse and practice or to distinguish between different layers of practice. These are issues in need of clarification if a common vocabulary, or indeed a practice theoretical project is to be embedded in social science. Coherence in current practice theory perspectives is however given in their reading of the linguistic turn as a turn that was never only about text and speech, in their interests in meso-perspectives that neither prioritizes the macro nor the micro and in their search for symmetry between the social and the natural, and the subject and the object. The workshop discusses 'work in progress' from sociology, history, international relations and security studies along these lines. The workshop took place at the European University Institute, 18th and 19th of May 2007, and was sponsored by the Department of Political and Social Science.
[Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]
- Participants and Presentations
Key Note Lecture Hendrik Wagenaar (U Leiden, The Netherlands) 'Policy Practice as the Extension of Governance' Summary: I argue in this paper for an actionable approach of policy analysis. In a nutshell my argument is the following: policy making as practice is the extension of governance into real time. This forward-looking process of extension involves social, natural and artifactual agency. I speak of agency because each of these three exerts a more or less autonomous influence upon the other. The effect of this is that policy makers, human agents, continuously run into resistances for which they have to find accommodations. This dialectic of resistance and accommodation can be called a dialogue. This dialogue proceeds through regularized forms of acting on the situation at hand. Moreover, the dialogue of resistance and accommodation does not only determine policy outcomes, but also has a constitutive element to it: goals, problems, values, possibilities, instruments, networks, emerge out of the dialectic of resistance and accommodation, and sustain one another. This image of social agency intertwined with natural and artifactual agency introduces a radically decentered image of policy making. Policy making is no longer the prerogative of one, favored actor (usually government), but the emergent outcome of the dialectic of resistances and accommodations in which social, natural and artifactual agency try to capture each other. Capture means that some form of temporary alignment between heterogonous elements has been attained. Finally, decenteredness also refers to cultural multiplicity and heterogeneity. Policy making always takes place in a pluralist universe, and practice, in the sense described here, consists in large part of coming to terms - aligning, stabilizing - the disparate elements of that universe. The argument is developed by working through an extended policy example: the legalization of prostitution in The Netherlands. Paper Presentations Iver Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI, Norway) 'Banking on Power: Practices in an International Organization' Abstract: The paper makes use of the concept of anchoring practices in an attempt to render the functioning of productive power specific and amenable to empirial analysis. We study the World Bank, and explore in some detail how the productive power often attributed to IOs function. The practice of systematically measuring and producing knowledge about developing countries, we argue, can be seen as an anchoring practice that define core features of the broader relationships between the Bank and its member states. This is most clearly expressed in the so-called Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) performed annually as key component of the Performance-Based Allocation system within the Bank. The CPIA, we argue, is constitutive of the power of the Bank in world politics. In this respect, the specific workings of IOs in world politics cannot solely be read off from their bureaucratic culture, but must be attentive to the (anchoring) practices through which it governs and interacts with states and other actors. Trine Villumsen (U Copenhagen, DK) 'The problem of practice in IR and a Bourdieuan way out' Abstract: Why do we need a discussion of the concept of practice? First of all, the concept of practice which has been so vigorously debated in other social science disciplines (for example Schatzki et al 2001) is so strikingly absent from the discussions in IR that it needs attention. The concept is most commonly adopted in common sense meanings which risk overlooking epistemological limitations and baggage inherent in the concept. Second, this paper will argue that the constellation in which the concept of practice in IR currently finds itself draws heavily on the basic objectivist distinction between theory and reality, which has long been the favourite scapegoat of all constructivist and post-structuralist writings within IR and security studies. The dissolution of the distinction between theory and reality has been a pastime for many social science scholars – and rightly so. But the lack of attention towards how the distinction between theory and practice in its current form has let objectivist traits sneak in through the back door in IR even within what has been called reflectivist approaches may compromise the way ahead for practice theoretical approaches. Without adequate attention to how the concept of practice seems to function as a “little brother” to the theory/reality-distinction in an overall theoretical constellation which includes both different types of actors (science/policy) and different types of sources (spoken/practised), the distinction between theory and reality risks being reproduced in the practice turn called for in this workshop and the good epistemological intentions of constructivist/post-structuralist writings may stand on shaky ground. It is thus high time for IR and security studies to turn attention to what has been called the “practice turn in contemporary theory” (ibid.). Without this attention the insights from the long debates about the social construction of reality in post-structuralism may be lost or compromised. The paper argues that the problem of practice has entered the debate in IR and security studies in a constellation primarily comprising of 1) a distinction between science and policy practice leading to the common sense statement that practice is policy practice. This contention is often depicted as an image of a gap between scholars and practitioners. Second, the constellation consists of 2) a distinction between a spoken (inferior) source of knowledge and a practiced (superior) source of knowledge leading to the liberalist/realist understanding that practice is what we do and what we can rely on as a source of knowledge. Often practice is considered to be recurring or invested with regularity which can be studied with greater precision that the spoken word (considered just rhetoric). In a general sense, these two axes have shaped how practice is conceptualised in the wider IR and security studies debate. Christian Büger (EUI) and Frank Gadinger (U Mainz, Germany) 'Culture, Terror and Practice in International Relations - An Invitation to Practice Theory' Abstract: Several IR scholars have claimed recently that ‘practice’ needs to receive different attention in our daily work, needs to be ‘returned’ to our theorizing, that practice is a concept under theorized in IR, in sum a turn to practice is what we need. Once again we see the call for a new turn – a practice turn. In this paper we inquire into the question of what IR theorists mean when they call for a (re-) turn to practice. We demonstrate that scholars stress practice, not because they plainly want to focus on world political action (a position that we call a vulgar understanding of practice), but as they see in practice theory a promising new social ontology. Such an ontology, first, helps to re-focus on action, while not falling into the traps of utilitarian or norm-based understandings of action. Second, practice theory as a part of the larger domain of cultural theorizing is a counter-offensive against these tendencies reducing social science and IR to a study of discourses. Third, the ontology of practice theorists helps to re-think some of the major problematiques in IR and social science. We are invited to see the relations between agency, practice and orderliness in a new way. We are encouraged to place social change and stability at the centre of research and to re-considerate the material dimensions of our being. Finally, practice theories suggest liberating us from too tight methodological and epistemological clothes, and taking responsibility towards our scholarly practices, instead. We adopt three strategies to stress these points. First we show how a classification narrative by Andreas Reckwitz can provide us with a map in which we usefully can sort practice theory in. This classification also provides us with a negative backdrop of what practice theory is not, by contrasting it to its culturalist (br)others. Second, we puzzle with the practice theory vocabulary to identify its coherence and multiplicity. We discuss practice-structure relations, change, the ‘material’ and implications for research practice. Practice theorists, although seeing the social as gaining its stability by routine, differ over there emphasis on complexity and contingency. Finally, as a third strategy, we discuss the illustrative example of new global terrorism as a field of practice, to show how practice theory can be practiced in IR. We do not suggest that practice theoretical research is superior to other ways of doing IR, but emphasize what we might lose, if practice is not woven into IR considerations. Volker Balli (EUI) 'Polity formation through critique and justification. A practice perspective on the self-understanding of the EU' Abstract: This paper offers a brief exploration of some possibilities that an import of elements of “practice thought” into the realm of the study of the European Union polity might provide. It does so by way of re-conceptualising the question of the normative underpinnings/ the legitimacy of the EU polity. The paper therefore starts with two key questions on European integration: how can we conceptualise the European Union? And what holds it together as a political entity? It then distances itself from two standard answers – culturalism and deliberation – on theoretical grounds but also due to lacking empirical evidence. Instead it suggests a) on a general level to conceptualise a polity as a set of institutionalised political and administrative practices; and b) more specifically, that the European polity has been constituted by specific practices in response to ‘problematic’ situations, with the self-understanding of the Union explicable through the use of evaluative constructs. These orders of evaluation are used for both the identification/criticism of problematic situations as well as for the justification of envisaged common actions. This conception of analysing the EU polity is advanced by addressing three themes of practice thought: 1. “Given and yet open situations”, 2. “Active human beings and practices of justifications”, 3. “Concepts of evaluation: plurality and interpretation”. It concludes on the question of the fruitfulness of using the label “practice turn/ thought” for the construction of such an approach. Vincent Pouliot (U Toronto, Canada) 'The Logic of Practicality at the NATO-Russia Council' Abstract: This paper seeks to reconstruct and analyze insider knowledge at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). Epistemologically, the paper is located at the confluence of two distinct streams of knowledge—practical and theoretical. In the spirit of “grounded theory,”1 the objective is to understand the world and its politics from the practitioners’ point of view. While theoretical abstraction often yields to important conceptual advances, induction and ethnography allow the researcher to counter the “scholastic fallacy”—the tendency for social scientists to impose more logic on practices than they can have. Rational choice theory, for instance, substitutes the calculating mind of the observer for the practical sense of the agent, deducing from the enacted practice its modus operandi. By opposition, this paper takes the “practice turn” to analyze practitioners’ first-hand experiences at the NRC and recover what I call the logic of practicality in world politics. Carl Marklund (EUI) 'Social Engineering as Security Policy? Politicization, Scientification and Securitization Between Ideology and Practice' Abstract: This paper suggests that American Depression-era social engineering can be tentatively understood not only in terms of scientization and technocracy as is common, but also as neutralization, politicization and securitization with reference to a latent social war between capital-labour as well as a manifest crisis as war analogy/metaphor, both presenting existential threats to liberal democracy, calling for emergency measures, and requiring acceptance by the audience. However, as a rhetorical practice, social engineering may serve not only to reduce the sector of “normal politics” as implied by the securitization approach, but also to expand it, as neutralization, politicization, scientization, and securitization interconnect with logics of crisis vs. normalcy, politics vs. technology and practice vs. ideology/theory as well as facts vs. values. Social engineering aspired to a (metaphorical) reconciliation of these oppositions in an attempt to rhetorically bypass conceptual deadlock and political stalemate. The critique of social engineering as scientism and technocracy tends to obscure the multiple meanings, the rhetorical practices, and the very in-betweenity of social engineering by accepting these separations. As the Second World War—rather than social war or crisis as war—normalized the “application” of social science to social problems and marginalized value-neutral scientism, social engineering lost its rationale. Hence, if security concerns can be shown to have influenced the rise and fall of social engineering in the USA (as well as the entry of social science into public policy) to what extent are we then justified in studying it through the theory of securitization and analyze it as a kind of security policy? Xymena Kurowska (EUI) 'How to trace practices interpretatively - designing an ethnography in a non-yet-existing setting ' Abstract: missing Friedrich Kratochwil (EUI) and Jörg Friedrichs (EUI) 'On Acting and Knowing' Abstract: This article moves from deconstruction to reconstruction in research methodology and the-ory building. At the beginning, we show why the hope of many political scientists that war-ranted knowledge in practical matters can be obtained through standard social scientific methodologies is mistaken. We do so by subjecting two versions of the underlying belief in the "epistemological project" to critical scrutiny. First, we discuss Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which for centuries provided the most developed epistemological position. Second, we critically reflect upon the "unity of science" position by showing how a series of more recent epistemological debates in mathematics and logic have ended in impasse. After re-visiting Kant’s critical epistemology and other attempts to set knowledge on secure founda-tions, in section two we argue that the time has come for a pragmatic turn in theorising. In sections three and four we suggest that a coherent pragmatic approach consists of two elements: the recognition of knowledge generation as a social and discursive praxis, and the recognition that research should be oriented towards the generation of useful knowledge. After providing some concrete suggestions for abduction as a pragmatic research strategy, in the conclusion we deflect some predictable anxieties that our ideas would imply an end to the scientific search for sound and solid knowledge. Participants: Friedrich Kratochwil (EUI), Hendrik Wagenaar (U Leiden), Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI, Oslo), Vincent Poulliot (U Toronto), Trine Villumsen (U Copenhagen), Frank Gadinger (U Mainz), Michael Williams (U Aberystwyth), Rita Abrahamsen (U Aberystwyth), Giovan Franscesco Lazara (U Florence), Elisabetta Brighi (U Oxford), Xymena Kurwoska (EUI), Volker Balli (EUI), Carl Marklund (EUI), Christian Büger (EUI), Niklas Rajkovic (EUI); Christian Thauer (EUI) [Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]
- Detailed Programme and Workshop Format
The format of the workshop is that of paper presentations and discussion. All participants are expected to have read the contributions. Papers will be disseminated to participants ten days in advance. Following the presentation of a paper (max. 15 Min.), a discussant will provide critical comments (max. 10 Min.) to open the discussion. Each participant is expected to provide comments on one of the papers. Each paper shall get at least one hour of discussion. Please find the detailed programme here [Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]
- Background Reading
*General* (EUI Internal links) Berard, T.J. 2005. Rethinking Practices and Structures. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (2):196-230. [pdf] Fuller, Steve. 1997. Why Practice Does Not Make Perfect: Some Additional Support for Turner’s Social Theory of Practices. Human Studies 20 (3):315-323. [pdf] Latour, Bruno. 2002. Morality and Technology: The End of the Means. Theory, Culture & Society 19 (5-6):247-260. [pdf] Harre, Rom. 2002. Material Objects in Social Worlds. Theory, Culture & Society 19 (5-6):23-33. [pdf] Huysmans, Jef. 2004. A Foucaultian view on spill over. Freedom and Security in the EU. Journal of International Relations and Development 7 (3):294-318. [pdf] King, A. 2000. Thinking with Bourdieu Against Bourdieu: A'Practical' Critique of the Habitus. Sociological Theory 18 (3):417-433. [pdf] Kratochwil, Friedrich. 2007. Of false promises and good bets: a plea for a pragmatic approach to theory building. Journal of International Relations and Development 10 (1):1-194. [pdf] Lynch, Michael 1997. Theorizing Practice. Human Studies 20 (3):335-344.[pdf] Neumann, Iver B. 2002. Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31 (3):627-652. [pdf] Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalist Theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory 5 (2):243-263. [pdf] Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. The status of the 'material' in theories of culture. From 'social structure' to 'artefacts'. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 32 (2):195-217. [pdf] Schatzki, Theodore R. 2001. Practice Theory. In The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, edited by T. R. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina and E. von Savigny. London/New York: Routledge.[pdf] Schatzki, Theodore R. 2002. The site of the social. A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. P. 59-122.[pdf] Turner, Stephen. 1997. Bad Practices: A Reply. Human Studies 20 (3):345-356. [pdf] *Further Reading* Examples of Practice Theory in Political Science Adler, Emanuel. 2005. Communitarian International Relations. The epistemic foundation of International Relations. London/New York: Routledge. pp. 3-28. Doty, Roxanne L. 1997. Aporia: a Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory. European Journal of International Relations 3 (3):365-392. Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2001. Making Social Science Matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Laws, David, and Donald Schön. 2003. Reframing practice. In Deliberative Policy Analysis. Understanding Governance in the Network Society, edited by M. A. Hajer and H. Wagenaar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neumann, Iver B., and Heikka Henrikki. 2005. Grand Strategy, Strategic Culture, Practice: The Social Roots of Nordic Defence. Cooperation and Conflict 40 (1):5-23. Neumann, Iver B. 2005. To Be a Diplomat. International Studies Perspectives 6 (1):72-93. Rasmussen, Mikkel Vedby. 2003. A New Kind of War: Strategic Culture and the War on Terrorism. IIS Working Paper 2003 (3). Rasmussen, Mikkel Vedby. 2005. What's the Use of It? Danish Strategic Culture and the Utility of Armed Force. Cooperation and Conflict 40 (1). Wagenaar, Hendrik, and Noam S.D. Cook. 2003. Understanding policy practices: action, dialectic and deliberation in policy analysis. In Deliberative Policy Analysis. Understanding Governance in the Network Society, edited by M. A. Hajer and H. Wagenaar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Other Key Texts Eley, Geoff. 2005. Is all the world a text? From social history to the history of society two decades later. In Practicing History. New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn, edited by G. M. Spiegel. New York: Routledge. Highmore, Ben. 2006. Michel de Certeau. Analysing Culture. London and New York: Continuum, p. 117-148 Sewell jr., William H. 2005. The Concept(s) of culture. In Practicing History. New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn, edited by G. M. Spiegel. New York: Routledge. Swidler, Ann. 1986. Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies. American Sociological Review 51 (2):273-286. Spiegel, Gabrielle M. 2005. Introduction. In Practicing History. New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn, edited by G. M. Spiegel. New York: Routledge. Colapietro, Vincent. 2004. Doing — and Undoing — the Done Thing: Dewey and Bourdieu on Habituation, Agency, and Transformation. Contemporary Pragmatism 1 (2):65-93. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 1981. Introduction: The microsociological challenge of macro-sociology: towards a reconstruction of social theory and methodology. In Advances in Social Theory and Methodology, edited by K. Knorr Cetina and A. V. Cicourel. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Major Books Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of the Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp. 1-30, 72-97. de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by S. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lynch, Michael. 1993. Scientific practice and ordinary action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pickering, Andrew. 1995. The Mangle of Practice. Time, agency, and science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rouse, Joseph. 1996. Engaging Science. How to understand its Practices Philosophically. New York: Cornell University Press. Schatzki, Theodore R., Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike von Savigny, eds. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London/New York: Routledge. Schatzki, Theodore R. 1996. Social Practices. A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schatzki, Theodore R. 2002. The site of the social. A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Shotter, John. 1993. Cultural Politics of Everyday Life: Social Constructionism, Rhetoric, and Knowing of the Third Kind. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Spiegel, Gabrielle M., ed. 2005. Practicing History. New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn. New York: Routledge. Turner, Stephen. 1994. The Social Theory of Practice. Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. Cambridge: Polity Press. Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]
- Information for Visitors
Transport to Florence: Florence is easy reachable as it is surrounded by airports several low cost airlines fly into. Despite Florence Airport, Pisa and Bologna are within 70 min. Rome within two hours, and Milano within three hours. Information of which low cost airlines fly into these airports can be found at: www.scyscanner.net Florence Airport. Take the bus from Airport to Florence Main Train Station (Santa Maria Novella). Pisa Airport. www.terravision.it provides 24h bus services to St. Maria Novella connected to arriving fligths. Bologna, Rome and Milano. Take train to Florence St. Maria Novella. Book in advance at www.trenitalia.com If trains are booked out, you still can take it with an additional fee of 10€. Buy a ticket for a different train at the same class and pay the fee to the conductor. Transport in Florence: Florence offers only bus service. Buses run usually from 6 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. Bus tickets can be bougth at any store or kiosk that has an orange ATAF sign at the doors. Ask for a "bilgietto multiplo", a four ride ticket at the price of 4.50€. The Institute can be reached by bus Nr.7 to 'Fiesole'. Get off at San Domenico where a Pizzeria and several small stores are in sigth (and all the students get off). Alternatively you can take bus Nr. 1A to "Il Lapo". Get off at final stop. Please find a more detailed description of how to get to the Institutes facilities here. Accomodation An arrangement has been made with the Hotel "Villa la Stella". Please find all the informations concerning the hotel here . [Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]
- Contact
For further information on this workshop please contact Christian Büger, at christian.bueger[a]eui.eu or by phone: +39-340-658-7500. [Partcipants] [Programme] [Reading] [information for visitors] [contact]