The Case for a New English School: A New Response to the Fourth Debate

• In Event: Paradigms: What Are They Good For?

Abstract

This paper proposes a widespread revision to the English School of international relations theory in an effort to 1) provide the paradigm with much-needed internal ontological and epistemological consistency and 2) increase its analytical robustness by supplementing it with elements from Neorealism and Conventional Constructivism. This paper argues that the traditional English School lacks relevancy due to the inconsistency in ontology and epistemology between its International System and International Society layers, which are indebted to positivism (Problem-Solving theory), and those of the World Society, which are much closer to Critical Theory. Therefore, this paper’s proposed revision, which it calls the New English School, does away with the World Society while further developing the positivist orientation of the other two layers. In addition, the paper demonstrates the ontological and epistemological overlap between the remaining layers of the English School and Conventional Constructivism and Neorealism. Doing so allows for the incorporation of logic from these paradigms to drastically increase the analytical robustness of the New English School. In executing this analysis, the paper explores the key issues of the Fourth Debate and the nature of knowledge in the social sciences, concluding that a social ontology does not necessitate a critical epistemology.

Author

• Robin Brooks Ishler, Touro University