
Alexander WendtThe Ohio State University | OSU · Department of Political Science
Alexander Wendt
PhD
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Introduction
Quantum social science
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
August 1999 - August 2004
August 1997 - August 1999
January 1989 - July 1995
Publications
Publications (42)
Undertaking a collaborative inquiry into a convergence of quantum theory, science, and technology, the chapter makes the case for a new human science for International Relations (IR). As new scientific discoveries and technological applications suggest large-scale quantum phenomena, near-simultaneous interconnectivity creates global entanglements,...
How burdens of proof are allocated in science has an important bearing on how new knowledge develops. Usually, the burden is on new theories to prove their worth relative to a default, baseline of knowledge that is considered established and secure. However, in the case of classical vs. quantum social science matters are not that simple because the...
Part II responds to some of my critics' substantive concerns about QMASS . However, to sharpen that discussion I first introduce the idea of classical and quantum physical instantiation tests or ‘PITs’. PITs are a thought experiment taking advantage of the causal closure of physics. To encourage critical self-reflection on the usually tacit ontolog...
This special issue is conceived out of the proposition that recent developments in quantum theory as well as innovations in quantum technology have profound implications for international relations, especially in the field of international security. Interaction with quantum theory outside the circle of physics has been limited; our goal is to catal...
This comment addresses some of the critiques of “Quantum Mind and Social Science” by the other contributors, with special reference to the challenge that the mind‐body problem poses to conventional, classical thinking about social science. A quantum social ontology transcends those challenges, and in the process could transform social scientific th...
Modern sovereignty is anthropocentric, constituted and organized by reference to human beings alone. Although a metaphysical assumption, anthropocentrism is of immense practical import, enabling modern states to command loyalty and resources from their subjects in pursuit of political projects. It has limits, however, which are brought clearly into...
This 2007 volume is intended to help readers understand the relationship between international law and international relations (IL/IR). As a testament to this dynamic area of inquiry, new research on IL/IR is now being published in a growing list of traditional law reviews and disciplinary journals. The excerpted articles in this volume, all of whi...
It may be that states are not persons, but there is nothing in Peter Lomas' dismissive critique of my article that would help us decide one way or the other. Lomas never engages the central points of my argument, and does not appear to have read the relevant literature. This is too bad, since Lomas' evident passion about the question of whether sta...
All international relations theories are based on social theories about agents, processes and social structures. Social theories do not determine the content of our international theory but they structure our questions about global politics and our answers approaches to those questions. The main topic in the social theory debates is what kind of fu...
As the U.S. experience in Vietnam and Iraq attests, occupation by a foreign power can generate counterproductive conflict dynamics. Winning hearts and minds is the key to the long-term success of occupations, and both occupation forces and resistance movements employ a mix of coercive and non-coercive strategies (punishments and rewards) to shape s...
To say that states are ‘actors’ or ‘persons’ is to attribute to them properties we associate first with human beings – rationality, identities, interests, beliefs, and so on. Such attributions pervade social science and International Relations (IR) scholarship in particular. They are found in the work of realists, liberals, institutionalists, Marxi...
International institutions vary widely in terms of key institutional features such as membership, scope, and flexibility. In this 2004 book, Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal argue that this is so because international actors are goal-seeking agents who make specific institutional design choices to solve the particular cooperatio...
Long dismissed as unscientific, teleological explanation has been undergoing something of a revival as a result of the emergence of self-organization theory, which combines micro-level dynamics with macro-level boundary conditions to explain the tendency of systems to develop toward stable end-states. On that methodological basis this article argue...
The Rational Design project is impressive on its own terms. However, it does not address other approaches relevant to the design of international institutions. To facilitate comparison I survey two "contrast spaces" around it. The first shares the project's central question-What explains institutional design?-but addresses alternative explanations...
Can the study of ideas in international politics be made scientifically respectable? The question is central to the Third Debate, yet the dominant voices in the seem oddly to agree. are sceptical because ideas seem ephemeral, difficult to measure, and generally resistant to hard science. As a result, positivist theories of international politics te...
Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins...
Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics, are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fa...
Desarrollo teórico que concibe el sistema político internacional como una construcción social, inspirado en la filosofía y la teoría social. Alexander Wendt clarifica los planteamientos centrales de una aproximación constructivista y presenta una visión mundial estructural e idealista que contrasta con el individualismo y materialismo que apuntala...
Within the community of academic students of international politics today there is a deep epistemological rift over the extent to and ways in which we can know our subject. Speaking very broadly, on one side stand what have become known as 'positivists', who think we can get closer to the truth about international politics, but only if we follow th...
State sovereignty is an inherently social construct. The modern state system is not based on some timeless principle of sovereignty, but on the production of a normative conception which links authority, territory, population (society, nation), and recognition in a unique way, and in a particular place (the state). Attempting to realize this ideal...
This paper pursues two objectives, one theoretical the other empirical. First, by keeping separate two grand strands in the EU studies literature, one on the design and reform of EU institutions and the other on the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, EU scholars are foreclosing the opportunity to address a hitherto unanswered question: When and under what...
Alexander Wendt is Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
For their exceptionally detailed and helpful comments I am grateful to Mike Barnett, Mlada Bukovansky, Bud Duvall, Peter Katzenstein, Mark Laffey, David Lumsdaine, Sylvia Maxfield, Nina Tannenwald, Jutta Weldes, and the members of the Yale IR Reading Group.
1. John J. M...
The neorealist-neoliberal debate about the possibilities for collective action in international relations has been based on a shared commitment to Mancur Olson's rationalist definition of the problem as one of getting exogenously given egoists to cooperate. Treating this assumption as a de facto hypothesis about world politics, I articulate the riv...
The relationship between militarization and state formation in the West has been the subject of considerable scholarship,1 and there is thus some temptation to simply transfer concepts and arguments from that domain to the study of Third World militarization. Yet state formation dynamics in the two contexts were and are quite different, with import...
I welcome this opportunity to respond to Martin Hollis and Steve Smith's ‘Beware of Gurus: Structure and Action in International Relations’, their reply to my review2 of their book, Explaining and Understanding International Relations . Their constructive comments have helped me clarify my own thinking, and I hope by extending my previous remarks i...
In this article, contrary to "neo-realist" and "neo-liberal" arguments that identify identites and interest as given in the system, the author porposes an alternative system perception based on the hypotheses of "constuctivist" theory focusing on the processes. This constructivist explanation that the author defends questions the main consensus in...
The field of international relations (IR) theory is something of a misnomer; since it is constituted by two distinct, though not unrelated, scholarly enterprises. Its core consists of first order theorizing about the structure and dynamics of the international system, and as such it attempts to contribute directly to our understanding of world poli...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Minnesota, 1989. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 353-379).
While neorealism and world-system theory both claim to be “structural” theories of international relations, they embody very different understandings of system structure and structural explanation. Neorealists conceptualize system structures in individualist terms as constraining the choices of preexisting state agents, whereas world-system theoris...