Commonsense Constructivism, Or, The Making of World AffairsM.E. Sharpe, 2000 - 248 pages This engaging book presents an intriguing new approach to understanding world affairs. "Constructivism" first found its way to IR -- the field of international relations -- in an exceptionally demanding form. This book is quite the opposite. In a highly readable and witty way, Commonsense Constructivism, or the Making of World Affairs, makes clear how everything around us (IR included) is constructed. In the process, it also shows how narrow the standard IR approaches are, and how much we miss as a consequence. Ralph Pettman's conceptual framework of state-making, wealth-making, self-making, and mind-making allows us to see such notions as "globalization" in a revealing new light. This work is intended to be fully accessible to students, but it will be welcomed by anyone who has been mystified by constructivism -- or who simply wants to better understand the ways we understand our world. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Commonsense Constructivism 1. Making World Affairs I. THE NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF THE DISCIPLINE 2. Making Modernity 3. Making Sovereign Selves, Social Collectives, and Nations II. THE DOMINANT ASPECTS OF THE DISCIPLINE 4. Making States and Making Markets CONCLUSION: A Constructed World |
Table des matières
| 31 | |
THE NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF THE DISCIPLINE | 69 |
Making Modernity | 71 |
Making Sovereign Selves Social Collectives and Nations | 110 |
THE DOMINANT ASPECTS OF THE DISCIPLINE | 149 |
Making States and Making Markets | 151 |
A Constructed World | 210 |
References | 231 |
Index | 241 |
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analytic languages arguably argue become believe capacity capitalism capitalist Cold War collectivism collectivist commonsense concept Confucius consequence conservative constructivists constructed constructivism constructivists contemporary culture Descartes describe and explain discipline essentialist European example experience extreme feel feminists gender global globalist highlight human ideology individualism individualists intellectual interests international political International Political Economy International Relations involves IR/IPE kind less liberal liberalist limits listen live margins market-making Marx Marxist means mental mercantilism mercantilist metaphor modernist project modernist rationalism modernist world affairs modernity nationalism nature neoliberalism neorealists nonmodernist nonrationalistic objectifying particular political economy politico-cultural context politico-economic politico-social politico-strategic possible postmodernist postmodernity practice premodernist production question radical rationalistic realists reality reason revolution scientific self-making sense social theory constructivists society sovereign standing back state-makers study of world talk tion understand University wealth-making Western whole words
Fréquemment cités
Page 167 - ... wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land...
Page 117 - The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against other such wholes and against its social and natural background, is, however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world's cultures.
Page 33 - And every language is a vast patternsystem, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.
Page 160 - ... in all times, kings, and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators ; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another ; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms ; and continual spies upon their neighbours ; which is a posture of war.
Page 188 - By means of glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries.
Page 94 - The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.
Page 167 - O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain...
Page 37 - But yet, if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment, and so indeed are perfect cheat...
Page 96 - Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people.