4. Charting the Cartesian complex of IR
4.2 The compartmentalization of knowledge
James Der Derian (2003) sees information technologies enabling a profoundly novel coagulation of surveillance, warfare, entertainment, and US power projection. The appreciation of these works should not prevent us, however, from realizing that they are marginal and insular in the context to the discipline. There is a lack of integrative approaches and comparative studies on technological innovations (see 4.5).
IR’s indifference towards technological innovations appears even more pronounced if we compare it to the contemporary attitude of governments, corporations, international organizations, and militaries (Weiss 2005). The great zeal with which practitioners use slogans and implement policies concerning “technological leadership”, “human capital”,
“revolution in military affairs”, or “indigenous innovation” and so on is definitively absent in IR. The vanishing of technology as a research concern is also puzzling when we consider that other disciplines such as geography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and history have at the same time established subfields, theories, journals and debates about technology. It is against this background, that the idea of the Cartesian complex seems to offer a plausible explanation for IR’s collective neglect. But before shedding light on the ontological and conceptual levels, we first need to clear the ground by examining how the disciplinary division of labor turned into another obstacle hampering the study of technological innovations.
While the disciplinary division of labor sometimes makes sense, it is unfortunately misleading in the case of technological innovations. It tends to put the premium on economic and, in particular, econometric research that provides wide-ranging statistical data, international rankings, and global assessments. The impressively rich graphical and pictorial texture of recent OECD or UNESCO reports purports overwhelming matter-of-fact statements about innovation and technology. Yet, hidden behind their monumental façade are unconvincing methodical moves. They foreground monolithic states and national economies in the analysis of innovation processes and innovativeness while it is unclear which actors are the most important, how they are related to one another, and across which levels innovational processes—local, regional, national, continental, global to name a few—take place (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000, Montresor 2001). It is for example erroneous to treat the “state” as a unitary actor because various “strategic groups” inside state agencies and across institutions may push innovations and knowledge growth (Evers, Menkhoff, and Wah 2010).
Dynamic accounts of innovation reject the notion of “national innovation systems”.
They emphasize the co-evolution of mutually interacting fields—labeled as “tripple helix”—comprising industries, universities and governments (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000). Typically, these studies assume the co-evolution of technological innovations, the applications and diffusion of technologies on the one hand, and the regulative environment on the other (Leydesdorff and van den Besselaar 1994). As companies, universities, research institutes, and entrepreneurs are the primary actors “doing”
innovations, their activities typically evolve within complex transnational and trans-sectoral networks. These networks are social and commercial at the same time, comprising both collaboration and competition (de la Mothe and Dufour 1995, Archibugi and Lundvall 2003, Srholec and Verspagen 2008). Innovational processes and scientific collaboration often transcend national borders while they are unevenly distributed and spatially highly concentrated in metropolitan areas (Evers 2008, Hornidge 2008, de la Mothe 2004, Castells and Hall 1994).
As a consequence, politicians who attempt to govern or steer innovations in developed and developing nations alike experience them as tricky and elusive (Breznitz 2007). The great difficulties of governments are illustrated by the irresistible blurring of
the lines between commercial and military applications. Because almost every high technology embodies dual use functions, even powerful states have failed to prevent
“their” cutting-edge weaponry and expertise from diffusing. The research and development of high-tech weapons, surveillance and military equipment, system software and so forth become ever more intertwined with a diversity of private firms and civilian research institutions (Molas-Gallart 1997, Molas-Gallart and Sinclair 1999, te Kulve and Smit 2003). The ability of the “state” to control or to govern the knowledge society from its commanding highs is limited. Nevertheless, numerous econometrical studies by drawing on aggregated national data sets construe nation states as central units.
Comparative research, similarly, stresses the state by assuming that national institutions and innovation systems matter most for explaining differences in technological innovations and economic performance (Lundvall, Joseph, and Chaminade 2009).
Adam Segal points out the “mismatch between traditional S&T analysis, based in the national innovation school, and an increasingly international process.” (Segal 2008, p.
423) The resulting empirical and theoretical contradictions are mirrored in the impenetrable policy tradeoffs that governments often have to tackle (Godin 2002, Robertson 2008). The methodological focus on “states” or “national economies” conceals more than it reveals. And the aggregated data sets that we currently have at our disposal are not useful if we take the fluid technological world seriously. Moreover, theory-driven frameworks are lacking that combine statistical calculations on the one hand and qualitative observations in the other. In sum, the dominance of mainstream economics over this field reinforces the inadequate picture that innovational activities constitute inter-national issues.
Perhaps most problematic is that the methodologies used by international organizations such as the OCED and the UNESCO render technological innovations and the resulting shifts a purely economic issue. One surely cannot fault economists for their prime concern with economic issues. Yet, positivist-quantitative research and indicator-based econometrics often purport a thoroughly non-political depiction of innovations.
Especially global power dimensions are left out from the picture.55 To explain different growth rates and national wealth, innovation economics almost exclusively focus on national institutions and policies (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, Acemoglu, Aghion, and Zilibotti 2006). To the extent to which the world is construed as if no links exist among innovational processes, technological change and international power politics, the neglect of this political dimension is no mistake. Nor is it simply due to a narrow disciplinary mind-set. The OECD places innovations in the context of growth-friendly policies, market competition, and collaborative responses to global challenges in order to figure them as problem-solutions rather than matters of power-political concerns. Technological innovations are consequently seen as
“essential if countries and firms are to recover from the economic downturn and thrive in today’s highly competitive and connected global economy. It is a powerful engine for development and for addressing social and global challenges. And it holds the key, both in advanced and emerging economies, to employment generation and enhanced productivity growth through knowledge creation and its subsequent application and diffusion.” (OECD 2010, p. 2)
One can doubt the merits of de-politicizing the diffusion of technologies. However, if the OECD outlook holds true and our societies and economies undergo fundamental transitions that render high technology progressively pervasive and prominent, it is equally reasonable to assume that this transition will—as the historic examples discussed in Chapter 2 amply illuminate—inevitably entail power dimensions.
Of course, this is not to imply that quantitative indicators for technological capacities or innovativeness should be abandoned (see Leydesdorff and Zhou 2005).
However, the quantitative explorations of innovative capacities, economic competitiveness, and technological leadership are unsatisfying from an analytical perspective: The power aspects of technological transformations fall victim to over-quantification (in economics) and suffer, at the same time, from constant under-theorization and under-specification (in economics and IR). At this point, the tendency in
55 International aspects are either framed as long-term pattern such as “Contradiev cycles” or as policy misfits and coordination problems (e.g. Dosi et al.1988).
But see Castellacci and Archibugi (2008), and Archibugi and Coco (2005) for excellent examples that render visible the power aspects empirically and conceptually.
IR to delegate the subject matter, and the economists’ preference for framing it in apolitical terms of problem solving, are mutually reinforcing.
The second disciplinary obstacle that inhibits conceptualizing technological innovations is the custom of IR scholars to selectively borrow only from economics, and pay little attention to other neighboring disciplines. As a result, some of the core ideas underpinning IR thinking essentially prevent theorizing technological innovations. This observation seems, at the first glance, confusing for almost every systematic theory of international relations or international political economy has borrowed from major economic thinkers. Almost every feature of economic theories has either come—in one way or the other—to underlie theoretical approaches to IR, or has been discussed as both a policy concern and, from a critical perspective, a site of resistance: these notions include trade, production, monetary systems and currencies, global markets, transaction costs, and interest groups.56 At the level of theoretical assumptions, a micro-economic rational-actor model is the most commonplace imported tenet of economics (Guzzini 1993, p. 444).
But there is also an interesting exception. Why has the evolutionary dynamic of innovations consistently been ignored both issue-wise and on the level of theorizing?57 The reason for this is simple. IR and IPE have exclusively borrowed from strands of economic theory that tend to downplay innovations systematically.58 Specifically, Joseph A. Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” has not been picked up in IR.
Schumpeter’s ideas are the main source of inspiration for innovation economics and the New Economic paradigm (cf. Hospers 2005, Witt 2003), which see innovations as the
56 Other theoretical puzzles include global governance and regulation, the dichotomy between market forces and state authority, the integration of economies in a regional or world market, trade barriers, state capacity, financial systems and currencies, transnational corporations, and so fourth (Garret 1998, Rodrik 1997, Moravszik 1993, Gilpin 2001, Underhill 2003, Hobson 1997, Kugler and Domke 1986, Spero and Hart 2010). Marxist approaches theorize international relations instead based on the concepts of class struggle, exploitation and resistance, core-periphery relations, and forms of hegemony (Cox 1981, 1987, Wallerstein 2004, Gill 2003).
57 Although scholars have advanced “evolutionary theories” in IR they are not related to technological innovation at all.
58 The concepts and puzzles derived from Smith, Ricardo, Marx and neoclassical economists have directed the theoretical focus to certain aspects of the capitalistic economy while neglecting others. Indeed, when asked to treat innovations in a substantial manner, especially classical equilibrium economics fails to deliver (Romer 1994).
foremost driving engines for growth and economic progress. Hence, this perspective is by and large missing in IR and IPE.59 One needs only to consult Benjamin Cohen’s (2008) brilliant intellectual history of International Political Economy in which great thinkers of innovation including Joseph Schumpeter are anathema. The entire book does not entail a single section that substantially deals with technological innovations either as an empirical concern or as a theoretical subject matter.
While this sort of selection bias is not unusual for intellectual appropriations from extra-disciplinary sources, its thoroughness is striking. Not only neorealist, but also liberal and Marxist IR approaches have literately turned a blind eye to technology-based development and innovation processes.60 There is no good explanation for the fact that evolutionary and non-static innovation economics were simply not embraced for conceptual inspiration. The ramifications are obvious. The reservoir of economic vocabulary that explores the evolutionary dynamics of technological innovations – skipping assumptions of equilibrium models or static circulation-economies (Aghion and Howitt 1992, Metcalfe 1998, Freeman 1988, Dosi and Nelson 1993) – has not been mined. In sum, IR scholars cling to their static assumptions, despite the rise of evolutionary economics and the renaissance of Schumpeter’s ideas which ushered in non-equilibrium models (Romer 1990, 1994, Freeman 2007). IR theories—under the intellectual guise of preeminent “classical” economists—have simply overlooked technological innovations.
It does not follow, though, that IR should shy away from economics. Clearly, economic insights inadvertently bear on IR. Particularly, I will later draw myself on innovation economics to develop my framework. Against Higgot and Watson (2007, p.
16), who state that “it becomes progressively less tenable to present economics as ‘the approach’ to explaining social reality rather than as one approach amongst many”, it is worth noticing that essentially different economic theories exist. Although I agree with
59 In this sense, John Stopford and Susan Strange (1991) and John de la Moth and Gilles Paquet (1996) are noteworthy as they attempt to capture interactions between emerging technologies and power. Stopford and Strange, for instance, stress “investments in competitive innovation have proved decisive in determining who gains leadership on the world stage and who loses” (Stopford and Strange 1991, p.66).
60 To a certain degree, world system approaches have paid more attention (e.g. Arrighi 1994). Yet, most scholars in these groups are not pledging allegiance to IR, if they are not in an outright opposition to the discipline (Buzan and Little 2001).
Higgot and Watson that several other disciplines provide valuable inspirations, IR would especially benefit from the New Economics’ paradigm shift towards dynamic, non-linear models.
The third and last aspect of disciplinary politics is the neglect of non-economic research. As IR theorists—including scholars who approach technologies—rely on misleading thoughts of economists, they have largely refrained from adopting and incorporating the rich conceptual frameworks and materials about technological innovations advanced by neighboring disciplines. 61 Indeed, sociology, history, geography, anthropology, archeology, and science and technology studies (STS) did long acknowledge the reality of the technological world. They have accumulated a large body of knowledge that highlights the massively transformative and productive character of technologies.62 Although some studies directly point to international affairs,63 IR scholars have eschewed these insights. They were not used in order to recalibrate and refine IR theories.64
Hence, what Chris Brown has noted concerning the entire discipline is especially relevant for the study of technological innovations: “it is embarrassing how often IR theorists find themselves grappling with problems that have been current elsewhere in the social sciences for decades.” (2007, p. 350) As a result, techno-politics are subject to a powerful collective state of denial in IR—otherwise, IR scholars certainly would have started to fight over this turf as well. Instead, a learning attitude is needed. IR would certainly benefit from importing empirical knowledge and methodological know-how.
However, given the problematic inappropriateness of existing frameworks, does
“incorporation” actually make sense? It could be argued that pressing the empirical observations and theoretical concepts, which are to be imported, into insufficient frameworks would lead to foretold stillbirth.
61 Tellingly, these disciplines were not occupied with the business of establishing one distinct subject matter that embodies the sacred cow of the scientific community. And, perhaps, the former were not as much yearning for academic identity as was postwar IR.
62 See footnote 4.
63 See Headrick (1979), Adas (1990), Jasanoff (2006), Krige (2006a), Krige and Barth (2006), Winseck and Pike (2007).
64 The important outliers such as Der Derian (1990), Deibert (1997), Litfin (1999), Singh (2002), Deudney (2000a) and Herrera (2003, 2006) will be discussed below.
Untying the Gordian knot demands a radical cure. We ought to grant IR theories a break because integrating insights from other disciplines requires first of all open-mindedness. To this end, we should assume a genuine empirical/conceptual interdisciplinary field that contains the “global politics of science and technology”. As one needs to build this field almost entirely from scratch, this enterprise benefits from the supply of fresh empirical materials and conceptual tools (cf. Mayer et al. 2014a). To be sure, combining notions and concepts in an interdisciplinary way does not imply that we must completely sacrifice theoretical parsimony. Yet, parsimony should not be mistaken as an excuse for over-simplistic models including logocentric ontologies and static assumptions. To establish a new subfield in IR constitutes an enormous long-term project – to which this book only can make a small contribution. Nonetheless, removing the roadblocks of compartmentalization renders our thinking about technological innovations more fruitful.