Agents, Structures and International Relations
Politics as Ontology

A comprehensive 2006 analysis of the agent-structure problem in international relations and social theory.

Colin Wight (Author)

9780521857529, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 October 2006

360 pages
23.9 x 15.3 x 2.7 cm, 0.74 kg

'Colin Wight's book is a comprehensive tour de force in reviewing and assessing the ontological underpinnings of social and international theory. Importantly, it also explains why a general theory of international relations is not possible. Highly recommendable!' Heikki Patomäki, Department of Political Science, University of Helsinki and Research Director, Network Institute for Global Democratisation

The agent-structure problem is a much discussed issue in the field of international relations. In his comprehensive 2006 analysis of this problem, Colin Wight deconstructs the accounts of structure and agency embedded within differing IR theories and, on the basis of this analysis, explores the implications of ontology - the metaphysical study of existence and reality. Wight argues that there are many gaps in IR theory that can only be understood by focusing on the ontological differences that construct the theoretical landscape. By integrating the treatment of the agent-structure problem in IR theory with that in social theory, Wight makes a positive contribution to the problem as an issue of concern to the wider human sciences. At the most fundamental level politics is concerned with competing visions of how the world is and how it should be, thus politics is ontology.

Introduction
1. IR: a science without positivism?
2. The agent-structure problem: from social theory to IR theory
3. The agent-structure problem in IR theory
4. Structure
5. Agency
6. The agent-structure problem: epistemology
7. The agent-structure problem: methodology
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Social theory [JHBA], Social & political philosophy [HPS]