Political Science - Postmodernism - Essay Example

Running Head: POLITICAL SCIENCE (POSTMODERNISM) Political Science (Postmodernism) [The of the appears here] [The ofthe institution appears here] Political Science (Postmodernism) Introduction There is a barrage of "post-isms" now occupying our intellectual orientation. For example, we are familiar with post-Keynesianism, post-liberalism, post-Marxism, post-industrial society, post-Fordism, post-structuralism, and of course, this occurs within our contemporary post-Cold War period. The mushrooming of post-isms has gotten so out of hand that it can be suggested that we make a serious effort to go beyond all of this by developing the "post post-ism" paradigm. Postmodernism is a term which was initially encountered a decade or more ago and was at that time associated with current developments in the arts and architecture. Gradually the term's usage spread to other cultural spheres and a variety of academic disciplines. A voluminous literature now exists and numerous efforts have been made to interrelate postmodernism among diverse disciplines. In general, postmodernism is a cultural development with spin-offs in political science. (Colin 2002, p.9) There is no simple description of postmodernism (Harvey 1989, p. 7). It is a dissenting voice levelled at the claims of the Enlightenment tradition and what is understood as the period of modernity embarked upon with the emergence of capitalism, industrial society, the nation-state, and the cultural turn toward individualism (Ross 1988, p. vii). In philosophy, postmodernism announces a "vigorous denunciation of abstract reason and deep aversion to any project that sought universal human emancipation through mobilization of the powers of technology, science, and reason" (Harvey 1989, p. 41). As Harvey further explains, the confidence in the association between scientific and moral judgments has collapsed, aesthetics has triumphed over ethics as a prime focus of social and intellectual concerns, images dominate narratives, ephemerality and fragmentation take precedence over eternal truths and unified politics, and explanations have shifted from the realm of material and political-economic groundings towards a consideration of autonomous cultural and political practices (Harvey, 1989, p. 328). Postmodernism: Implications for Political Analysis One of the most significant generalizations about the consequences of postmodernism is that it affects not only the pace of our daily lives but our attitudes about knowledge, the power of political science and reason, and our confidence in the future. We become sceptical, insecure, uncertain and doubtful. (Colin 2002, p.9) As Harvey notes, "it is impossible to say anything of solidity and permanence in the midst of this ephemeral and fragmented world (Harvey 1989, p. 291). Everything we do and experience faces "the challenge of accelerating turnover time and the rapid write-off of traditional and historically acquired values" (Harvey 1989, p. 291). Postmodernists have proposed a fresh start to understanding and conducting political analysis. They draw upon bodies of literature that are not usually part of international theory, including philosophy, cultural studies, feminist theory, geography, and linguistics. (Colin 2002, p.14) Another narrative, that of aesthetic sensibility, (Colin 2002, p.3-4) explores the cultural symbols and conventions that have been used to represent the modern world and its relationships with the rest. Here, the inquiry focuses on the culture of modernism--examining the styles of artistic, literary and cultural representation through which modem society has represented itself: its characteristics, hopes, dreams and nightmares, beliefs and goals. This account relates closely to modern literary and artistic criticism--which probes the values, sentiments and meanings embedded in the canons of western art and literature. The representational account is concerned with broad patterns of sense and meaning that inhere in modem cultural products and seeks to connect these cultural meanings to the social, economic and technological contexts where they arise. (Colin 2002, p.3-4) Many established scholars find no merit in these new approaches. Instead, they detect dangers of various kinds. They warn of fateful nihilistic tendencies. (Colin 2002, p.9) They fear that a too loosely defined academic discipline of political analysis would undermine the search for coherent visions of world politics. And such visions, the argument goes, are badly needed at a time when violent conflicts and economic insecurities haunt the post-Cold War system. (Fred 1994, p.39) Real problems need theories grounded in reality. It is, of course, fairly easy to dismiss the lack of focus, the obscure writing style, or the alleged relativism of post-modern approaches and advocate a more realistic engagement with world political events. Postmodernism can thus be considered as a methodological and epistemological position, which revolves around the issue of what knowledge is, how it is constructed, and how it relates to language and power. Epistemology here is not a privileged form of insight into the human mind. The postmodern notion of episteme rejects the existence of truth beyond power, a privileged site of knowledge. It draws attention to the constituted and multiple dimensions of social practices. Given the acceptance of epistemological fragmentation, it is almost self-evident that this search is characterized more by diversity than by a single and coherent set of positions and assumptions about life. (Colin 2002, p.7-9) The debates about methodological issues were carried out within a positivist frame because they failed to even touch upon issues of epistemology. Positivism entails not only methodological commitments (propositions about how to study politics) but also epistemological and ontological frameworks (assumptions about how world politics can be known and how the knowing acquire their knowledge). The latter ones are more often latently used than explicitly acknowledged. At its most elementary level, positivism is based on an attempt to separate subject and object. It implies that the social scientist, as detached observer, can produce value-free knowledge, that our comprehension of facts can be separated from our relationship with them. (Colin 2002, p.7-9) The term postmodernism is a more useful analytical tool than post-modernity for it does not imply the end of a historical epoch called modernity, but merely draws attention to the need for rethinking the concepts and categories through which this epoch has been constituted. (Colin 2002, p.9) For this purpose I accept the aspects of Lyotard's work that differentiate between the modern and the post-modern by defining the former as any science that grounds and legitimates itself in reference to a grand narrative, while employing the latter term to express an incredulity toward totalizing forms of knowledge.(Lyotard 1979 p.7-9) Modernity is not the only bounded set of discourses. Every discourse has limits, revolves around a set of underlying assumptions, advances propositions that banish others to conceptual exiles. Neither can modernity be reduced to the recurring desire to repress ambiguity. Of course not. But the search for certainty is an important and widely applied modern theme that continues to remain central to political dynamics in the twentieth century. (Colin 2002, p.4-5) Postmodernism & Deconstruction Postmodernism is notoriously hard to define, as it is found across the social sciences and humanities and has evolved differently in different disciplines. For purposes of this paper I will define postmodernism as a theoretical framework focusing on the role of language and symbolism in the phenomenon of social and psychological control. Deconstruction is seen as a particular method and philosophy in use within the postmodernism movement for dismantling linguistic and symbolic structures. (Colin 2002, p.9-11) Deconstruction poses serious problems for the discipline of organization theory in that its calls for an 'opening' of cultural and linguistic forms will destabilize already unstable ethical structures. (Colin 2002, p.9) The fact that organization theory generally ignores ethics makes the threat posed by deconstruction hardly noticeable. Ironically, we owe thanks to postmodernism in that its greatly exaggerated quest for liberation from cultural forms draws attention to the neglected role of ethics in the cultural aspects of organizations and organization theory. In any case, ethics requires distinctions between fight and wrong Deconstruction, and postmodernism generally, is shown to be a continuation of modernity's attack on cultural authority and its celebration of the ideology of individualism with its concomitant of endless criticism. Deconstruction posits the oppositional nature of language and symbolism as a 'violent hierarchy' and seeks to overturn this hierarchy to achieve human freedom. This reading of the repressive aspects of culture is shown to undermine the essential dynamic of culture, which is a recurrent splitting of what is from what is not in the process of forming meaning. By opening up structures of meaning to expose their repressed contents, deconstruction aspires to question all authority. This is particularly threatening to the ethical aspects of organizational culture, because it suggests a continuous attempt to question the boundary between right and wrong. Indeed, orders of right and wrong are seen by deconstruction as mere political attempts at controlling an organization. Ethics is reduced to politics; authority is confused with power. (Colin 2002, p.9-13) It can be argued here, instead, that stable structures of meaning are needed over time to found a traditional and thus legitimate base for business ethics. Contrary to deconstruction's goal of opening meaning to its repressed opposite, I assert that memory should be seen as a moral decision based on past experience. Business ethics requires stable moral standards and, no less, the capacity to believe in them. Conclusion Modernity has no clear beginning and end. While the roots of this period reach back somewhere to the early days of Renaissance humanism, scholars today are engaging in relentless disputes about whether we find ourselves in a late modern age or whether we have already taken the first steps into a beyond--some kind of post-modernity. I tend to side with the former. This has consequences. The recognition that we have not yet transgressed modernity means that we cannot look at it from the outside. A self-critical look at modern ideas and practices can never be detached from the eye of the viewer. It is more like a look in a mirror--an incomplete image of reflections and distortions, a mixture of vanity and self-doubt. But we must nevertheless grapple with the contours of life reflected in the mirror, even if we know that they will always remain distorted images. (Colin 2002) By challenging the positivist assumptions of dominant approaches to political analysis, postmodernists have tried to open up various possibilities for rethinking not only the relationship between theory and evidence, fact and value, but also the very nature of the dilemmas that have haunted world politics for decades. References Colin Hay (2002) Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction (Political Analysis) Palgrave Macmillan.p.9 Fred Halliday (1994), Rethinking International Relations (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994), p. 39; Harvey, David. (1989). The Postmodern Condition: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell. Jean Bethke Elshtain.(1995). "International Politics and Political Theory," in Ken Booth and Steve Smith, eds., International Relations Theory Today (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), p. 272. Lyotard Jean-Francois, (1979) La Condition Postmoderne (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1979). p.7-9 Ross, Andrew, Ed. (1988). "Introduction" Universal Abandon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. i-ix. Read More