Bourdieu, International Relations and European Security

TY - JOUR

T1 - Bourdieu, International Relations and European Security

AU - Berling, Trine Villumsen

PY - 2012/9

Y1 - 2012/9

N2 - This article takes the failure to grasp fully the paradigmatic case of European security after the Cold War as an example of how International Relations (IR) would benefit from reformulating not only its empirical research questions but also several of its central conceptual building blocks with the aid of Bourdieusian sociology. The separation between theory and practice and the overemphasis on military power and state actors blind IR from seeing the power struggles that reshaped European security. Instead, a Bourdieusian reformulation adds new types of agency, focuses on the social production of forms of power, and stresses the processual rather than the substantive character of social reality.

AB - This article takes the failure to grasp fully the paradigmatic case of European security after the Cold War as an example of how International Relations (IR) would benefit from reformulating not only its empirical research questions but also several of its central conceptual building blocks with the aid of Bourdieusian sociology. The separation between theory and practice and the overemphasis on military power and state actors blind IR from seeing the power struggles that reshaped European security. Instead, a Bourdieusian reformulation adds new types of agency, focuses on the social production of forms of power, and stresses the processual rather than the substantive character of social reality.

U2 - 10.1007/s11186-012-9175-7

DO - 10.1007/s11186-012-9175-7

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0304-2421

VL - 41

SP - 451

EP - 478

JO - Theory and Society

JF - Theory and Society

IS - 5

ER -