Description
Pragmatism has recently been described as ‘a sort of hidden paradigm in IR’ (Drieschova and Bueger 2022). I argue that this should no longer be the case. Philosophical Pragmatism, and the social and political theory it underpins, can cast helpful light on the challenges of our time. Furthermore, it can position IR so that the discipline plays a useful role in addressing those challenges. Pragmatism’s contribution extends beyond the analytical ‘eclecticism’ (Sil and Katzenstein 2010) and Pragmatist social theory (Hopf 2018), to include a normative approach that enables critical engagement with policy and practice (Ralph 2018). To consolidate that last claim, I argue in this paper that Pragmatism can in fact bring something new to IR’s assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been somewhat limited to a Realist / Liberal blame game. By clarifying that Pragmatism is more of an ‘ethos’ than a ‘paradigm’ I acknowledge that Pragmatism does not offer practitioners (understood broadly) a step-by-step guide for action. Nevertheless, I build on the center ground cleared by a Pragmatist critique of a liberal commitment to western values and a realist commitment to spheres of great power influence by drawing on the decentered and wider conception of democracy in Deweyan thought. This sees democracy as relational practice between the self and other, and not just a political practice within states, or a label used to identify and distinguish states. This provides the basis for an argument that supports the transatlantic response to the Russian invasion but calls on practitioners (at all levels) to (re)articulate a long-term vision of transatlantic common security whereby Russian (material and ontological) security is able to coexist alongside wider Europe.
