Description
An analysis like that by Buzan aspires to deliver the ‘big picture’ covering all of human history (and a bit more, i.e., into the future) and across all relevant sectors: economic, military, environmental, political and societal. However, while the ‘target’ which BPT is meant to cover is large, this does not in itself tell us concepts it consists of and how they are organized and thus what kind of inner mechanisms make it tick. This chapter is meant to be relevant to the larger field of grand, structured history, not only Buzan’s version of it. However, it is built around an analysis of Buzan’s works in order to address principled questions of how such analysis can or cannot be made.
The analysis operates at two levels: the nature of BPT and the content of it. The first is about the way BPT works in the texts to organize the story, the second is about the specific concepts. First, what is the conception of theory in Buzan’s work and why does this matter? Would the big picture operate differently, if its theory part was of a different kind? Several other discussions of Buzan’s analyses (including in this volume) are critical of BPT; I have questions to the ‘theory’ part. Even if it is ‘big picture’, it is not only a ‘picture’: it is big picture analysis, which is enabled by a theory. The theory here is clearly not of the dominant mainstream American type where causal laws enable testable hypotheses. Nor is it theory in the political theory sense. Is it ‘a picture mentally formed’ a la Waltz? No, because it does not have the simplicity and inner, circular structure. Is it more a network of concepts, hierarchically organized that allows a mapping of issues and thus corresponding to the mind mapping© technique used by Buzan? If so, what is the strengths and weaknesses of this kind of theory, and consequently BPT?
Second, regarding the content of the theory in BPT, most of the key concepts come from Waltzian neo-realism and the English School, mixed up with standard terminology from macro history. The article summarises how Buzan’s work has evolved through its encounters with Waltzian neo- realism (notably in Logic of Anarchy) and the English School, but the main point is not evolutionary: the task is to understand what key concepts and building blocks from other approaches are doing what work in BPT in the current, mature version.
