Marianthi Seitanidou (s1025094)

Critical appraisal of Adler E. and Pouliot V. (2001), International Practices.

Summary

Adler and Pouliot advocate that we should approach world politics through the lens of manifold
practices1. Those practices are meaningful patterns of action, i.e. competent performances, which
are patterned, repeated, socially recognized and rested on background knowledge. In addition,
(international) practices connect the discursive with the material world. While the authors do not
claim that those practices constitute a grand theory (‘’a totalizing ontology of everything social’’ 2),
they do argue that practices form a new paradigm, in which any IR scholar can join, regardless of
their theoretical position (their ontological/epistemological stances).

Critique

My first point of critique concerns the definition of practices that Adler and Pouliot provide, which I
find to be quite broad. This definition can include all kinds of action, which ultimately makes it less
informative of what it tries to depict. Secondly, the five characteristics that the authors attribute to
practice seem to be rather abstract, as they don’t give us enough understanding to evaluate an
action, without knowing the specific context it is embedded in. That is to say, that by identifying a
practice as patterned, material, socially recognized etc. we don’t gain any understanding as to why
this practice takes place, especially without being familiar with its context. Furthermore, the term
‘competent’ performances is also vague, as we cannot be certain about who determines that
competency and which notion of competence matters. A lot of importance, is also given to the
notions of pattern and repetition, which might imply that political actors make their decisions based
on habit, rather than conscious choice. It is true that background knowledge might give the actors a
conception of how things generally work, but the theory of practice fails to consider that actors can
reflect on a practice and make use of their political judgement to bring about change. Lastly, the
argument that every IR scholar is able to join the practice paradigm is not very convincing. While it is
important to have open dialogue among IR theorists, it does not particularly make sense to include
everyone (realists, neoliberals, constructivists etc.), as neither everyone is conducting practice driven
research, nor is every IR theorist able to commit to the ontological and epistemological basis that
practice theory requires.

Questions:

- How can we make use of Adler and Pouliot’s model of practice in contemporary IR theory?
- Can all IR theories be subjected (equally) to the assumptions of practice theory?
- Does habit determine political action more than conscious decision?

2
Reference:

Adler, Emanuel, and Vincent Pouliot. 2011. “International Practices.” International Theory 3 (01): 1–
36. https://doi.org/10.1017/S175297191000031X.
Marianthi Seitanidou (s1025094)