Epistemic superimposition: the war in Ukraine and the poverty of expertise in international relations theory
Epistemic superimposition: the war in Ukraine and the poverty of expertise in international relations theory (https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-023-00314-1) was written by Jan Dutkiewicz (Pratt Institute) and Jan Smolenski (University of Warsaw; New School for Social Research), published in the Journal of International Relations and Development in 2023.
The authors introduce a concept: epistemic superimposition. This is "approaching real-world politics on the presupposition that theoretical assumptions about it apply without interrogating whether those theories are applicable".
Altogether they present this paper as a criticism of realist academia, but really it seems a criticism of Mearsheimer's recent body of work. They point to Mearsheimer's specific policy recommendations in...
2014: U.S. and allies are making war inevitable; Ukraine ought to be made a neutral state; Russia ought to accept regional decline
- 2022: escalations are brinksmanship rather than signalling intent
The authors suggest that the predictive failures lie in de-contextualization of Ukraine.
Russia has intervened in regional politics since USSR collapse.
Former USSR states had their own public discussions and decisions about joining NATO.
Not only in the context of those activities, but as a subject/participant of those activities, Ukraine was not pursuing NATO membership; public opinion was divided up until the 2014 invasion.
Empirical evidence suggests Ukraine was a neutral state; conflict precipitated the end of the status quo, not the other way around.
More generally, Mearsheimer's hypothesis is not falsifiable. "Fear" is already a vague concept so Putin is used as a stand-in for the entire state of Russia. Furthermore the veracity of claims doesn't matter, only the beliefs of the actor. Ukraine and other former USSR states are not actors in the model. 'The U.S. and allies' is a monolithic actor in the model, but empirical evidence of Western actions contradicts the interpretation of the model. In short, the model sees an action, presupposes that it is reaction made out of fear, and overfits evidence to this model to identify the presupposed fear.
Even more generally, international relations academia needs more area studies to test theories/models with novel, non-Western evidence.
See also
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics