Truth and Another Truth: Being A Moderate Modest Witness of International Relations
SALMINEN, ANNA (2006)
SALMINEN, ANNA
2006
Kansainvälinen politiikka - International Relations
Yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2006-06-05
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-15852
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-15852
Tiivistelmä
This thesis discusses epistemological questions of international relations. It is a post-modern analysis on different ways of knowing, of mythical figures and powerful myths. International relations is one of the spaces where certain mythical figures operate, influence and encounter. Even though stories and figures are fictitious they have consequences, which matter. This study introduces two main figures, which are still present in the discussions of present day international relations, especially in the foreign policy of the United States: the King, the representative of sovereignty, and the Rational Man, the autonomous subject of knowledge of modern science.
The objective is, with analytical tools offered by Michel Foucault, to understand the fictitious nature of international relations, and to reflect on how to cope with the complexity and changes of international relations; how to handle the indefiniteness of international relations without clinging to highly problematic myths of the King and the Rational Man. Accordingly, the study addresses the question, how to be a moderate modest witness of international relations, that is, a situated subject of knowledge.
The study maintains it is not the King or the Rational Man, who governs the world of international relations. What orders the subjects and the objects of international relations are the manifold networks of power relations, which different stories bring into live. A prerequisite for moderate modest witnessing of international relations is to understand stories are never neutral but deploy complex power relations. Thus, telling stories of international relations is not an innocent enterprise but a process, which makes a difference. To tell new stories is to challenge prevailing power relations.
The objective is, with analytical tools offered by Michel Foucault, to understand the fictitious nature of international relations, and to reflect on how to cope with the complexity and changes of international relations; how to handle the indefiniteness of international relations without clinging to highly problematic myths of the King and the Rational Man. Accordingly, the study addresses the question, how to be a moderate modest witness of international relations, that is, a situated subject of knowledge.
The study maintains it is not the King or the Rational Man, who governs the world of international relations. What orders the subjects and the objects of international relations are the manifold networks of power relations, which different stories bring into live. A prerequisite for moderate modest witnessing of international relations is to understand stories are never neutral but deploy complex power relations. Thus, telling stories of international relations is not an innocent enterprise but a process, which makes a difference. To tell new stories is to challenge prevailing power relations.