From sociology of practices to a philosophy of practices

Contrasting with a sociology of practices inspired by social theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu (Reference Bourdieu1977), Silviya Lechner and Mervyn Frost develop a philosophy of practices with the purpose of pushing theorising practices towards more ‘conceptual precision, systematicity and open-endedness’ (2018: 2). The need for a philosophy of practices stems from perceived flaws in the way IR scholars have theorised and applied Bourdieu’s and Wittgenstein’s (Reference Wittgenstein1958) theories of practices as the practice turn took hold in the field of IR. The practice turn has been thought to be a significant ‘turn’ in IR theory originating in premise from Nicholas Onuf’s World of Our Making (Reference Onuf1989), where Onuf drew on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language to show how language creates a space for action and social practice. However, the authors disagree with much of the underlying assumptions of the ‘practice-turn’ scholars and this book can be seen as a corrective and push for a directional U-turn for the field.

To move the study of practices from the social to the philosophical is not going to happen without resistance. The authors, no doubt know this, but press on with a new direction in understanding practices that pushes scholars of practice theory out of the social world and into the philosophical roots undergirding the assumptions on which sociological investigations have rested. It is a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings of the key concepts that form the base of a theory of practice. This is a theorists–theory book that draws on Hegel, Oakeshott and Wittgenstein, and is not a read for the faint of heart. Indeed, most tepid IR theorists will find the book a little daunting.

The main argument of the book is that sociological approaches have misconceived of a practice as an ‘action’ with a doer, and thus, practices as different types of actions (3). Instead, the authors argue, a practice is ‘not a type of action but an institution which constitutes a meaningful framework for interaction’ (3). The shift to understanding practices as human institutions comprised of rules of action moves the emphasis away from action and towards a theory of institutions, rules and norms. In the heart of the book, Lechner and Frost develop a philosophical theory of practice that focuses on three elements: 1) rule-following; 2) descriptivism; and 3) internalism. I would argue that the main contribution of the book is to 1) rule-following but perhaps the most interesting part of the book is 3) internalism and what it implies or leaves lacking when it comes to methodological questions or the practice of practice theory research.

In terms of the book’s contribution to rules and rule-following, the authors see this as one of the most significant weaknesses in the current practice-turn literature. The authors contend that the inattention to rules and rule-following has led to a mistaken emphasis on practices or actions with an undertheorising of the rules that constrain and constitute practices and actions to begin with. This has led practice-turn scholars towards micro-practices versus macro-practice – as the logic follows to look for actions in the deeds of actors thus pushing the level of analysis down to the everyday practices of people in diplomacy for example or behaviours of actors in the world. Instead, the authors define a practice as a system of rules and norms (15). A practice consists of component parts of rules of action, norms of action, the activity of following rules (and norms), the understanding of their meanings and an internal point of view.

In elaborating and explicating rule-following, rule-governed action and distinctions between constitutive and regulative rules, the authors follow others in the practice turn in focusing on social interactions as systems of rule, meanings of rules and rule-following. Indeed, rule-based understanding of social interactions launched various strains of practice-turn scholars building on Onuf and Wittgenstein to look at how language structures actions. The authors part ways with other practice-turn scholars in emphasising language as a key component of practices, although they briefly discuss a communicative model of meaning (113) and refer to a ‘public’ meaning that must be communicable between subjects (112). But this public meaning or the how of messaging between subjects is less emphasised and moved to the authors’ critique of social science methodology where they extol internalism and the recognition that messaging and understanding cannot happen on the ‘outside’. By shifting away from meaning-making, the authors move away from the agentic side of the practice turn.

Indeed, the authors overlook one dominant strain of the practice turn that emphasises how language forms in and through the practices of actors and creates change in the social world. For example, Karin Fierke (Reference Fierke1998) and scholars such as Gavin Duffy (Reference Duffy and Frederking2009), who also built their work on the foundations of Wittgenstein, showed how public language such as speech acts or the language used in particular realms or language games can be analysed to show how meanings are produced in and through language and ultimately how players (actors) engage within linguistic structures to create change. This provides not only understanding of the practice turn as also a linguistic turn but a methodological way to approach international relations that emphasises the actions of real-world actors.

Karin Fierke’s work brings Wittgenstein to IR by explaining, extending and applying his ideas of language games through case studies of real-world examples such as diplomacy, foreign policy, and negotiations. Lechner and Frost do engage with the concept of games but only briefly mention Fierke’s work or language games, choosing to focus more on a critique of game theory. I believe at this point the book would have benefitted from a deeper engagement, and no doubt critique of Fierke’s work because for many followers of the practice turn, Fierke’s contributions are foundational.

Fierke’s emphasis on language games and how they operate provides a way to observe actions through rules that constitute what the social meaning of practices are and allows IR scholars to develop a methodological approach that also builds theory. She claims that examining the underlying logic of language provides a way for IR scholars to make sense of the messiness of everyday language (Reference Fierke2002). In contrast to IR scholars that draw on positivist assumptions that assign categories as if they were ‘pictures’ and imbue states with essences as if they were fixed, Fierke ‘shifts away from a picture of a single logic, based on the essence of like actors, toward those moments of transition from one form of life to another … The analysis requires an examination of the language games that structure inter-actions during a transition’ (346). For Fierke and many others, the moment of transition and change is an opportunity for scholars to enter in, albeit imperfectly, to a social context of a particular language game to clarify the logic of practices and underlying rules that constrain and make possible the interactions and also the shifts taking place as a result of interaction.

For Lechner and Frost, however, one of the main arguments of the book is for ‘internalism’ and this challenges the methodological approaches of such practice-turn scholars that seek textual and narrative evidence of practices. Although Fierke and others also agree, in principle, with the idea of internalism presented here, the nature of Lechner and Frost’s internalism critique is one that discourages investigations rather than invites them. By pushing for a proper way to understand practices that hinge on precision as well as interpretation, Lechner and Frost create an impenetrable wall around the stuff of everyday life. Without drawing out explicitly the methodological implications of what they mean with the call for internalism, practice-turn theorists will be left wondering how to comply with precise and exact descriptivism from an inevitable ‘outside’.

Contrast this with, for example, Fierke’s approach to the inevitable outside where she paraphrases and quotes Wittgenstein and says, ‘Language does not provide a neat picture of the world. It is rather like “an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses” (Wittgenstein, Reference Wittgenstein1958: para. 18). Given these circumstances, a survey of our surroundings will be more useful in finding our way than an idealized representation’ (2002: 346). She invites us to dive in to the messy world of everyday practices and survey what we see. Lechner and Frost, in contrast, ask: ‘Given that practices exist, what is the procedure that an observer must use for understanding them properly’ (5)? They reject a social science approach to practices and argue that any observation must be internal and descriptive. As they state, ‘an outside observer studies a social world that is already intelligible to its participants’ (18). As such, the authors see other practice-turn theorists as mostly following a social scientist model that focuses on behaviour that gets in the way of a proper understanding of practices which should remain in the ‘domain of hermeneutic sciences’ (18).

However, I would disagree with this assertion and suggest that practice-turn theorists are not focused on behaviour or on prescribing meaning to a practice system, but on understanding action in and through language. This differs in my opinion from behaviour. I see a central contribution of the practice turn as proposing a way of observing language through a Wittgensteinian ‘look and see’ approach which does rest on an appreciation and commitment to the internal point of view but does not suggest that meanings can only ever be understood or observed from the inside. It follows from Wittgenstein’s saying of ‘don’t think, but look’.

In my own past work, I drew on Fierke (Reference Fierke1998) and Peter Howard (Reference Howard2002) to develop a model of interpretation of interaction and applied it to an economic negotiation between the US and Turkey (Skonieczny Reference Skonieczny2014). Like Fierke, Howard emphasises a contextual approach to language such that what is considered rational action depends on the context in which it takes place and the shared understandings and expectations that create this ‘space’ for appropriate behaviour. This point is crucial for understanding the role of agency and practice in language game approaches. As Howard states, ‘Language games are not fixed stable entities. Because meaning depends on use, and use can vary in practice … people can play the same game in different ways … [and] games evolve and the rules change through repeated use’ (46). In order to identify a language game then, it is critical to look and see what language is actually in use by the actors participating. From analysing ‘talk’ between actors, one can identify what game they might be playing. As Fierke states, ‘For language use, and therefore communication to be possible, there must be an agreement about meaning’ (1998: 25). This agreement comes from a cultural context that gains stability from already established rules and practices that guide how to interpret a situation or an object.

For my project, I interviewed practitioners that worked on liberalising trade shortly after the 9/11 attacks by seeking to establish qualified industrial zones in Turkey with the purpose of exporting textiles without duties or tariffs to the United States. This programme had failed and was considered a great disappointment to Turkey, the first Muslim country to contribute troops and support to the US in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Turkey had expected some benefit for this support. My task was to interview practitioners to find out why this economic plan had failed and what the status was three years later of US–Turkish economic relations.

As an ‘outsider’, it was quickly evident that I didn’t understand the significance of certain past actions on the part of either side that had become embedded in the language the practitioners used. Past actions had taken on current specific meanings even if to me they seemed out of context and didn’t ‘make sense’ until I interviewed enough people, listened and described back to others what I heard, enough to become temporarily on the inside of the ‘language game’ at least enough to understand the significance of the meanings behind the words and what the intent was of using the words in particular contexts. For example, practitioners on both sides would frequently use the phrase ‘unbalanced’ when referring to the US–Turkish relationship. ‘Unbalanced’ didn’t refer to an uneven trade relationship or other types of inequalities an outsider might imagine about the comparison between the US and Turkey. Through my conversations and readings of texts, I came to understand that when practitioners used the term ‘unbalanced’ or ‘unbalanced partnership’, they meant it was too heavy on the military side but light on the economic side. Turkey’s interest was to bring the relationship into balance – meaning improving the economic relationship to be more equal or in balance with the military relationship. In the US–Turkey diplomatic ‘language game’, the words represented a series of intersubjective practices that constituted an uneven alliance. I would never be on the ‘inside’ but I did dive into the meanings in use by actors and the repeated interactions over time to try and make sense of this economic partnership failure.

Thus, for Lechner and Frost’s call for internalism, I wanted more explanation for ‘how to go on’ methodologically. The authors at several points in the book elaborate to a degree on what this means but never go quite far enough to detail a research practice in my view. For example, in discussing the understanding of meaning within a practice, internalism is discussed again. As they put forth, ‘what is to be understood is meaning—not just the meaning of action but the meaning of practice-dependent action or action located within the internal domain of a given practice’ (112). In other words, how can we understand the meaning from an internal domain or standpoint? They continue that in order to subscribe to internalism, one must rely on a public meaning that is intersubjective. They elaborate by stating that meaning is transmitted where ‘meaning consists in a message exchanged between subjects: a speaker and a recipient’ (113). Given that meanings are public, how and why is the internalism critique different from other approaches to practices and/or public discourses? Are practices that are indeed publicly articulated, not quite understandable to someone from ‘outside’ the group? I would push the authors to think through the methodological implications of the critique more directly and to show how their approach to precision and descriptivism pushes forward empirical research in IR. In the end, the call for precision and an internal viewpoint set a bar that felt too high to reach to meet their expectations.

In all, the book is an extensive re-examination of the practice turn from a philosophical viewpoint and is impressive in its depth and close read of the philosophical underpinnings of what has become a well-known theoretical development in IR. However, I suspect that for many following in the sociological tradition of the practice turn, the book will not inspire the sharp U-turn the authors call for. Most practice-theory scholars moved intentionally to the practices of everyday life to step down from the ivory tower and into the messy, social world. For a philosophical approach to take hold, the authors would need to show us how their intervention would allow us to stay on ‘on the ground’ and do the messy work of everyday life better.