Theorizing World Orders explores the importance of Emmanuel Adler’s theory of “cognitive evolution” for the study of order(s) in world politics. This volume begins with a chapter by the editors, Markus Kornprobst, Piki Ish-Shalom, and Vincent Pouliot, who describe and explore Adler’s theory of cognitive evolution (as outlined in a separate work: World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution, 2019). This is followed by seven chapters, each authored by scholars who explore specific “vistas” of research within this theoretical framework. A concluding chapter by Adler reviews these contributions and seeks to “sketch” a constructivist theory of politics.
Cognitive evolution theory, according to the editors, consists of “six core building blocks” (p. 12). The first—evolution and process—is based on a conception of evolution borrowed from the natural sciences but applied in a novel way to social phenomena. The editors, as well as Adler in his concluding chapter, are at pains to emphasize their metaphorical use of evolutionary theory, which they argue is useful primarily because it “shifts the analytical focus to the institutional environment, where the selection process takes place,” and “it points out that the process lacks a necessary direction” (p. 12). This innovation allows the conceptual opening necessary to reconcile a core problem of constructivism with a key principle of its project in the study of international relations: the challenge of explaining why some ideas emerge and spread relative to others without sacrificing agency and contingency on the altar of structure or functionalism. Other core principles described include a familiar emphasis on social learning, creativity processes, the multiplicity of social order, the role of progress, and perhaps most importantly to the editors and to Adler, the role of communities of practice.
The introductory chapter by the editors is a significant accomplishment, at once both elaborating Adler’s theory of cognitive evolution as well as situating it among competing theories of international order, particularly realism, liberalism, and the English School. The chapters that follow are a useful and impressive collection of theoretical and empirical extensions of the framework established by Adler and the editors. For example, Stefano Guzzini reminds us that “even if power systematically refers to order, order does not need to be defined through power” (p. 36). His chapter navigates the useful distinction between deontic and performative power to argue that power is not merely a variable acting upon relationships but also a feature intrinsic to those relationships. Maika Sondarjee’s chapter offers a compelling discussion of the coevolution of narrative and practice, and a window into one mechanism by which, as Adler later acknowledges, “practices and knowledge spread” (p. 234). Similarly, Beverly Crawford Ames explores how historical change in a set of practices can occur by focusing on refugees as “agents of progress,” which Adler later praises as a particularly useful example of how to empirically apply his theory of cognitive evolution.
The chapters by Peter Haas and Christian Reus-Smit are broader examinations of theoretical issues of complexity (Haas) and Adler’s implicit identification of two distinct “middle grounds” to be seized by constructive theory (Reus-Smit). Haas’s discussion of the integrated role played by communities of practice and epistemic communities in the transformation of ideas into practice is a compelling connector piece for several chapters within this volume, and Reus-Smit helps constructivists to realize an important distinction between an analytical and a normative middle ground.
Theorizing World Orders is not just an elaboration of a theory but it is also a global and academic promise of sorts, at the heart of which is an irreducible pluralism. The volume is self-aware in terms of its interdisciplinarity and tapestry-like weaving of concepts and arguments from fields as distinct as biology and phenomenology. Yet, this nominal inclusivity sometimes sits awkwardly alongside the apparently reflexive rejection of some theoretical orientations, such as functionalism of any stripe. For example, Alena Drieschova’s chapter on New Materialism insightfully calls our attention to the possibility that artifacts may sometimes shape the “parameters of thought” (p. 55). In his response, Adler asserts that this type of “Darwinian functionalism” is not useful because, as the evolution of the QWERTY keyboard illustrates, the most efficient solution is not always the one that socially evolves (p. 233). However, contra Adler, Darwinian selection is not a process that selects for efficiency, as several aspects of human anatomy easily illustrate.
This example may be a case in which a slightly phobic avoidance of evolutionary theory beyond metaphorical uses tragically works against the very pluralism for which this volume calls. Adler insists that constructivists should be free to adopt concepts “wholesale, regardless of what their designers first meant by them” (p. 234), which is somewhat ironic given several authors’ emphatic underlining of the powerfully constitutive nature of language. Although it is certainly possible in principle to borrow concepts and deliberately disembed them from their original frameworks, the result in practice is that communication and understanding is sometimes hindered, not deepened.
An implicit even if unintended gem of this text that deserves greater scrutiny is an occasional but regular hinting at the existence of what Reus-Smit calls a “universalist moral dynamic” (p. 224). We are at various moments teased by the possibility that these dynamics sit alongside or on top of a material, fleshy psychology that is common across individuals. For example, Reus-Smit references “our common humanity” with respect to a “minimalist ‘golden rule’” (p. 224), which is in fact reminiscent of some current thinking in the field of moral psychology; Crawford references the “instinctive search for sanctuary” at the heart of refugees as agents of progress (p. 173; emphasis added); and Pratt describes emotions as helping to explain “why a mechanism begins to operate” as well as when and why a mechanism “ceases to operate” (p. 93), which builds on several strands of research across psychology. Adler responds that fields such as psychology offer approaches for theorizing some of the questions he is interested in, but stops short and demurs, stating only that he chooses not to focus on them (p. 232).
Adler’s concluding chapter is powerful and comes at a time when scholars and practitioners are questioning the endurance and usefulness of the so-called rules-based liberal international order. It is because of this timing, Adler observes, that the study of world order will likely remain a “cornerstone” of IR theory into the foreseeable future (p. 239). Adler’s contribution is a useful reminder—particularly in the current era of tension between authoritarianism and democracy—that often what we describe as a singular order is in fact a “plurality of overlapping orders” that is constantly in flux (pp. 7–9).
As Theorizing World Orders demonstrates, cognitive evolution is compelling and innovative in its scope and promise. However, Adler’s parting observations leave the reader with a familiar conundrum: Our world faces looming threats of climate change, weapons, and technology, and short of a humanity-unifying catastrophe that pulls us by centripetal force to overcome myopic national interests, Adler argues that our remaining hope is to rely on “embedded globalism” to reframe national interests and “global multistakeholder” communities of practice that cut across traditional levels of analysis to establish global practices for overcoming these threats.
