Ontological Transformation in International Relations: The Rise of Critical Realism Towards the Fifth' Debate

Abstract

This article begins with the assumption that the long-standing theoretical debates within the newly century-old discipline of International Relations, which have been unfolding on an epistemological level, require an ontological reassessment. While the positivism-postpositivism debate particularly the one that emerged during the fourth debate, has provided significant benefits to the discipline through methodological pluralism and normative expansions, it has failed to present a unified paradigm on fundamental ontological issues such as the agent-structure relationship, causality and the nature of reality. In this context, the aim of this study is to reveal the discipline’s structural ontological shortcomings based on Roy Bhaskar’s theory of critical realism and to discuss whether this theory can provide theoretical groundwork for a new paradigmatic expansion that can be characterized as the “fifth debate”. The article is based on theoretical analyses conducted using a qualitative method and at a metatheoretical level. Focusing on Bhaskar’s depth ontology, critical naturalism, the transformative social action model and his understanding of causality, the contributions of critical realism to the discipline of International Relations are evaluated. The study finds that critical realism is both a strong candidate to be regarded as an alternative theory within the context of the fifth debate and a source of an ontological paradigm that informs disciplinary transformation.