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| Author(s): |
Flávio Pedroso Mendes
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI) |
| Defense date: | 2013-02-14 |
| Examining board members: |
Rafael Antonio Duarte Villa;
Kai Enno Lehmann;
Flavia de Campos Mello;
Eduardo Soares Neves Silva
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| Advisor: | Rafael Antonio Duarte Villa |
| Abstract | |
Any scientific field of research must constantly and critically evaluate its internal developments, in terms of progressiveness and the construction of significant knowledge. That is precisely what the present dissertation is set out to do, regarding the theory of international relations. It is indeed an exercise located at the frontier between epistemology and the theoretical understanding of the international political dynamics. Specifically, the theoretical-scientific depth of structural realism, as seminally developed by Kenneth Waltz, will be analyzed in face of recent theoretical amendments proposed by John Mearsheimer\'s offensive realism. Since such an approach cannot be conducted in the absence of a metatheoretical referential, Imre Lakatos\' Methodology of Scientific Research Programs (MSRP) will be applied. Three main contributions are expected to follow from our study: (i) a clearer understanding of Lakatos\' epistemology proposal and its criteria, as well as a discussion of the adequacy of the MSRP for the social sciences, in general, and the theory of international relations, in particular; (ii) a more systematic approach to structural realism as a scientific research program, identifying its hard core, its protective belt of auxiliary hypothesis and its negative and positive heuristics; and (iii) the appreciation of offensive realism as a progressive theoryshift for the Structural Realist Research Program. (AU) | |