Scholars in international relations have long believed that there is one true scientific method, and adherence to it guarantees the validity of the research.

But Patrick Thaddeus Jackson says the belief simply isn’t true.

Jackson, a professor of International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C., will deconstruct long-held beliefs about scientific inquiry during a free public talk from noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday, April 8, in the EMU Walnut Room.

Jackson, associate dean for Undergraduate Education in the School of International Service, will present, “Imagining International Relations as a Pluralistic Social Science.”

Jackson’s research includes culture and agency, international relations theory, scientific methodology and the formation of subjectivity both in the classroom and in the broader social sphere. He is the author of “Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West.”

International relations scholars, Jackson said, have long believed that adherence to the “One True Scientific Method” guarantees the scientific status of empirical researches and pronouncements.

Even a cursory examination of the literature in the philosophy of science shows that this is simply not the case – and yet the cultural valence of the notion of "science" remains, making it imperative that the field have some kind of answer to "the science question,” Jackson said.

He presents a pluralistic solution, one that acknowledges the existence of significant differences between philosophical ontologies and the methodological perspectives to which they give rise, but organizes that diversity so as to promote internal consistency, public discussion and worldly insight as the hallmark of a scientific study of world politics.

-- by the Department of Political Science