國際關係理論「結構—能動」問題之反思與重建

Abstract

國際關係學科在1980年代末發生了一波社會學的學術轉向，相關的哲學與社會理論被引進國際關係理論中來檢討傳統理論實證典範的問題。在各個理論別派中，溫特的建構主義引用社會理論所發展出來的結構與能動性問題框架，反省了國際關係的結構理論忽略行為者角色的理論缺失，而強調以能動者（行為者）與結構相互構成的影響關係來共同解釋社會現象。在溫特之後，國關研究者們紛紛在其基礎上進一步引用不同的社會理論思想來批判與建構出新的結構與能動性整合架構，並在此問題下討論與辯論更深入的國際關係本體論、認識論、方法論的社會科學哲學問題。不過本文透過文獻回顧發現，這些國際關係整合途徑的討論在理論建構上經常出現概念介紹不清與社會理論的誤讀錯用情況，並缺乏概念上國際關係化的轉譯工作，而且多複製社會理論間的批判作為國關學者相互指摘的工具，形成缺乏國際關係內涵的結構與能動性討論。 在這樣的反省基礎上，本文藉由詳盡地回溯社會學與國際關係理論以掌握結構與能動性的本體概念核心以及概念發展上的脈絡趨向，於理論發展的高度上建構一個更具邏輯說明性的結構與能動性本體論整合架構。此外，為提供國際關係的解釋基礎，本文同時致力於將結構與施為本體論轉譯到國際關係領域中，形成具有國際關係差異特色的領域結構理論。國際關係結構與行為者的相互構成關係體現在領域結構中，結構型塑與影響著位置上的社會能動者而能動者在層級內與層級間的互動也再生產與轉化了關係結構。本文並指出結構與能動者在國際關係領域結構中相互影響與作用的機制，以時間性概念的提示整合了結構與能動者的互動關係以整全地說明國關經驗現象。最後在整個結構與能動關係架構建構之後，以國際關係知識社群為例，配合實證資料說明理論的實際分析意義。

During 1980s, there had been a notable turn of sociology theory in the discipline of international relations. The related social philosophy and social theory was brought into the IR theoretical space to re-examine problems deeply rooted in IR positivism paradigm. In this trend, Alexander Wendt introduced the Structure–Agency problem framework to improve the weakness of the IR structural theories which were stuck in traditional framework of level of analysis and neglected the importance of mutual constitution role between structure and actors. Following Wendt’s steps, other researchers tried to introduce more insights on the social theories spectrum into the discipline to evaluate the theory Wendt had established and constructed diverse synthesis approaches, addressing further ontological, epistemological, and methodological philosophy issues. With critical reviews, this article recognizes that most of these structure–agent writers appear to insufficiently develop their key concepts and frequently misuse or distort the original meaning of social theories. Structure and agency concepts are not internationalized properly by their hands and remain highly sociological reference, especially presented in the way researchers copy the disputes between social theorists and paste them into IR as convenient means of mutual criticism. Therefore, IR structure–agency problem turns out to be a lack of international character discussion undermining the academic development on this issue. Standing upon these reflections, this article manages to extensively retrospect the relevant social and international theory to capture the key ontological concepts and to find out their developing contexts so as to address a better synthesis framework with more conceptual support. Besides, in order to provide analytical bases, I also dedicate myself to the work of internationalizing Structure–Agency ontological synthesis and establish an international field structure theory based on the hierarchical feature of IR. In this field theory, the interaction between structure and agents is presented by position-embedded agential interaction inside and outside of hierarchies, which reproduces or transforms the relational structure. This article also highlights critical operative mechanisms and constructs a time-based Structure–Agency integration framework to achieve comprehensive understanding. In the final stage, the developed theoretical framework is applied to the academic community of international relations–as an example–to display its empirical analysis implications.