ABSTRACT
In Part 1 of this wide-ranging interview Heikki Patomäki discusses his early work and career up to the Global Financial Crisis. He provides comment on his role as a public intellectual and activist, his diverse academic interests and influences, and the many and varied ways he has contributed to critical realism and critical realism has influenced his work. In Part 2 he discusses his later work, the predicament of humanity and the role of futures studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
6 For sense of his range see also, Patomäki (Citation1996a, Citation2003a, Citation2009a, Citation2011a, Citation2017a, Citation2019b); Patomäki and Pursiainen (Citation1999); Patomäki and Wight (Citation2000); Patomäki and Teivainen (Citation2002, Citation2004b); Patomäki and Held (Citation2006); Patomäki and Steger (Citation2010); Patomäki and Kotilainen (Citation2022); Gills, Morgan, and Patomäki (Citation2019); Morgan and Patomäki (Citation2017a, Citation2017b, Citation2017c, Citation2021).
7 See also, Patomäki (Citation1992b, Citation1994d, Citation1995a, Citation1997, Citation2000c, Citation2002c, Citation2003b, Citation2010c, Citation2011b, Citation2012a, Citation2013b, Citation2014b, Citation2015b, Citation2016a, Citation2016b, Citation2017b, Citation2018b, Citation2019a, Citation2019c, Citation2019d, Citation2020b, Citation2021); Patomäki and Morgan (Citation2007);
8 The final award of degrees followed later than completion.
11 Note from Heikki: the prisoner’s dilemma refers to a game-theoretical model in which individual utility maximization appears to be self-defeating, or at least contradictory to some kind of social or collective rationality. Various ‘market failures’ and systems of subordination have been analysed in terms of this model, but it has had numerous other applications; the ‘tragedy of global commons’, as well as inter-state insecurity, arms races and crisis bargaining, etc.
12 Note from Jamie: the concept of cosmopolitan world society has had various proponents, notably David Held. Held suggests eight principles underpin the theory (Held Citation2011, 11–15). The theory’s main focus is rights of the individual - hence a difference of emphasis to communitarianism. See later mention of Held.
13 Note from Jamie: in particular, ‘transcendental realism’ and ‘critical naturalism’, see Bhaskar and Hartwig (Citation2010, 93) and Chapter 9 ‘What is critical realism’ in Bhaskar (Citation1989).
14 Note from Heikki: these included a paper titled ‘Scientific Realism, Human Emancipations and Non-Violent Political Action’, which I first presented at a peace research conference. The paper was subsequently published in an Indian journal Gandhi Marg (Patomäki Citation1992c). It discusses Bhaskar’s scheme of explanatory emancipation and its normative and political underpinnings. I used Habermas to explicate hidden normative presuppositions in Bhaskar’s account, and I elaborated emancipatory explanation in pacific-ist terms. A revised version of this became chapter 6 of After International Relations (Patomäki Citation2002a).
15 Note from Heikki: I should mention that Alker’s unique and inspiring papers played a major role in my early intellectual development (see Patomäki Citation1997; Citation2008b). I first met him in 1992, after pre-examination.
16 Note from Jamie: the opening statement 5.6 of a lengthy set of sub-statements; one of Wittgenstein’s pithier statements from Tractatus.
17 Note from Jamie: see note 94 from Chapter 2, Bhaskar (Citation1993).
18 Note from Jamie: Andrew Collier provides a brief report on the 1985 Realism in the Human Sciences Conference held in December at Sussex University and refers to it as an opportunity to draw together people (mainly socialists) from different disciplines working on the ‘new realism’ and names Roy Bhaskar, Ted Benton, Russell Keat and John Urry (Collier Citation1986). Ted Benton reports on the next conference held at Strathclyde University in September 1986, which mentions a workshop by Alison Allister, as well as talks by Bhaskar on dialectics, and Andrew Collier on human emancipation (Benton Citation1987). The following year’s conference – 1987 – was held at University of Sussex and according to the report by Joe McCarney was organized by Roy Bhaskar, Sue Clegg and William Outhwaite, and included plenaries by Andrew Sayer and Sylvia Walby (McCarney Citation1988). According to a report by William Outhwaite, the 1989 conference was held in September at Manchester Polytechnic and included a plenary from Bob Jessop, as well as presentations by Derek Layder, Andrew Collier, Alex Callinicos and John Shotter (Outhwaite Citation1990). The next I could find was the 1991 (apparently seventh) annual conference, held at University of Sussex, which, according to the Radical Philosophy notification, was organized by Andrew Sayer (with typical modesty he did not mention this in his own interview; John O’Neill refers later to the conference in a later paper published in Radical Philosophy).
Visit: https://www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/issue-files/rp57_news.pdf
19 Note from Jamie: for a sympathetic take on Wendt (especially his early work) responding to Kratochwil see Morgan (Citation2002).
20 Note from Heikki: Hegel’s basic idea is to analyse the logic of the development of consciousness through stages, in which each stage involves theory/practice and other contradictions and also social conflicts, though Hegel has a lot more to say about this.
21 Note for Jamie: In my final year at Aberystwyth my main supervisor was ill, and having just completed his own thesis Colin was given the job of stand-in supervisor, an unenviable task which he bore with good grace. Heikki was eventually my external examiner.
22 Note from Heikki: see previous note 14.
23 Note from Jamie: those influenced by Strange included Roger Tooze, who was my original supervisor at Aberystwyth (see Tooze Citation2000). Roger suggests her work has three commitments: political economy must look beyond the state (hence IPE); IPE should investigate power; and: ‘The professional/textual and social/ideological separation of ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, with their respective disciplinary superstructures built upon this separation, makes an effective analysis of political economy almost impossible, and when carried out produces inappropriate analysis as the basis for ineffective policy. The adoption of ‘rationality’ by both economics and (US) political science is a flawed attempt to gain theoretical precision and scientific legitimacy at the expense of realism.’ (Tooze Citation2000, 282).
25 Note from Jamie: Heikki provided an essay on Piketty’s proposal for Fullbrook and Morgan (Citation2014); see Morgan (Citation2015)
26 Note from Heikki: a few years after the publication of After International Relations when Roy was visiting Helsinki, he said politely yet encouragingly: ‘Heikki, your book is ahead of its time, its time will come’. I suspect he was thinking also of some his own works, but I liked the idea that this could be a book for the future.
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Patomäki, H. 2019b. “Mythopoetic Imagination as a Source of Critique and Reconstruction: Alternative Storylines About Our Place in Cosmos.” Journal of Big History 3 (4): 77–97. doi:10.22339/jbh.v3i4.3433 Patomäki, H., and C. Pursiainen. 1999. “Western Models and the Russian Idea: Beyond Inside/Outside in the Discourses on Civil Society.” Millennium 28 (1): 53–77. doi:10.1177/03058298990280010901. Patomäki, H., and C. Wight. 2000. “After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism.” International Studies, Quarterly 44 (2): 213–237. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00156. Patomäki, H., and T. Teivainen. 2002. “Critical Responses to Neoliberal Globalisation in the Mercosur Region. Roads Towards Cosmopolitan Democracy?” Review of International Political Economy 9 (1): 37–71. doi:10.1080/09692290110101144. Patomäki, H., and T. Teivainen. 2004b. “The World Social Forum: An Open Space or a Movement of Movements?” Theory, Culture & Society 21 (6): 145–154. doi:10.1177/0263276404047421. 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Notes on contributors
Heikki Patomäki
Heikki Patomäki is Professor of World Politics (Global Political Economy), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. He is the author of numerous books and articles. Additional detail is given in the interview.
Jamie Morgan
Jamie Morgan is Professor of Economic Sociology at Leeds Beckett University. He co-edits the Real-World Economics Review with Edward Fullbrook. He has published widely in the fields of economics, political economy, philosophy, sociology and international politics.
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