Lost in Praxiography: Towards Multi-Dimensional Analysis in International Relations

The practice turn has become one of the most prominent theoretical developments in International Relations (IR) over the past two decades, yet its conceptual foundations remain fragmented and undertheorized within Russian-language scholarship. The author operates on the assumption that the expanding use of the concept of ‘practice’ has produced a state of conceptual overstretch. This paper advances a scheme for the analysis of practices in IR. The article first elaborates a working definition and a set of criteria for identifying an action as a practice, combining threshold features (pattern recognizability, collectivity, and the normativity of competence) with gradable criteria (background knowledge, embodiment, and teleoaffectivity). Drawing on a historical-philosophical analysis, it then distinguishes three overarching dichotomies in the conceptualization of action, namely, teleology vs. routine, immanent vs. transcendent, and discourse vs. embodiment, which serve as analytical prisms for comparing diverse approaches to action and agency. The original contribution of this research resides in linking these dichotomies to the levels of analysis: the macro-level of the field, the meso-level of institutional routines, the micro-level of tactics and teleoaffective structures, and the cross-cutting discursive and performative dimensions. The empirical relevance of the scheme is tested through the workings of the UN Security Council during the first bout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Japanese–South Korean dispute over historical issues. It is shown that much of the change in international relations occurs neither through the routine maintenance of order nor through its radical transformation, but somewhere in between. The article concludes that this scheme empowers the researcher to engage with core IR concepts, such as order, security, diplomacy, negotiation, integration, and power, without downgrading practices to norms, institutions, and/or personal decisions.

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