2.1 Defined

The objection to methodological nationalism was originally raised in the social sciences. In that context, critics worried that a tendency to ignore and/or naturalise nation-state-centric forms of political organisation was causing researchers to overlook the significance of transnational phenomena and to fail to properly interrogate their default nation-state-centric categories.Footnote ²This idea has recently been translated to political philosophy, most notably by Speranta Dumitru and Alex Sager. They build on the original objection by articulating ways in which nation-state-centric ways of seeing are detrimental to normative theory.

Both Dumitru and Sager define methodological nationalism as a ‘cognitive bias’ whereby theorists (often unconsciously) take on the perspective of the nation-state, approaching normative analysis in a manner that centres nation-states, conceptualised as societally-bounded and territorially-bordered (Dumitru, Reference Dumitru2014, p. 9; Reference Dumitru2023, p. 2; Sager, Reference Sager2018, p. 3; Reference Sager2021, p. 2; Reference Sager2023, p. 72). They argue that this way of seeing has promoted a multitude of interrelated and mutually-reinforcing assumptions and dispositions in political philosophy, including:

As this non-exhaustive list illustrates, methodological nationalism is associated with a diverse set of assumptions and tendencies, connected thematically only by their nation-state-centricity. As such, critics emphasise that their objection is not to a particular substantive normative theory, but to a ‘way of seeing or categorizing the world’ (Sager, Reference Sager2021, p. 3). Dumitru explicitly states that her objection to methodological nationalism is epistemic, not normative or ontological (Dumitru, Reference Dumitru2014, p. 16). Similarly, Sager describes methodological nationalism as a ‘nation-state centred epistemology’ (Reference Sager2021, p. 7); emphasises that he is objecting to a ‘cognitive bias… distinct from nationalism as a political ideology’ (Reference Sager2021, p. 3); argues that this bias can be found in progressive and cosmopolitan theories as well as nationalist and statist ones (Reference Sager2016, pp. 52–53; 2021 pp. 4ff); and even claims that it is possible to oppose methodological nationalism while endorsing statist or nationalist views (Reference Sager2021, p. 3). In this way, an important feature of the objection to methodological nationalism is that it is meant to be widely-endorsable. Critics aim to show that political philosophers have reason to resist methodological nationalism as a form of epistemic bias, regardless of their substantive theoretical views.

As previously indicated, another important feature of the objection to methodological nationalism is that it is presented in analytic terms. In a recent paper, for instance, Dumitru (Reference Dumitru2023) defends the claim that methodological nationalism yields a ‘heavy’ bias in the ethics of migration by arguing that the sub-discipline’s treatment of two principles – equality of opportunity and reparation – systematically deviates from treatment of these principles in other areas of analytic political philosophy. Similarly, Sager frequently suggests that methodological nationalism inhibits the rigour of analytic political philosophy. For instance, he argues that it promotes ‘common misconceptions’ which ‘misinform … much of the normative literature’, yielding theories that are insufficiently responsive to the real world, and that these harms could be avoided if political philosophers simply undertook proper ‘conceptual analysis of categories and presuppositions’, and ‘engage[d] with the most innovative recent work in the social sciences’ (Sager, Reference Sager2018, p. 3; Reference Sager2021, p. 7). Thus, the manner in which critics present their objection strongly suggests that they aim to make an analytic case for rejecting methodological nationalism.

Before proceeding, it is worth flagging that – as Anna Milioni (Reference Milioni2024, pp. 5–7) helpfully highlights – the term ‘methodological nationalism’ is something of a misnomer. Some assumptions associated with methodological nationalism – like the powerful state, fixed membership, and sedentariness assumptions – concern only state-centricity, making no reference to national culture. Further, as Milioni (Reference Milioni2024, pp. 6–7) points out, methodological nationalism is not a methodology. Though the tendency to naturalise or centre the state often affects methodology, particularly in the social sciences, several parts of the theoretical process – including foundational assumptions, and the kinds of questions scholars choose to ask – can also be affected by (nation-)state-centricity. Despite its name, then, methodological nationalism is not necessarily methodological or nationalist in nature. Instead, it can best be described as a state-centric mode of interpreting political phenomena which sometimes takes on a distinctively (nation-)state-centric character.

2.2 Implications

The negative implications of methodological nationalism for empirical social science are fairly straightforward. If a researcher unconsciously assumes a (nation-)state-centric political order, they risk overlooking or inaccurately capturing transnational phenomena relevant to their work or failing to form insights that would be easily accessible if domestic and global phenomena were more readily compared (Sager, Reference Sager2018, pp. 5–7). Its implications for normative research, however, are less obvious. Nonetheless, critics insist that methodological nationalism does have negative implications for normative theory, and they articulate this through a series of examples.

Sager, for instance, argues that the harms of methodological nationalism can be found in all corners of the open borders debate, and that the prominence of this debate itself evidences a pervasive tendency to treat cross-border migration as distinct from internal movement and uniquely in need of analysis (Sager, Reference Sager2018, p. 25; Reference Sager2021, p. 4). Consider first statist and nationalist arguments. Statists argue that there is something distinctive about state-based political communities which grounds a right to exclude – for instance, that they have special rights to freedom of association, rights not to incur additional legal obligations toward new members, or collective rights to self-determination (e.g. Wellman, Reference Wellman2008; Blake, Reference Blake2013; Song, Reference Song2019). Similarly, nationalists defend immigration restrictions by asserting that cultural ties among conationals have distinctive value, and that national self-determination and an associated right to exclude are needed to preserve these valuable relationships (e.g. Miller, Reference Miller2007). Sager argues that both arguments turn on undefended methodological nationalist assumptions, since they each assert that states have a right to exclude on the basis of some feature of a political or national community which is not perfectly ‘contained’ within the state (Sager, Reference Sager2016, pp. 47, 51–53; Reference Sager2018, pp. 28–29, 59). Real nations and states are clearly not isomorphisms – no state includes one and only one national group – and similarly, Sager suggests that members of political communities also come and go, since state membership is not in fact ‘fixed’ (Sager, Reference Sager2018, pp. 28–29).

So much for statist and nationalist accounts, but what of cosmopolitan ones? The cosmopolitan position on migration is divided. Some accept that states could permissibly exclude migrants, typically by asserting that immigration restrictions can be consistent with – and are perhaps even necessary to achieve – global egalitarian distributive justice (e.g. Tan, Reference Tan2004; Christiano, Reference Christiano2008; Brock, Reference Brock2009). Others defend open borders (e.g. Cole, Reference Cole2000; Abizadeh, Reference Abizadeh2008; Carens, Reference Carens2013). Sager suggests that both approaches too readily accept (nation-)state-centric structures. He argues that cosmopolitan defences of the right to exclude are ‘paradoxical’, and ‘remain far too sanguine that global justice could be achieved in a world where nation-states are the major actors’ (Sager, Reference Sager2018, pp. 25 & 59). Open borders theorists, on the other hand, are said to express methodological nationalist bias in more subtle ways – for instance, by assuming that the political world is structured around a system of (nation-) states; conceding a sharp distinction between ‘citizens’ and ‘foreigners’; or by treating immigration as an ‘anomaly’ which would not occur at significant levels without substantial global economic inequality (Sager, Reference Sager2016, pp. 52–53; Reference Sager2021, pp. 24–25). These tendencies, Sager suggests, have prevented open borders advocates from offering more fundamental critiques of dominant methodological nationalist categories (Sager, Reference Sager2016, pp. 52–53; Reference Sager2018, pp. 24–25).

These objections to arguments in the open borders literature are only a subset of the examples Sager and Dumitru offer, across their work, of ways in which methodological nationalism is allegedly detrimental to political philosophy.Footnote ⁴Collectively, they claim, these examples show that political philosophy has failed to live up to its distinctive disciplinary potential to interrogate and reveal the contingency of status-quo assumptions and practices (e.g. Sager, Reference Sager2021, pp. 4 & 17).

However, the idea that methodological nationalism must be rejected has not gone unchallenged. Some notable scholars suggest that a (nation-)state-centric lens can have theoretical value. Gillian Brock, for instance, argues that methodological nationalism reflects the way the world actually is, and is thereby a justifiable starting point for theorising. The global political order, she claims, is carved into a system of sovereign states; most people do live ‘sedentary’ lives; and state borders are currently more difficult to cross than others, which, she suggests, plausibly gives states special normative significance (Brock Reference Brock2021, p. 197). Further, she asserts that taking existing arrangements as a starting point can be compatible with recognising the need to normatively interrogate them (Brock, Reference Brock2021, pp. 197–8). Will Kymlicka, too, suggests that (nation-)state-centric categories have theoretical value. Though he agrees that methodological nationalism is problematic when it manifests as a tendency to unreflectively naturalise, reify, or centre such categories in a false or exaggerated manner, he suggests that the practice of responsibly adopting and interrogating these categories is defensible. Nation-building projects and the socially-constructed distinctions they draw between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ are, he argues, ‘pervasive features of the contemporary world’ which are sometimes legitimate and even justice-promoting, because national solidarity can be mobilised against class privilege (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka2015, p. 2). As such, he insists that political philosophers should not quickly dismiss nation-building projects and their associated ‘insider’/’outsider’ categories as problematic, but should instead interrogate the ‘actual political functions’ of nationhood and be open to the possibility that these functions may have morally positive aspects as well as negative ones (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka2015, p. 2).

To make headway on this impasse between critics and defenders, it is worthwhile to reflect on the structure of the objection to methodological nationalism itself. On the one hand, the complaint is highly general: critics argue that a problematic (nation-)state-centrism pervades political philosophy as a whole. On the other, the evidence offered to support this claim consists of a series of specific, localised examples in which (nation-)state-centricity is said to be detrimental to normative theorising. There are two issues with an argument of this structure. First, since critics must provide several examples to support their broad conclusion, they are inevitably constrained in the level of detail they can provide to defend their claim that (nation-)state-centricity is problematic in each specific case. This leaves scholars sympathetic to methodological nationalism substantial room to rebut each individual objection. Second, and more significantly, the absence of a single general articulation of the objection makes the problem with methodological nationalism hard to pin down. If (nation-)state centricity is bad for normative theory across a wide range of cases, it would be helpful to have a clearer sense of why this is. If critics could provide such a general articulation of their objection, they could bridge this gap between their broad conclusion and the specific examples offered in support of it, and in turn strengthen their position against responses of the first kind. The following section reconstructs three more precise variants of the objection to methodological nationalism with a view to identifying a general explanation of this sort. Ultimately, however, I show that none of these variants can be robustly defended in a widely-persuasive manner.

3.1 The Empirical Inaccuracy Approach

Perhaps because the objection to methodological nationalism originated in the social sciences, critics sometimes simply highlight examples of philosophers employing empirically inaccurate assumptions and suggest that this is problematic in itself. Consider, for instance, the following passage, in which Sager highlights that the ‘closed society’ assumption commonly found in social contract theory distorts reality, suggests that the tradition does not adequately address the implications of this distortion, and implies that this is problematic:

Similarly, in the following passage, Sager simply describes how nationalists tend to conceptualise the state as a ‘container’ of society, assume conditions of fixed membership and nation-state isomorphism, and overlook transnational phenomena:

In both passages, then, Sager (a) draws attention to assumptions that distort or fail to fully capture the complexity of reality, and (b) implies that this renders subsequent normative theorising suspect.Footnote ⁵Call this the Objection From Empirical Inaccuracy:

P3. Political philosophers should not endorse deficient normative theory.

Conclusion: Political philosophers should reject methodological nationalism.

The problem, however, is that P2 requires justification. As the above passages illustrate, critics sometimes merely suggest that empirically inaccurate assumptions will cause normative theory to go awry, without fully explaining why this is. Further, these objections typically target the use of specific assumptions in specific contexts, but an adequate defence of P2 must show that empirically inaccurate assumptions are systematically detrimental to normative theory – for even if these assumptions are harmful in some cases, they might be useful in others, as Brock and Kymlicka’s defensive arguments suggest.

However, it is doubtful that a plausible argument of this sort can be made, because partial or distorted representations are productively incorporated in research across a variety of disciplines. In the ‘hard’ sciences with which analytic political philosophy shares many theoretical values, for instance, researchers frequently use models to advance their scientific goals. Philosophers of science argue that this practice is consistent with scientific realism – the idea that scientific theories aim to provide, or at least approximate, true descriptions of the world – and can even be essential in improving scientific descriptions and explanations (e.g. Wimsatt, Reference Wimsatt2007, pp. 104, 94–132; Weisberg, Reference Weisberg2007). It will be productive to outline the details of one such account to illustrate.

Michael Weisberg describes modelling as a form of ‘idealization’, where all forms of idealisation involve ‘the intentional introduction of distortion into scientific theories’ (Weisberg, Reference Weisberg2007, p. 639). He identifies three kinds of idealisation in scientific practice and argues that they each facilitate the achievement of a distinct scientific goal. First, Galilean idealisation introduces distortion into a theory in order to simplify a complex problem and make it more tractable. Once the scientist has obtained sufficient grasp of the problem, they should then take steps to remove the effect of the distortion (Weisberg, Reference Weisberg2007, pp. 640–642). Second, minimalist idealisation abstracts away some features of reality so the model includes only the causal factors that ‘make a difference’ in giving rise to the target phenomenon. Whereas Galilean idealisation serves the practical purpose of enabling scientists to grasp an otherwise elusive phenomenon, minimal models primarily aid with scientific explanation (Weisberg, Reference Weisberg2007, pp. 642–645). Third, Multiple-Models Idealisation (MMI) is the practice of creating several models which each serve a different purpose in facilitating understanding of the target phenomenon. This approach is commonly used when investigating highly complex phenomena, and it can be used to yield more accurate predictions by combining results from multiple models or to develop theories which realise several distinct theoretical values – since one model may be best for accuracy, another best for generality, and so on (Weisberg, Reference Weisberg2007, pp. 645–648).

Empirically inaccurate assumptions plausibly benefit processes of normative theorising in similar ways.Footnote ⁶Consider, for instance, the ‘closed society’ assumption Sager critiques in the first passage above. John Rawls (Reference Rawls1971) famously employed this assumption in his theory of (domestic) justice, as he initially developed principles of justice for a hypothetical, isolated, self-sufficient community in which all global forces were assumed away. A Rawlsian might defend this assumption as a form of Galilean idealisation. Though it obviously distorts reality – all real-world states are embedded in complex international systems of trade, migration, international law, etc. – the Rawlsian might argue that the complexity of global interconnectedness makes questions of real-world justice difficult to get to grips with. As such, assuming away this complexity enables theorists to establish otherwise-elusive basic principles of justice. Of course, this Galilean-style justification suggests that Rawls should have taken steps to remove the effects of the distortion and consider the implications of his findings for real, causally-open states. Several critics have plausibly argued that he did not make good on this stage of the process (e.g. Simmons, 2018, pp. 18–19). Whatever the merits of this kind of objection, however, it is quite different from the initial worry that the closed society assumption itself inevitably yields deficient normative theory.

Next, consider the fixed membership assumption Sager gestures toward in the second passage. This could plausibly be interpreted as a minimal model, in which migration is excluded from the picture because it is presumed not to make a normative difference to the topic at hand. On this reading, the justifiability of the fixed membership assumption would be context-specific. Critics of methodological nationalism would be right to object to its use in contexts where migration is normatively relevant – but in others it might be benign. Consider, for instance, a theorist arguing that states are the most suitable institution to administer egalitarian principles of global distributive justice. It might be acceptable for such a theorist to ignore migration for purposes of theorising to this end, if migration really does not make a significant difference to the core issue at hand.

There is, of course, a large and ongoing debate about idealisation in political philosophy, but I take it that these problems for the Objection From Empirical Inaccuracy are somewhat orthogonal to this debate. For one, even non-ideal theorists accept that some kinds of idealisation are acceptable. Charles Mills (Reference Mills2005) himself emphasised that he had no objection to ‘ideal-as-descriptive’ models, which roughly correspond to Weisberg’s minimal models.Footnote ⁷This is sufficient basis for rejecting P2, which does not distinguish between different kinds of idealisation. More importantly, though – as previously outlined – the objection to methodological nationalism is meant to be widely-persuasive. Thus, even if the assumptions associated with methodological nationalism were only defensible from the perspective of ideal theory, critics would retain strategic reason to avoid the Objection From Empirical Inaccuracy, since sympathy for ideal theory remains relatively widespread.

In sum, the objection to methodological nationalism should not turn on objecting to empirically inaccurate assumptions tout court. However, even those sympathetic with idealisation recognise that specific idealised assumptions can be unsuitable for the job in hand. If critics could defend the more precise claim that the specific kinds of idealisation associated with methodological nationalism are systematically bad for normative theorising, the Objection from Empirical Inaccuracy might be resuscitated in a modified form. There are two ways such an argument could go. First, critics could argue that methodological nationalist assumptions promote morally bad theories. Second, they could argue that processes of theorising that employ these assumptions are epistemically deficient. The following sections examine each of these arguments in turn.

3.2 The Moral Approach

Critics often imply that methodological nationalism disposes theorists to endorse views which they consider to be morally objectionable.Footnote ⁸Consider, for instance, the following passages from Sager:

Similarly, Dumitru suggests that in the philosophy of migration ‘methodological nationalism seems to turn ethical judgement into its opposite’ (Dumitru, Reference Dumitru2023, p. 3).

There are two mechanisms by which this might occur. First, interpreting the world through a methodological nationalist lens might directly increase the likelihood that theorists will endorse morally objectionable ideas. Alternately, methodological nationalism might dispose theorists to favour idealised assumptions which covertly sneak in morally objectionable content.Footnote ¹⁰Call this the Objection from Morally Bad Theory.

P4. Political philosophers should not endorse morally objectionable normative theory.

Conclusion. Political philosophers should reject methodological nationalism.

This argument improves on the Objection from Empirical Inaccuracy because it only demands that philosophers reject a problematic subset of idealising practices. The problem, however, is that to defend P2 and P3, critics would not only need to establish that methodological nationalism is systematically associated with certain substantive theoretical ideas, but also affirmatively show that these ideas are morally objectionable. After all, the views Sager critiques in the passages above – that integration is desirable, that the status-quo distribution of territorial rights is justifiable, and anything short of radical critique of existing migration policy – have all been defended by other scholars.Footnote ¹¹This poses a problem for critics like Sager and Dumitru who insist that the objection to methodological nationalism can be endorsed regardless of one’s substantive normative views, and sometimes even actively deny that substantive debate is necessary to complete the objection (e.g. Sager, Reference Sager2016, p. 53; Dumitru, Reference Dumitru2023, p. 7).

Of course, the fact that critics have resisted engaging in substantive moral debate thus far does not prevent them from doing so in the future. However, completing the objection this way would significantly limit the scope of its appeal. After all, critics assert that methodological nationalism is pervasive throughout mainstream political philosophy – including in highly progressive theories – and align themselves with self-described ‘radical’ views, like critiques of migration policy that go beyond open borders. It is unlikely that substantive arguments to this end would be widely-persuasive.

3.3 The Epistemic Approach

The third interpretation of the objection asserts that processes of theorising from a methodological nationalist perspective are intrinsically epistemically deficient, because methodological nationalism embodies a biased and therefore limited way of seeing. This is perhaps the most important variant to consider, because it is the one critics claim to affirm. As outlined in Section 3.1, both Dumitru and Sager claim to be making an epistemic objection to a form of bias, rather than a moral objection to nationalism itself.

As with the Objection from Morally Bad Theory, there are two mechanisms by which methodological nationalism might be epistemically problematic. First, adopting its lens might directly make it harder for theorists to ‘see’ non-(nation-)state-centric possibilities. Alternately, methodological nationalism might dispose theorists to adopt certain kinds of idealised assumptions which systematically divert their attention away from certain possibilities. Call this the Epistemic Objection.

Conclusion. Political philosophers should reject methodological nationalism.

4.1 Methodological Nationalism as Perspective

Thus far I have outlined three interpretations of the objection to methodological nationalism and argued that none of them can be robustly defended in a widely-persuasive manner. I will now offer a diagnosis of why none of these variants succeed, by looking to Elisabeth Camp’s influential account of perspectives.

According to Camp (Reference Camp2017, p. 50), perspectives organise our thinking about particular topics into an ‘intuitive structure’. More specifically, perspectives are ‘open-ended dispositions’ to produce certain kinds of characterisations, where characterisations are internally-complex and easily-evoked ways of thinking about specific subjects (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 19). Unlike concepts – which abstract away some of their subject’s affective and perceptual details and thereby enable us to make general claims about a genus – characterisations include rich informational, experiential, and affective content, represented through a multidimensional structure. The more a feature is connected to others within the characterisation, the more central it will appear in the representation of the subject; and the more a feature ‘stands out’ as salient compared to others, the more prominent it will be within the characterisation (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 20–21). An important feature of characterisations is that they operate at an intuitive level. Unlike concepts, they are contextually malleable – an individual’s disposition to characterise subjects in a particular way will vary from context to context. Further, dispositions to form characterisations are not entirely subject to voluntary control, as an individual can remain ‘drawn’ to characterise a subject in a particular way even if they consciously reject the characterisation’s aptness as a representation of the subject and actively attempt not to characterise the subject that way (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 22). In this way, Camp (Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 23; Reference Camp, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020, pp. 311–312) suggests, characterisations operate like ‘cognitive Gestalts’: you either ‘get’ them, or you don’t.

Camp points out that characterisations are rarely isolated. Rather, agents typically have dispositions to form certain kinds of characterisations across several subjects, where these dispositions amount to perspectives (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 18–19, 24). Perspectives generate propensities to notice and remember certain kinds of information about a subject while dismissing other information as irrelevant, as well as dispositions to interpret, explain, evaluate and respond to this information in light of one’s other assumptions in a specific manner (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 24 & 30; Reference Camp, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020, pp. 307–308). In this way, perspectives provide an affectively- and evaluatively-laden taxonomy for sorting among individuals and kinds within a domain, where this taxonomy specifies both whether and how certain features possessed by subjects matter (Camp, Reference Camp, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020, p. 308). A perspective will tend to assign more prominence to features that are diagnostic relative to its associated taxonomy, and more centrality to features that efficiently serve its associated practical or theoretical purposes. As such, Camp (Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 30) points out that perspectives influence agents’ judgements and base-level beliefs about the relevant domain.

Importantly, Camp (Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 25) emphasises that perspectives are merely ‘tools for thinking, not thoughts per se’. While the characterisations associated with a perspective attribute specific features to specific subjects, perspectives themselves lack content and are non-propositional. As such, adopting a perspective need not involve accepting that any particular feature is necessarily connected to any particular subject (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 24–25). Perspectives are open-ended – mere dispositions to interpret the world in a certain kind of way – so can produce characterisations of indefinitely many subjects and can be updated over time in light of new information (Camp, Reference Camp, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020, p. 308).

Akin to Antony’s discussion of biases, Camp claims that perspectives serve an important epistemic function – they enable agents to ‘navigate efficiently among a rich body of existing information and experiences’ (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 29–30).Footnote ¹⁶For this reason, she suggests that perspectives might be unavoidable. Given the limited nature of human cognition, we need cognitive tools to sift through the complexity of our environment and provide a basis for interpretation, engagement, and action (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, pp. 33–34). However, Camp emphasises that there is no guarantee that any particular perspective will be epistemically beneficial. In this way, perspectives are ‘double-edged swords’ – there is a risk that they will ‘mold our minds’ into a ‘shared pattern’ that we have conscious reason to resist (Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 18).

It is fruitful to interpret methodological nationalism as a perspective in Camp’s sense. Specifically, we might say that methodological nationalism is a perspective which disposes those who adopt it to form characterisations of socio-political phenomena in which (nation-)states are highly central – i.e. richly connected to other features of the subject. The prominence of the (nation-)state within such characterisations, on the other hand, may vary. For some subjects in some contexts, the (nation-)state will be characterised as highly prominent in virtue of its presumed causal or explanatory significance. In other cases, however, the (nation-)state may be virtually invisible, because the (nation-)state system has been ‘naturalised’ to make up the background features of the characterisation.

On this interpretation of methodological nationalism as perspective, the assumptions listed in Section 2.1 can be considered examples of characterisations the methodological nationalist perspective disposes those who adopt it to endorse. The sedentariness assumption, for instance, might be associated with the methodological nationalist tendency to characterise human mobility in a manner that presents state membership as a prominent and central feature. Similarly, the container theory of society might be a product of the tendency to characterise social, cultural, political and economic phenomena in a manner that centres states – though the state is not presented as prominent within this kind of characterisation, since the state system has been naturalised.

4.2 The Problem, a Solution

Understanding methodological nationalism as a perspective is, I take it, uncontroversial. Critics would likely agree with this assessment, since their description of methodological nationalism as a ‘cognitive bias’ and a ‘way of seeing or categorizing the world’ aligns directly with Camp’s description of perspectives as ‘dispositions to interpret’ the world in a particular kind of way (Dumitru, Reference Dumitru2014, p. 9; Reference Dumitru2023, p. 2; Sager, Reference Sager2018, p. 3; Reference Sager2021, p. 2; Reference Sager2023, p. 72; Camp, Reference Camp and Stephen2019, p. 24). Even so, understanding methodological nationalism as a perspective is revelatory, because Camp’s extensive analysis of perspectives can be used to shed light on the nature of methodological nationalism and – most important for our purposes – explain why it is so difficult to object to. As Camp points out:

In sum, the structure of perspectives leaves their defenders significant ‘wiggle room’ to respond to critique. Since perspectives lack propositional content, objectors cannot rebut them directly but must instead deny the aptness of their associated characterisations in specific contexts with a view to casting doubt on the perspective as a whole. This is challenging, however, because there is often scope for reasonable disagreement about the aptness of particular characterisations in particular contexts. Further, even if an objector could persuasively argue that a perspective’s associated characterisations were inapt under certain conditions, the open-ended nature of perspectives affords defenders further space to respond by (a) denying that the targeted characterisations are central to the perspective, (b) affirming the aptness of other, perhaps more central, characterisations, or (c) claiming that the inapt characterisations were generated through inappropriate use of the perspective – for instance, by wrongly applying it in an unfitting context (since dispositions to characterise are contextually malleable). Indeed, effective use of such ‘wiggle room’ manifested in section 3, where we saw that defenders of methodological nationalism could evade the Objection from Empirical Inaccuracy and the Objection from Harmful Epistemic Bias by claiming that its associated assumptions can be theoretically productive when used appropriately.

Further, while this ‘wiggle room’ can be used disingenuously, defensive arguments of this sort can also come from an entirely reasonable place. After all, criticising a perspective involves casting doubt on a large set of assumptions all at once in virtue of a thematic similarity, when the reality might be more complex. In the case of methodological nationalism, some (nation-)state-centric characterisations might genuinely be unproblematic or even productive for normative theorising, while others might really be harmful. The structure of the objection, however, does not allow for this kind of critical precision.

These hurdles to productive debate are entrenched by the fact that the disagreement between critics and defenders of a perspective occurs at a partially unconscious level (Camp, Reference Camp, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020, p. 319). Theorists under the influence of methodological nationalism are intuitively inclined to view the (nation-)state as maximally explanatorily central in political contexts. By contrast, if critics have been successful in their efforts to resist the pull of the methodological nationalist lens, they may be inclined to assume that another set of factors – say, certain transnational systems – play this role. As such, scholars on each side of the debate might genuinely ‘see’ the political world differently. As Camp explains, when this happens in scientific inquiry:

*

Understanding the structure of perspectives, then, explains why methodological nationalism is so difficult to object to. In a similar way, understanding how perspectives function in related disciplines might help explain why identifying compelling alternatives to methodological nationalism is so challenging. Here, it will be productive to look to Thomas Kuhn’s account of scientific paradigms.

Kuhn (Reference Kuhn1962) famously argued that scientists are strongly biased toward existing paradigms, where a paradigm is a set of ‘fundamental theoretical and methodological commitments’ which are the object of consensus in the scientific community for a period of time (Antony, Reference Antony, Brownstein and Saul2016, p. 177). This can plausibly be cashed out in terms of perspectives – we might say that paradigms are upheld by perspectives in that they persist as objects of consensus in part because most scientists have intuitively adopted the perspective that accords with the existing paradigm, and are thereby disposed to notice, remember, interpret, explain and evaluate information and phenomena according to that paradigm’s rules and taxonomy.Footnote ¹⁷Importantly, on Kuhn’s reading of scientific history, paradigms are not usually given up – even in the face of countervailing evidence – until it becomes obvious that there is a deep failure with the existing paradigm which cannot be ignored or rationalised, and an alternative theory becomes available to address the problem (Kuhn, Reference Kuhn1962, pp. 72–73). That is, high-level recognition that the existing paradigm is inadequate is, by itself, insufficient for the emergence of a compelling new one. Since alternative paradigms (and their associated perspectives) must be sufficiently complex and powerful to disrupt the existing paradigm, they tend to emerge organically, following detailed study of specific problems ‘on the ground’.

My claim is that a similar process should be expected in analytic political philosophy. Methodological nationalism likely remains widespread because it is associated with a paradigm approach to theorising which has not (yet) reached crisis stage. Although critical cosmopolitanism and radical republicanism offer interesting alternatives, it is unlikely that they will receive widespread intuitive take-up – not only for the reasons outlined in Section 3.3, but more fundamentally because they have been constructed too quickly, from the top down, in direct response to perceived problems with existing ways of doing things.

Following these Kuhnian insights, I take it that scholars concerned about (nation-)state-centricity in political philosophy should shift away from objecting directly to methodological nationalism and instead engage in traditional targeted analysis of substantive claims made in specific contexts. Critically-disposed scholars may worry that this would come at significant cost, for if a problematic perspective really does pervade political philosophy, attempting to combat it one assumption at a time will surely be very slow-going. Such a worry, however, would be premature. Recall that within Camp’s account of perspectives, some characterisations or features within a characterisation will be more central than others. It follows from this that successful targeted critique of a particularly central feature or characterisation can yield sweeping perspectival change. Camp compares this phenomenon to the perceptual experience of switching between different cognitive gestalts within the same image, as we do when confronted with the famous ‘old woman/young woman’ illusion. In both theory and perception:

Thus, giving up on objecting directly to perspectives need not involve giving up on the possibility of widespread perspectival change. Rather, it simply involves recognising that targeted analysis is more likely to give rise to new ways of seeing that are sufficiently complex and well-grounded to have potential for widespread intuitive take-up.

As an example of what successful analysis of this sort might look like, consider Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s objection to the idea that states are basic structures. The target of Táíwò’s criticism is very precise: the ‘specifically Rawlsian account’ of justice, which divides justice into two tiers – domestic and global – and centres states at both, assigning principles of justice to states at the domestic level and between them at the global level (Táíwò, Reference Táíwò2019, p. 62). Táíwò explains that this picture emerged from Rawls’s claim that principles of justice apply to the basic structure of society, defined functionally as ‘the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation’ (Rawls, Reference Rawls1971, p. 6). Within Rawls’s idealised model of a closed society, these ‘major social institutions’ are uncontroversially the major legal, political, and economic institutions of the state. However, Táíwò argues – at length – that Rawls went awry in continuing to assume that state institutions play this role in the real world of causally open states. The distribution of rights and advantages across citizens is profoundly influenced by global forces, even in powerful states, and is particularly so in the less-powerful states that make up most of the world (Táíwò, Reference Táíwò2019, p. 74). On this basis, Táíwò argues that state-based institutions do not satisfy Rawls’s own definition of a basic structure, and so theorists lack justification for giving states special normative status in matters of justice.Footnote ¹⁸

Though Táíwò’s analysis has a specific target, the pervasiveness of Rawlsianism in political philosophy means that his argument has far-reaching implications. It suggests, for instance, that statist and cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice which draw principled (as opposed to merely pragmatic) distinctions between domestic and global duties should be abandoned (Táíwò, Reference Táíwò2019, p. 63). This is clearly the kind of change critics of methodological nationalism are calling for, as it goes some way toward undermining the distinction between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’ they object to.Footnote ¹⁹Yet it was achieved by targeting a specific assumption within a specific theory.

Of course, there is no guarantee that targeted analysis will always succeed. An objection may yield no change if it targets an assumption that is less central to the dominant perspective than it originally appeared. Further, even successful targeted analysis might merely modify the status-quo perspective, rather than yield radical perspectival change. This, however, is only to be expected. The complexity of perspectives makes it difficult to determine ahead of time what kind of objection will yield perspectival change – and, indeed, whether change in any particular direction is needed at all. Although targeted analysis does not guarantee perspectival change, then, it is best-placed to generate objection-resistant and thoroughly-justified change where needed, and is thereby in greatest alignment with the theoretical values associated with analytic philosophy.