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International relations in the prison of political science
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 00:46 authored by Justin RosenbergIn recent decades, the discipline of International Relations has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any ‘big ideas’ that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. First, it traces the problem to IR’s enduring definition as a subfield of Political Science. Second, it argues that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity. And finally, it shows how this re-grounding unlocks the trans-disciplinary potential of IR. Specifically, ‘uneven and combined development’ provides an example of an IR ‘big idea’ that could travel to other disciplines: for by operationalizing the consequences of multiplicity, it reveals the causal and constitutive significance of ‘the international’ for the social world as a whole.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
International RelationsISSN
0047-1178Publisher
SAGE PublicationsExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
30Page range
127-153Department affiliated with
- International Relations Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2016-04-05First Open Access (FOA) Date
2017-03-29First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-04-04Usage metrics
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