Theorizing International Relations

International Relations theory is being squeezed between two sides. On the one hand, the world of practitioners and attached experts often perceive International Relations theory as misleading if it does not correspond to practical knowledge, and redundant when it does. The academic study of international relations can and should not be anything beyond the capacity to provide political judgment which comes through reflection on the historical experience of practitioners. On the other hand, and within its disciplinary confines, International Relations theory is reduced to a particular type of empirical theory with increasing resistance to further self-reflection.

This article argues that neither reduction is viable. Reducing theory to practical knowledge runs into fundamental self-contradictions. But reducing theorizing to its empirical mode underestimates the constitutive function of theories, the role of concepts, and hence the variety of necessary modes of theorizing. The article presents this twofold claim in steps of increasing reflexivity in International Relations theory and proposes four modes of theorizing: normative, meta-theoretical, ontological/constitutive and empirical. Neglecting the links between those four modes undermines the control over our knowledge – at our own peril.