A plea for theoretical diversity in International Relations
This article focuses on the multiple anxieties that exist in the discipline of International Relations (IR), its departmental subalternity, its fragmentation of content, its methodological diversity, and its hybrid constitution of practical and observational knowledge. However, rather than arguing for any restriction, the article pleads for these anxieties to be embraced and for IR to be treated as a privileged space in which to integrate that knowledge. It invites scholars to link three distinct yet important domains of IR theorising: the philosophical, the explanatory, and the practical. It invites the discipline to see the three domains as equally fundamental for its identity. Using Morgenthau's theory of power as a foil, the article shows the need to think about these three domains of theorising concomitantly, despite the difficulties involved in providing a coherent link between them, something Morgenthau did not achieve.
The article originated in a conference presentation made during one of ISA Sapphire panels at the ISA Convention in Toronto, March 2019 and from a panel contribution at the joint CEEISA-ISA Convention in Belgrade, June 2019. The Sapphire panel had invited panelists to focus on ‘the opportunities and the challenges of theory-building in interdisciplinary scholarship’.
