Kristensen, Peter M. (2012) Dividing Discipline: Structures of Communication in International Relations. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/j.1468‐2486.2012.01101.x International Relations (IR) has cultivated an image as a discipline with strong divisions along paradigmatic, methodological, metatheoretical, geographical, and other lines. This article questions that image analyzing the latent structures of communication in IR. It uses citation data from more than 20,000 articles published in 59 IR journals to construct a network among IR journals and finds a discipline with a center consisting of pedigreed IR journals, albeit closely related to political science. Divisions are identifiable as specialty areas that form clusters of specialized journals along the periphery of the network—security studies and international political economy in particular—but communication is also divided along the lines of geography and policy/theory. The article concludes that divisions notwithstanding, IR communication remains centered around American, general, and theoretical IR journals and that to practice this particular kind of communication is an important dimension of being an IR scholar.

This paper studies the geography of the International Relations (IR) discipline, particularly the notion that IR is an “American social science.” First, it analyzes bibliometric data and finds that US‐based scholars continue to dominate IR journals, but also that IR is one of the least US‐dominated social sciences and that it has become markedly less so since the 1960s. Second, the paper argues that conventional measures based on nation‐state affiliation capture only part of the spatial structures of inequality. It employs novel visualization tools to present an alternative map of elite stratification in IR. Instead of looking at national cores and peripheries, it maps the social network structures of authorship and coauthorship in key IR journals. By mapping city and institutional output, it finds stratification structures within the American discipline. Elite institutions in Northeast America, rather than “America,” dominate the field's leading journals. A similar stratification is found in Western Europe. Moreover, network linkages in terms of both coauthorships and doctoral backgrounds tie these Northeast American and West European elites together. The paper concludes that while US dominance in IR journals is in decline, this has not yet made the discipline as international as its name warrants.

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Chinese scholars are debating whether, and how, to innovate a Chinese theory of International Relations (IR). This article examines the driving forces behind this theoretical debate. It challenges the commonsensical link between external events in the subject matter (i.r.) and theorizing (IR), which suggests that the innovation of a Chinese IR theory is a natural product of China's geopolitical rise, its growing political ambitions, and discontent with Western hegemony. We propose instead a sociological approach to intellectual innovation which opens the black box of knowledge production, and argue that theoretical innovation, in China and elsewhere, is best understood as an interplay between internal and external layers. The internal academic context comprises intellectuals pursuing prominence, with each intellectual trying to carve out a maximally distinct position in order to receive attention from their peerstheorizing a Chinese IR theory being one important way of doing this. The external layer-which ranges from power politics to sociopolitical developments-affects this process indirectly by providing more research funds and autonomy to the more immediate institutional environment where control over rewards such as research funds, promotion, and publications affects what kind of work is done, with theorizing being increasingly rewarded.The International Relations discipline (IR) has long been known as an "American social science," dominated by US scholars, theories, and methodologies (Hoffmann 1977;Waever 1998;Smith 2000). A recent study of IR communities around the world shows that this has changed little, with the possible exception of China (Tickner and Waever 2009:336). Reading through the literature on IR in China, one is struck by references to debates about developing "IR with . The Chinese attempt to produce a distinctly national international theory is a unique case, and the puzzle of this paper is "Why has there been an innovational drive to develop Chinese IR theory?" Our main argument is that theoretical innovation should be understood 1 We would like to thank Ole Waever for his valuable comments on several drafts and all the Chinese scholars who agreed to participate in the interviews. We also thank Daniel Bell, Henrik Breitenbauch, Geir Helgesen, Chung-In Moon, Rens van Munster, Casper Sylvest, Morten Valbjørn, and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. Lastly, we are grateful to the Augustinus Foundation for providing the funds that made our field trip possible. The usual disclaimer applies.

The International Relations discipline has recently witnessed a wave of stocktakings and they surprisingly often follow the narrative that the discipline once revolved around all-encompassing great debates, which, either neatly or claustrophobically depending on the stocktaker, organized the discipline. Today, most stocktakers argue, International Relations has moved beyond great debate -the very symbol of the discipline -and is undergoing fragmentation. For some scholars, fragmentation is caused by the lack of any great structuring debate and a proliferation of less-than-great theories. To others, fragmentation is a result of the divisive great debates themselves. When stocktakers portray fragmentation as novelty, however, they neglect the prominent historical record of this fragmentation narrative. By rereading stocktaking exercises from the 1940s to today, this article argues that the stocktaking genre -past and present -is conducive to seeing the past as more simple, coherent and ordered while the present is marked by fragmentation and cacophony. Neat summaries of the academic scene in one's own time are quite rare. Few stocktakers ever identified one conversation/debate driving the discipline, not during the first, second, third or fourth debates -and those who did disagreed on what the main trenches and its warriors were. The article concludes by arguing that International Relations' recurrent anxieties about its fragmentation beg questions, not about whether it is real this time, but about the disciplinary politics of this stocktaking narrative. Stocktaking exercises are never only objective descriptions of a current state of disarray; they are political moves in the discipline. Dissatisfied

Emerging powers like China, India and Brazil receive growing attention as objects in International Relations (IR) discourse. Scholars from these emerging powers are rarely present as subjects in mainstream IR discourse, however. This paper interrogates the conditions for scholars in emerging powers to speak back to the mainstream discipline. It argues, firstly, that 'theory speak' is rare from scholars based in periphery countries perceived to be 'emerging powers'. Despite increasing efforts to create a 'homegrown' theoretical discourse in China, India and Brazil, few articles in mainstream journals present novel theoretical frameworks and particularly not framed as non-Western/Southern theory or even as a 'Chinese school' or 'Brazilian concepts'. Secondly, scholars from emerging powers tend to speak as 'native informants' about their own country, not about general aspects of 'the international'. Thirdly, some scholars even speak as 'quasi-officials', that is, they speak for their country.

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