Reappraising European IR Theoretical Traditions

Fragmenting and connecting? The diverging geometries and extents of IR’s interdisciplinary knowledge-relations

“…In line with the account of disciplinary differentiation set out above, such extensive coupling could be described as being ‘too much’. Some scholars argue that a discipline is ‘parasitic’, if it is excessively dependent on knowledge produced by another (Jørgensen et al, 2017). While others note that tight coupling to a ‘master’ social science confines IR to the status and function of a ‘second order” discipline, especially because Political Science’s thematic object of study subsumes IR’s ‘spatial or scalar’ one (Albert and Buzan, 2017; Bell, 2009; Rosenberg, 2016).…”

“…On the one hand, the relevance, integrity and legitimacy of academic knowledge production are seen as corollaries to disciplinary practices: the widely accepted norm is that good academic knowledge is produced in dialogue with iterative internal disciplinary debates about a particular object of study (Albert and Buzan, 2017; Bourdieu, 1988; Frodeman, 2014; Rosenberg, 2016). On the other hand, the institutional and professional organisation of the academy is largely based on disciplinary differentiation: departments, jobs, publication outlets, conferences and professional associations all justify themselves – and the allocation of resources to them – through their identification with and contribution to a discipline (Jørgensen et al, 2017; Turton, 2015b; Weingart, 2010).…”

“…As a result, the archetypal discipline is one that can optimally manage the maintenance of its own bounded conceptual space, alongside active engagement with and contribution to other disciplines. On the one hand, too much exchange is considered as evidence of a lack of disciplinary self-sustainability, with such disciplines labelled as ‘parasitic’, because they ‘depend on bodies of knowledge generated elsewhere’ (Jørgensen et al, 2017: 73). Such perspectives have found manifestation in the depiction of IR as ‘a magpie subject without a recognizable or respected ethos of its own’, a state of affairs often accounted for by reference to its multidisciplinary origins (Mayall, 1998: 242).…”

“…As noted above, IR scholarship of differing persuasions have advocated greater engagement with particular other disciplines, while Albert and Buzan (2017: 903) highlight a tendency to internally differentiate IR in ways that ‘reproduce the others [disciplines] within themselves’ – for example, the expression of the multidisciplinary or liminal fields of ‘international political sociology’, ‘international historical sociology’ or ‘international political theory’. These developments, arguably, contribute to the fragmentation of IR scholarship, because they ingrain new and distinct sub-, multi- and interdisciplinary identities (see Scott, 2005; Jørgensen et al, 2017). In other words, the interplay of internal disciplinary differentiation with interdisciplinary relations may well be mutually reinforcing and, in some cases, a force magnifier for fragmentation.…”

Recollecting a lost dialogue: Structural Realism meets neoclassical realism

“…Drawing from Helen Louise Turton, they find little evidence supporting the claim that American concerns are dominant. 5 This is because, from a sociological and structural perspective, IR's practices are negotiated locally. 6 As Turton writes, 'Within different national IR communities … "IR" is organized in divergent ways'.…”