The struggle over the identity of IR: What is at stake in the disciplinary debate within and beyond academia?

Grenier, Félix; Turton, Helen; Beaulieu-Brossard, Philippe

doi:10.1177/0047117815585888

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…This post-secular philosophy is, in our opinion, a hope for IR studies and their permanent identity crisis (Grenier et al 2015). It is clear that the identity of a discipline implies the collective identity of its creators-IR scholars.…”

Section: Mediated Hermeneutic Matrices or A Different Perspective On Post-secularismmentioning

confidence: 86%

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

Kulska

Solarz

2021

Religions

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In spite of the increasing presence of religion in international relations with various publications observing this presence and numerous authorities calling for the inclusion of religion into mainstream research, there is no universal consent to recognize religion’s role in IR. In our opinion, the only way to reconcile IR with the international reality in which religion has been and will remain present in the foreseeable future is for the researchers themselves to construct—especially those oriented towards broad, non-Western perspective—a new face of the discipline, the face which in this article we call the post-secular identity of IR study. Assuming that identity is first and foremost a form of knowledge that tells us how we can define ourselves against the background of the surrounding world, our purpose is to look at the post-secular identity from two different perspectives which are analyzed in the two distinctive parts of the paper. On one hand, post-secular identity would mean the socio-political but also cultural phenomenon of the “knowledge of the self” expressed in the form of ideas, interests and goals of various state and nonstate actors, both religious and secular ones, that are more or less conditioned by religious determinants. We propose looking at them through the prism of a new kind of “partnership” emerging as a result of post-secular thinking in the area of IR. On the other hand, we want to look at post-secular identity as the badly required transformation within the area of IR study that, as we claim, needs to construct more inclusive views of IR scholars adopting a deliberative and pluralistic approach to the reality they examine based on widening their epistemological and hermeneutical horizons. This redefinition would be framed by recognizing religion as rational and adopting the view that the limits of the scientific methods do not coincide with the boundaries of rationality. We also adopt the view that along with the cognitive expansion of the universe, the concept of transcendence has been broadened.

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Section: Mediated Hermeneutic Matrices or A Different Perspective On Post-secularismmentioning

confidence: 86%

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

Kulska

Solarz

2021

Religions

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“…Whether International Relations (IR) is or should be a separate academic discipline is the subject of long-standing debate (Buzan and Little, 2001; Dyer and Mangasarian, 1989; Grenier et al, 2015; Kaplan, 1961; Kennedy-Pipe, 2007; Kristensen, 2012). The discipline-question resurfaced most recently in response to Justin Rosenberg’s (2016) startling claim that IR has so far failed to clearly identify its own unique subject matter, defining itself only negatively as a subfield of Political Science concerned with politics beyond settled state confines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s the point of being a discipline? Four disciplinary strategies and the future of International Relations

Corry¹

2022

Cooperation and Conflict

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While disciplinary identities are among the most fraught subjects in academia, much less attention has been given to what disciplinarity actually entails and what risks different disciplinary strategies involve. This article sets out a theory of disciplinarity that recognises not only their coercive but also their redeeming features, particularly in view of the coexistince of multiple competing disciplines and powerful transdisciplinary movements (such as rationalism). On this basis it identifies four disciplinary strategies and each is assessed in relation to the future of IR: (1) remaining a subdiscipline of Political Science (‘stay put’), (2) becoming an interdisciplinary field (‘reach out’), (3) dissolving into transdisciplinarity or abolishing IR (‘burn down’), or (4) establishing IR as a discipline in its own right (‘break out’). Rejecting the false choice of disciplinary constraint versus epistemic freedom, this framework allows IR and other subfields to more consciously consider a range of disciplinary strategies and to entertain the risks and affordances they each offer. The article concludes that a future independent discipline focused on the implications of ‘the international’ not just for politics but all fields – including disciplinarity – would make for a broader, more diverse IR, ultimately also better able to engage other disciplines.

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“…I take interdisciplinary research in IR to refer to the exchange, borrowing and integration of insights from distinct spheres of academic pursuit and their incorporation into IR studies to address questions of import to the field. On the debate surrounding the disciplinary status of IR, and contested attitudes towards interdisciplinary work in the field, see Grenier et al (2015); Yetiv and James (2016); Wæver (2007); Holland (2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Psychology and aggregation in International Relations

Gildea

2020

European Journal of International Relations

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Theories of decision-making grounded in political psychology have experienced a dramatic rise in the study of International Relations. There is widespread recognition of the benefits of incorporating insights from the behavioural sciences into analyses of political behaviour. However, some scholars have argued that the theoretical and empirical scope of these perspectives remains hampered by an unresolved issue: aggregation. While the fundamental unit of interest in psychology is the individual, most International Relations models concern patterns of collective decision-making in aggregate units such as states, bureaucracies, armed groups, transnational networks and institutions. This article contributes to the aggregation debate by providing a more optimistic portrait of its implications for interdisciplinary work. I argue that aggregation may be an overstated problem in International Relations and that a disciplinary preoccupation with it may hinder rather than pave the way for interdisciplinary theorizing.

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The struggle over the identity of IR: What is at stake in the disciplinary debate within and beyond academia?

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

What’s the point of being a discipline? Four disciplinary strategies and the future of International Relations

Psychology and aggregation in International Relations

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