The politics of international relations: building bridges and the quest for relevance

Abstract

In International Relations (IR), as in other social science disciplines, the desire to be current and progressive is both powerful and understandable. Indeed IR as a discipline needs to continually evolve and adapt if it is to be relevant. Yet this natural quest should also include building bridges, where context, perspective and a melding of key past scholarship and current promising endeavors produce true analytical insights. A mere rush to the future where past achievements are ignored or walled off, or where methodology is more about ends than means could undermine the vast potential of an across-the-field discipline that should understand and respect the long arc of history and scholarship. It should behoove us then to be inclusive while skeptical, and appreciate both the benefits and limits of the various approaches whether it is classical realism, neo-realism, liberalism, constructivism or the multiple modernist and post-modernist scholarly endeavors. And throughout we would also benefit from a certain modesty in our scholarly claims as we acknowledge the disparity between our aspirations and achievements.