This book uses three controversial contemporary American foreign policy problems to introduce students to the 'new debates' in international relations, in which the criticisms of constructivism, interpretivism, and postmodernism are presented against traditional positivist concepts of social science.

Introduction -- Three Images of Meta-Theory in International Relations: Reflexive Engagement, Scholasticism, and Paradigmatism -- Rhetoric of Inquiry: On the Relation Between Form and Content in IR Meta-Theory -- Logics of Argumentation: Monism, Pluralism, Displacement and Diversity Constitutive Elements of a Rhetoric of Inquiry -- Styles of Argumentation: Dogmatism, Pragmatics, Deconstruction and Hermeneutics -- Meta-Theorising and Competing Conceptions Of 'The Real' -- Understanding and the Ethos of Conversation.

World of our Making is a major contribution to contemporary social science. Now reissued in this volume, Onuf’s seminal text is key reading for anyone who wishes to study modern international relations. Onuf understands all of international relations to be a matter of rules and rule in foreign behaviour. The author draws together the rules of international relations, explains their source, and elaborates on their implications through a vast array of interdisciplinary thinkers such as Kenneth Arrow, J.L. Austin, Max Black, Michael Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Jurgen Habermas, Lawrence Kohlberg, Harold Lasswell, Talcott Parsons, Jean Piaget, J.G.A. Pocock, John Roemer, John Scarle and Sheldon Wolin.

The book is written for active learners – those keen on cutting their own path through the complex and at times hardly comprehensible world of THEORY in International Relations. To aid this process as much as possible, this book employs the didactical and methodical concept of integrating teaching and self-study. The criteria for structured learning about IR theory will be derived from an extensive discussion of the questions and problems of philosophy of science (Part 1). Theory of IR refers to the scientific study of IR and covers all of the following subtopics: the role and status of theory in the academic discipline of IR; the understanding of IR as a science and what a ""scientific"" theory is; the different assumptions upon which theory building in IR is based; the different types of theoretical constructions and models of explanations found at the heart of particular theories; and the different approaches taken on how theory and the practice of international relations are linked to each other. The criteria for the structured learning process will be applied in Part 2 of the book during the presentation of five selected theories of International Relations. The concept is based on ""learning through example"" – that is, the five theories have been chosen because, when applying the criteria developed in Part 1 of the book, each single theory serves as an example for something deeply important to learn about THEORY of IR more generally.

Advances our understanding of global and international relations through a ground-breaking philosophical analysis of social practices indebted to Oakeshott, Wittgenstein and Hegel.

This volume ws the winner of The International Studies Association Theory Section Book Award 2013, presented by the International Studies Association and The Yale H. Ferguson Award 2012, presented by International Studies Association-Northeast. There are many different scientifically valid ways to produce knowledge. The field of International Relations should pay closer attention to these methodological differences, and to their implications for concrete research on world politics. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations provides an introduction to the philosophy of science issues and their implications for the study of global politics. The author draws attention to the problems caused by the misleading notion of a single unified scientific method, and proposes a framework that clarifies the variety of ways that IR scholars establish the authority and validity of their empirical claims. Jackson connects philosophical considerations with concrete issues of research design within neopositivist, critical realist, analyticist, and reflexive approaches to the study of world politics. Envisioning a pluralist science for a global IR field, this volume organizes the significant differences between methodological stances so as to promote internal consistency, public discussion, and worldly insight as the hallmarks of any scientific study of world politics. This important volume will be essential reading for all students and scholars of International Relations, Political Science and Philosophy of Science.

Drawing on a tripartite taxonomy first suggested by the so-called English School of International Relations of a Hobbesian tradition of power politics, a Grotian tradition of concern with the rules that govern relations between states; and a Kantian tradition of thinking which transcends the existence of the states system, this book discusses the thinking of central political theorists about the modern states system. Thinkers covered are Hobbes, Grotius, Kant, Vitoria, Rousseau, Smith, Burke, Hegel, Gentz and Vattel.

World political processes, such as wars and globalisation, are engendered by complex sets of causes and conditions. Although the idea of causation is fundamental to the field of International Relations, what the concept of cause means or entails has remained an unresolved and contested matter. In recent decades ferocious debates have surrounded the idea of causal analysis, some scholars even questioning the legitimacy of applying the notion of cause in the study of International Relations. This book suggests that underlying the debates on causation in the field of International Relations is a set of problematic assumptions (deterministic, mechanistic and empiricist) and that we should reclaim causal analysis from the dominant discourse of causation. Milja Kurki argues that reinterpreting the meaning, aims and methods of social scientific causal analysis opens up multi-causal and methodologically pluralist avenues for future International Relations scholarship.

This is a major new edition of a highly-regarded textbook on International Relations theory which combines deep analysis into the diversity of thought within the major scholarly traditions and the guidance for students on doing their own theorising. Knud Erik Jorgensen analyses the nuances of the main contending theories and approaches, their philosophical underpinnings, and explains their use and relevance to different research agendas. This is all placed within the context of cross-cutting coverage of key current issues and debates; of the philosophical foundations of IR theory; and of why different theories are addressed to different research agendas. All chapters have been fully revised and updated, and a new chapter on the Human-Nature tradition has been included to reflect the changes within the field. This text is the most up-to-date and informative text on International Relations theory, and is an essential companion for all International Relations students.

A reinterpretation of world politics drawing on Chinese cultural and philosophical traditions to argue for a focus on relations amongst actors, rather than on the actors individually.