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Journal ArticleDOI

What Does the International Mean? IR’s Deep Ontology and the Promise It Holds:

09 Oct 2016-Studies in Indian Politics (SAGE Publications)-Vol. 4, Iss: 2, pp 233-240
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that International Relations (IR), the academic discipline whose remit is the study of international reality, including international politics, has a ground of its own.
Abstract: This piece argues that international relations (IR), the academic discipline whose remit is the study of international reality, including international politics, has a ground of its own. There is an established notion that IR is a subset of Political Science. I acknowledge the strength and the long lineage of this view, but I argue nevertheless that IR is a discipline in its own right and it need not be seen as a subdiscipline of Political Science. I also offer a snapshot of the academic riches that await anyone who will participate in claiming for IR its fair share of the academic earth. I go about this task in three parts. First, I outline the key reasons why IR is seen as a Political Science subset and show their limitations. Second, I argue that IR is a separate discipline because it has a deep ontology of its own, which is rooted in a distinct aspect of our social world: the coexistence of multiple societies. A grasp of this deep ontology reveals that IR’s umbilical cord does not run back to Political Science but, in fact, to a dimension of social reality. And when this claim is successfully defended, deduction makes it obvious that international politics too is not a sub-discipline of Political Science but of IR. Third, I briefly discuss the implications of grasping the deep ontology of IR and the properties of the international for students of international politics and international relations of modern India and South Asia. Substantively, there is limited originality to this piece. The conviction about IR’s distinct disciplinary status has been shared amongst some historical sociologists of international relations. Acting as a bridgebuilder between academic contexts, I reiterate this conviction in and for the Indian and South Asian contexts because of its sheer importance. My hope is that colleagues and students of international politics and relations in this part of the world will find it persuasive and share my enthusiasm for its potential to enormously vitalize and creatively redefine our approach to our subject matter.
Citations
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Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather, one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deformation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

512 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1979

7,932 citations

Book
01 Sep 1994
TL;DR: Theories in Contention: A Discipline and its Discontents - A Wary Engagement: Historical Materialism and International Relations - State and Society in International Relations, International Society as Homogeneity - Revolutions and the International System - Hidden from International Relations: Women and International - Inter-systemic Conflict: the Case of Cold War - A Singular Collapse: the Soviet Union and Inter-state Competition - International Relations and the 'End of History': Is there a New Agenda? - Conclusion: The Challenge of the Normative -
Abstract: Preface - Introduction: the Pertinence of International Relations - Theories in Contention: A Discipline and its Discontents - A Wary Engagement: Historical Materialism and International Relations - State and Society in International Relations - International Society as Homogeneity - Revolutions and the International System - Hidden from International Relations: Women and the International - Inter-systemic Conflict: the Case of Cold War - A Singular Collapse: the Soviet Union and Inter-state Competition - International Relations and the 'End of History': Is there a New Agenda? - Conclusion: The Challenge of the Normative -

221 citations


"What Does the International Mean? I..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…the late Fred Halliday identifies IR’s subject matter in terms of three forms of interaction: relations between states and societies; transnational relations across frontiers; and the workings of the international system, comprising states and societies, as a whole (Halliday, 1994, p. 1)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity, and show how this regrounding unlocks the trans-disciplinary potential of IR.
Abstract: In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any ‘big ideas’ that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. First, it traces the problem to IR’s enduring definition as a subfield of Political Science. Second, it argues that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity. And finally, it shows how this re-grounding unlocks the trans-disciplinary potential of IR. Specifically, ‘uneven and combined development’ provides an example of an IR ‘big idea’ that could travel to other disciplines: for by operationalizing the consequences of multiplicity, it reveals the causal and constitutive significance of ‘the international’ for the social world as a whole.

155 citations


"What Does the International Mean? I..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In a recent piece (Rosenberg, 2016), he offers his clearest and most persuasive statement yet on the question of IR’s ontology and its status as a discipline in its own right....

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  • ...This is the elemental fact about the human world that justifies the existence of IR as an academic discipline’ (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 135)....

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  • ...And he thus effectively says that the international rests on a negative ontology, namely, the non-presence of world government (see Rosenberg, 2016, pp. 133, 136–137)....

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