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The First establishment of the Discipline
IR emerged as a formal academic discipline in 1919 with the founding of the first IR professorship: the Woodrow Wilson Chair at Aberystwyth, University of Wales. -
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The First Great Debate
The First Great Debate also known as the Realist-Idealist Great Debate was a dispute between idealists and realists which took place in the 1930s and 1940s. Realist scholars emphasized the anarchical nature of international politics and the need for state survival. Idealists emphasized the possibility of international institutions such as the League of Nations. -
The Second Establishment of the Discipline
The second establishment of the IR discipline happened in 1948, with the work of Hans Morgenthau: "Politics among nations". -
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The Second Great Debate
The ‘second great debate’ is said to have been an epistemological debate in the 1950s and 1960s between ‘behaviorism’ and ‘traditionalism’. -
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The Third Great Debate
In the Third Great Debate, Neo-Neo Debate or Interparadigm Debate the mainstream approaches of neorealism and
neoliberalism are engaged in dialogue and at the same time defend themselves against a variety of
„critical” theories (neo-marxism. This was an ontological debatee. -
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The Fourth Great Debate
This Debate challenged the established traditions in IR by alternative
approaches. The new voice was identified as post-positivist approach. The fourth debate started as
an epistemological debate and it was about how should we study IRs, which methods are considered as
the most adequate tools of analysis. The participants were constructivism and its counterparts,
the rational or positivist approaches (liberalism, realism and Marxism).
