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Establishment of IR as a 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. -
the Establishment of the first University department in Wales, Aberystwyth
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Establishment of the League of Nations
The League of Nations was established in Geneva -
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The First Great Debate
The first debate was an ontological debate, concerning the subject matter of the discipline. Main opposing parties were Liberals vs Realists.
1.Liberalism-(Woodrow Wilson)
Liberals sought to answer the question what ought to
be done to avoid war
2.Realism-(Edward Hallett Carr)
Realists wanted to understand the nature
of power politics “as it is”. -
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The second Great Debate
The second Great Debate was an epistemological debate between ‘behaviourism’ and ‘traditionalism’.
The main Question of the debate was „what is the most appropriate way of pursuing and acquiring knowledge in international relations?”
Followers of ‘behaviourism’ believed the best way to acquire knowledge in IR was Scientific Method, on the contrary to that Realists chose Traditional Method. -
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The Third Great Debate
It was as an Ontological debate, concerning the subject matter of the discipline
- It was called "Neo-neo debate" or "Interparadigm debate"
- There were three main approaches: Neo-Realism(Main representative:Kenneth Waltz), Neo-Liberalism(Main representative:Robert Keohane), Neo-Marxism(Main representative:Robert Cox)
- The inerparadigm-debate was used to show that an early consensus about the nature of the discipline had been replaced by a broad spectrum of contending approaches -
The Fourth Great Debate
Alexander Wendt published his book under the title “Social Theory of International Politics” in 1999 and initiated the fourth debate.It was an epistemological debate. It was about how should we study IRs. The participants were the constructivism and its counterparts, the rational or positivist approaches. According to positivist approaches science in IRs could be objective and measurable like natural sciences, on the contrary Constructivism insists that facts in social sciences are not objective
