-
Period: to
Developing IRs
The period of 1900-1918 - up to the end of the First World War International Relations were taught by diplomatic historians who were more interested in history than in politics, their main concern was the description of past events rather than the analysis of present ones. -
Period: to
The Study
The period of 1918-1930 - starting after the end of the First World War, it was focused only on the study of current affairs as a reaction to the excessive concentration on the past, done during the period of 1900-1918. -
International Relations as a field of study
International relations as a distinct field of study began in Britain. 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 idea of 1919 as the origin date was associated with the view that IR was designed to understand the nature and causes of war.Thus the study of IR assumed an academic dimension, which began to influence government policy. -
Period: to
Emphasis
The period of 1930-1938 - Scholars during this time tended to take a more moralistic and legalistic approach towards studying International Relations. More emphasis was laid on the importance of international Law and International Organizations. Especially the League of Nations which was formed during this time, with the hope of narrowing nationalism by internationalism. The Idealist approach became popular during this time. -
The Twenty Years’ Crisis
This was the era in which many of the multilateral institutions (The League of Nations), ideologies (Communism and Fascism), public interest in foreign affairs (the Spanish Civil War, the Munich Agreement), regions of conflict (The Middle East) and processes (decolonisation) that came to shape the Twentieth Century first took centre stage. -
Second World War
People had lost faith in the power and authority of international organizations and international law as a tool of maintaining peace, because of the failure of the League of Nations to prevent another world war. The war was the milieu out of which the next generation of IR thinkers, institutions and concepts were to emerge. Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States all demonstrated the value of promoting and supporting academics to assist with policy formation. -
Period: to
The Bipolar World: Containment And Beyond
The origins of the Cold War continues to be a keenly disputed subject among international historians. The conflict proved crucial in the development of the study of IR, and in promoting the emergence of academic practitioners. This era was one where a number of important theorists and practitioners emerged to offer explanations for and to codify the new global balance of power. This was the period when IR emerged as the academic discipline we know today. -
The Global Cold War II: The Poverty of International Theory, The English School And The 1960s
The studies of IR was exclusively an American affair until the 1960s. The establishment of the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics in 1959 began the process of widening the parameters of the debate. The 1960s witnessed a number of other developments that are of interest to us, not least in the cultural, gender-based and philosophical realms. Moving through to the codification of diplomatic practice under the various Vienna treaties -
Détente, Technology and Neo-liberal Institutionalism
The 1970s and 1980s gave rise to a wide range of seemingly contradictory, complex and confusing developments that, when taken together, ushered in an unexpected shift in international affairs. IR took an increasingly sophisticated approach which led to the emergence of neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, plus the use of novel psychological and quantitative methods. The growing popularity of IR studies continued as did the number of academics entering politics.