-
Period: to
The westphalian state
The major and most important actor in the IRs are the Westphalian modern state.The term supposedly arise from the treaties of Westphalia in 1648 which ended the thirty years war. -
Period: to
The word International was coined
In 1780 the English political philosopher Jeremy Bentham coined the adjective "international", -
Period: to
The creation of the discipline International relations
The discipline was born in 1919 when the first University department was established in Wales. This first establishment of the IRs became liberal because the leading academicians were embedded into the liberal political thought. -
Period: to
International Organization
Another important actor in IRs is international organization. They did not appear in their contemporary from until the 19th century and they became an actor on the international arena in the 1920s -
Period: to
The outbreak of WW2
The economic crisis and the outbreak of WW2 led to criticism about the liberal approach of International relations. Liberalism failed to retain a strong hold so a new paradigm emerged, Realism. -
Period: to
The emerged of the first debate
The first debate was between liberalists and realists. The dichotomy between these two theories became known as the double establishment of the discipline. Liberals wanted to answer the question about how to avoid war and the realists wanted to understand the nature of power politics as it is. Edward Hallett Carr was one of the realists and Woodrow Wilson was one of the liberalists. -
Period: to
The second debate
In between 1950 and 1960 there was an epistemological debate between behaviorism and traditionalism. The main question in this debate was "What is the most appropriate way of pursuing and acquiring knowledge in IRs?". Many scholars, particularly in the United states believed that Morgenthau´s theoretical framework was to impressionistic in nature. -
Period: to
Development of International relations
Under 1960´s and 1970´s it was a rapid development of the study International relations. For example was there a lot of new academic departments that emerged. -
Period: to
The third debate
During the 1970´s and 1980´s there was a ontological debate that concerned the subject matter of the discipline. This debate was called the neo-neo debate or the interparadigm debate. The main approaches in this debate were neoliberalism and neorealism, but also neo-marxism was included. The main representant for neo-realism were Kenneth N. Waltz, for neo-liberalism there were Robert O, Keohane, John Burton and Ernst Hass and for neo-marxism there were Robert Cox and Immanuel Wallerstein. -
Period: to
Non-governmental organizations
The third important actor in IRs is the non-governmental organizations. From the 70´s there were not just the states that was the major actors in IRs, during this time the NGOs emerged. -
Period: to
The fourth debate
When the cold war ended it seemed like the dominant paradigms in IRs was unable to explain the prevailing situations, therefore new critical ideas started gaining ground. From this started an epistemological debate that was identified as a post-positive approach. It was about how we should study IRs and which methods we should use. The participants in this debate were the constructivism and the rational/positivist approaches. Representative for the constructuvist approach were Alexander Wendt