Why is There International Theory?

: The Pedagogic Need for a Heuristic of World Politics

Abstract

The growing sociology of International Relations as a discipline has highlighted the halting global diffusion of international theory production. However, theories in the discipline’s core and semi-periphery are relatively diverse today. The potential and desire for more globally diffuse IR knowledge production will likely raise new questions and produce further variety of theory concerned with alternative problematiques. Today, the IR student is grappling with this pluralistic core and semi-periphery as well as the disciplinary ambitions of the core's perforation and multiplication. This dissertation investigates the implications of this pluralistic and global turn for the educational practice of IR. It is argued that the pedagogic introduction of a heuristic of world politics has several perspicuous and critical benefits for the student and discipline. The literature this dissertation covers includes: IR theory, the philosophy of science and IR, the history of IR, the sociology of IR, and the pedagogy of IR

Date of Award	2012
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aberystwyth University
Supervisor	Lucy Taylor (Supervisor)