Transcript What is International Relations?

George Lawson
IR436 - Theories of international relations:
context (week 19)
Lecture slides
Original citation:
Lawson, G. (2012) IR436 - Theories of international relations: context (week 19). [Teaching Resource]
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IR436 Lecture 19 2011-12
George Lawson
History and the International
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The return of history?
 Carr, Morgenthau, Wight, Hoffman
 Behaviourism, Waltz and the positivists
 The return of history: English School,
constructivism, neo-classical realism
Caution…
POLITICAL SCIENCE
HISTORY
METHODS
Secondary sources
Primary sources
AIMS
Regularities, continuities
Contingencies, change
ORIENTATION
Nomothetic
Idiographic
SCOPE CONDITIONS
Analytic
Temporal
CAUSATION
Transhistorical
Context specific
LEVELS
Structure
Agency
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Scripture & Butterfly
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What is history?
 “history is a science, no less and no more”
 “historia magistra vitae”
 “the art of history is always the art of narrative”
 “history is not a narrative. The historians task is to
explain what happened”
 “history is a nightmare from which I’m trying to
escape”
Context
 Carr: history as a social process
 Skinner: what is the author trying to do?
But:
• How do we get to motivations?
• What is our vantage point?
• Internal traditions
• Cultural continuities