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14 - Can Historicism Win over IR?

from Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

By
Ayşe Zarakol
Edited by
Klaus Schlichte  and
Stephan Stetter
Klaus Schlichte
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Stephan Stetter
Affiliation:
Universität der Bundeswehr München
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Summary

If the arguments in favour of historicism are so compelling, why does historicism have such relative difficulty in gaining a strong foothold, even after decades of the historical turn? This conclusion chapter focuses the structural constraints historicism faces in IR in particular and the social sciences in general. It first discusses why IR’s particular American origins as a discipline (as well the continued domination of US standards in the evaluation of IR scholarship globally) makes it difficult for historicist calls such as the one advanced by this volume to resonate in the wider discipline. It also argues, however, that the problem will not be solved automatically as American influence in the discipline and the world decreases. Approaches to IR hailing from other parts of the world have their own motivations to reject historicism even as they seem to care more about history than US based approaches. Historicism needs to be realistic about the obstacles it faces.

Keywords

historicismscientismpositivismAmerican IRGlobal IR
Type
Chapter
Information
The Historicity of International Politics
Imperialism and the Presence of the Past
 , pp. 291 - 302
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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