Rethinking International Relations

International Relations as an academic discipline is faced with three major convergent challenges: an historical challenge; an institutional challenge; and a theoretical challenge both from these cognate disciplines and from within. This book reaffirms the specificity of International Relations.

International Relations as an academic discipline is faced with three major convergent challenges: a historical challenge from the end of the Cold War and from new forms of internationalism and fragmentation; an institutional challenge from the growing preoccupation of other social sciences with the international; and a theoretical challenge both from these cognate disciplines and from within. Ranging widely over the discipline, this book reaffirms the specificity of International Relations and lays the basis for a reformulation.

Preface - Introduction: the Pertinence of International Relations - Theories in Contention: A Discipline and its Discontents - A Wary Engagement: Historical Materialism and International Relations - State and Society in International Relations - International Society as Homogeneity - Revolutions and the International System - Hidden from International Relations: Women and the International - Inter-systemic Conflict: the Case of Cold War - A Singular Collapse: the Soviet Union and Inter-state Competition - International Relations and the 'End of History': Is there a New Agenda? - Conclusion: The Challenge of the Normative -