The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations
- Andreas Gofas - Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
- Inanna Hamati-Ataya - University of Cambridge
- Nicholas Onuf - Florida International University
The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations offers a panoramic overview of the broad field of International Relations by integrating three distinct but interrelated foci. It retraces the historical development of International Relations (IR) as a professional field of study, explores the philosophical foundations of IR, and interrogates the sociological mechanisms through which scholarship is produced and the field is structured.
Comprising 38 chapters from both established scholars and an emerging generation of innovative meta-theorists and theoretically driven empiricists, the handbook fosters discussion of the field from the inside out, forcing us to come to grips with the widely held perception that IR is experiencing an existential crisis quite unlike anything else in its hundred-year history. This timely and innovative reference volume reflects on situated scholarly practices in a way that projects our collective thinking into the future.
PART ONE: THE INWARD GAZE: INTRODUCTORY REFLECTIONS
PART TWO: IMAGINING THE INTERNATIONAL, ACKNOWLEDGING THE GLOBAL
PART THREE: THE SEARCH FOR (AN) IDENTITY
PART FOUR: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AS A PROFESSION
PART FIVE: LOOKING AHEAD: THE FUTURE OF META-ANALYSIS
Supplements
The Handbook is a landmark, not only providing a panorama of the discipline, but also embracing it as a global project. Critical of traditional paradigms with their clear cores and boundaries, this monumental work includes diverse perspectives from history, philosophy, and sociology, opens up new horizons for International Relations, and reshapes our understanding of the world we have made together.
Instead of the stale debates that focus on the “theory" of IR, this volume opens up new spaces for exploration. It also shows how wrestling with questions - rather than foreclosing them by “applying” the answer that traditional "theories and approaches” provided - can lead to new heuristics, precisely because the quest for a “view from nowhere” has lost its allure.
A thought-provoking volume, with contributions from a geographically and methodologically diverse group of scholars who invite us to think reflexively about IR’s philosophical, historical and sociological foundations. At a time when many see a discipline in disarray, this innovative Handbook offers us a better sense of what we mean by IR as well as the multiple ways to study it.
