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The establishment of the University Department of International Politics in Wales, Aberystwyth. This was the first department dealing with this topic. The discipline soon made its way to Great Britain and the United States as well.
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The first great debate erupted between the first two theoretical school, liberalism and realism. It was an ontological debate and focused on WHAT should we study. Edward Hallett Carr was one of the main realists. The dichotomy between them became the second establishment of the discipline.
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The second debate is said to have been an epistemological debate between ‘behaviourism’ and ‘traditionalism’. At stake was the question, „what is the most appropriate way of pursuing and acquiring knowledge in international relations?”
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It was an ontological debate, often called interparadigm as well between neorealists and neoliberalists, but also with the appearance of neo-Marxists such as Robert Cox and Immanuel Wallerstein. Kenneth N. Waltz had a neorealist theory based on the importance of economic studies, while Robert O. Keohane, John Burton and Ernst Haas represented the neoliberal approach with the study of international interdependence.
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The debate challenged the established traditions in IR by alternative approaches. The new voice was identified as post-positivist approach, an epistemological debate. It was about how should we study IRs. The participants were the constructivism and its counterparts, the rational or positivist approaches (liberalism, realism and Marxism together.) The most important actor of the constructivist approach was Alexander Wendt.
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The Social Theory of International Relations - book of Wendt is said to initiate the Fourth Great Debate.
