-
The Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia - series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities. It is often defined as marking the beginning of the International Relations as a discipline. -
First establishment of the International Relations as a discipline
The University of Wales provided a first department of International Politics. The inaugural holder of the Woodrow Wilson Chair of International Politics was Alfred Zimmern. It was a call for the eradication of war, after the Great War destruction. This led to further creation of the discipline of International Relations and establishment of research program. -
The First Great Debate (1930-1940)
Ontological debate between realism and liberalism. -
Second establishment of the International Relations as a discipline
The second establishment came after the WWII and it is considered as the theoretical establishment of the discipline. It is based on Morghentau's "Politics Among Nations" (1948) and Carr's "The Twenty Years' Crisis: 1919–1939" (1939). It is dominated by the reaction to liberal approach to International Relations. -
The Second Great Debate (1960-1970)
It was a dispute between traditionalism (realism + idealism) and behaviouralism. Behaviouralism insisted on the scientific approach to IR (hard empirical data) and criticized the core assumptions of traditionalism such as “human nature“. -
The emergence of the "Neo" approaches as key changing factors (1970-1984)
The Neo-Marxist approach from 70's - Robert Cox.
The Neorealism or structural realism states power is the most important factor in International Relations. Most important (one of) theory by Kenneth Wlatz "Theory of International Politics" (1979)
The Neoliberalism, Robert Keohane's book "After Hegemony" (1984) is considered one of the prime examples of the theory. -
The Third Great Debate or the "Inter-paradigm debate" (1960-1979)
The inter-paradigm debate was a debate between liberalism, realism and radical international relations theories.The debate has also been described as being between realism, institutionalism and structuralism. The mainstream approaches of neorealism and neoliberalism are engaged in a dialogue and at the same time they are defending themselves against a variety of „critical” theories. This debate was because of it also called the neo-neo debate. -
The Fourth Great Debate (1980-1999)
This most recent Debate, emerging in the mid-Eighties, is arguably one of the most serious. On one side Rationalists, inclusive of Realist and Liberalist positions, are positivistic in methodology, and while accepting the complexities of the social world, prefer to measure and analyse what can be observed. The opposition Reflectivists reject these positivist methods of knowledge generation, preferring interpretive and subjective study and a belief that values cannot be separate from observation.
