Corry, O orcid.org/0000-0002-7249-0913 (2022) What’s the point of being a discipline? Four disciplinary strategies and the future of International Relations. Cooperation and Conflict, 57 (3). pp. 290-310. ISSN 0010-8367
Abstract
While disciplinary identities are among the most fraught subjects in academia, much less attention has been given to what disciplinarity actually entails and what risks different disciplinary strategies involve. This article sets out a theory of disciplinarity that recognises not only their coercive but also their redeeming features, particularly in view of the coexistence of multiple competing disciplines and powerful transdisciplinary movements (such as rationalism). On this basis it identifies four disciplinary strategies and each is assessed in relation to the future of IR: (1) remaining a subdiscipline of Political Science (‘stay put’), (2) becoming an interdisciplinary field (‘reach out’), (3) dissolving into transdisciplinarity or abolishing IR (‘burn down’), or (4) establishing IR as a discipline in its own right (‘break out’). Rejecting the false choice of disciplinary constraint versus epistemic freedom, this framework allows IR and other subfields to more consciously consider a range of disciplinary strategies and to entertain the risks and affordances they each offer. The article concludes that a future independent discipline focused on the implications of ‘the international’ not just for politics but all fields – including disciplinarity – would make for a broader, more diverse IR, ultimately also better able to engage other disciplines.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | disciplines; epistemes; International Relations; multiplicity; politics; theory |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Mar 2022 12:50 |
Last Modified: | 22 Feb 2023 14:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/00108367221098492 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:184640 |