Conversations in and on IR: Labeling, Framing and Delimiting IR Discipline

Abstract

Calling for genuine and open dialogues between research agendas and theoretical orientations, this article seeks to put “conversations” at the center of the process of discipline-building. Just as Steve Smith declared: “We construct, and reconstruct, our disciplines just as much as we construct, and reconstruct, our world” (2004: 510), we intend to convene researchers in IR to reflect on the way we build and represent our discipline, our object of study and our community’s purposes. Applying discursive analysis and Emanuel Alder’s communitarian constructivist approach to the discipline of IR, this article will particularly discuss the use of mechanisms of labeling, cognitive structuring, and disciplinary debates to the framing of IR itself. It will propose some answers to questions such as: “What is the content and appropriate label of the discipline?”, “Who constitutes the disciplinary community?”, and “What is the legitimate purpose of the discipline?” and finally underlie some questions and contradictions in the way we understand such issues.