TY - JOUR

T1 - Dividing Discipline

T2 - Structures of Communication in International Relations

AU - Kristensen, Peter Marcus

PY - 2012/3/19

Y1 - 2012/3/19

N2 - International Relations (IR) has cultivated an image as a discipline with strong divisions along paradigmatic, methodological, metatheoretical, geographical, and other lines. This article questions that image analyzing the latent structures of communication in IR. It uses citation data from more than 20,000 articles published in 59 IR journals to construct a network among IR journals and finds a discipline with a center consisting of pedigreed IR journals, albeit closely related to political science. Divisions are identifiable as specialty areas that form clusters of specialized journals along the periphery of the network—security studies and international political economy in particular—but communication is also divided along the lines of geography and policy/theory. The article concludes that divisions notwithstanding, IR communication remains centered around American, general, and theoretical IR journals and that to practice this particular kind of communication is an important dimension of being an IR scholar.

AB - International Relations (IR) has cultivated an image as a discipline with strong divisions along paradigmatic, methodological, metatheoretical, geographical, and other lines. This article questions that image analyzing the latent structures of communication in IR. It uses citation data from more than 20,000 articles published in 59 IR journals to construct a network among IR journals and finds a discipline with a center consisting of pedigreed IR journals, albeit closely related to political science. Divisions are identifiable as specialty areas that form clusters of specialized journals along the periphery of the network—security studies and international political economy in particular—but communication is also divided along the lines of geography and policy/theory. The article concludes that divisions notwithstanding, IR communication remains centered around American, general, and theoretical IR journals and that to practice this particular kind of communication is an important dimension of being an IR scholar.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2012.01101.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2012.01101.x

M3 - Journal article

VL - 14

SP - 32

EP - 50

JO - International Studies Review

JF - International Studies Review

SN - 1521-9488

IS - 1

ER -