TY - JOUR

T1 - What’s the point of being a discipline?

T2 - Four disciplinary strategies and the future of International Relations

AU - Corry, Olaf

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - 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 coexistince 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.

AB - 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 coexistince 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.

KW - disciplines

KW - epistemes

KW - International Relations

KW - multiplicity

KW - politics

KW - theory

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133323240&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/00108367221098492

DO - 10.1177/00108367221098492

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85133323240

VL - 57

SP - 290

EP - 310

JO - Cooperation and Conflict

JF - Cooperation and Conflict

SN - 0010-8367

IS - 3

ER -