4 - The Temporality of IR Theories

Summary

This chapter articulates the stakes involved for mainstream scholars and those interested in traditional international political concerns by using a presentist approach to critique the “theoretical programmes” that historically have dominated IR – realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism. Doing so provides a widely intelligible example that others can use to guide their own work, even if they have no interest in the particular theoretical architectures used here. Employing these tools makes new things visible, exposes different questions to ask and answer, and enables different ways of understanding what we believe we already know. Each of these examples illustrates how presentism’s approach is not an external critique but one that – if taken seriously – alters key assumptions and conclusions for concepts already considered central to IR’s systemic understanding of global politics. The chapter also draws out implications at the epistemological and ontological levels, defending ideas like temporally contingent epistemologies, ontological nonconsecutivity, and an ontology that fully embraces the present