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IR Studies East and West: Some Sociological Observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Paul Bacon  and
Edward Newman
Paul Bacon
Affiliation:
Tokyo Jogakkan University
Edward Newman
Affiliation:
United Nations University
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Abstract

Mainstream International Relations teaching and scholarship is often argued to be social scientific and therefore able to generate propositions about international life that have general (even universal) explanatory value. However, the methods and research questions of IR can in part be explained by the nature of the national academies in which they develop and by a range of national and regional sociological and political circumstances. Thus, following Ole Waever, the “American approach to the study of IR” and its predominance can be explained by reference to certain cultural and structural factors. Yet if the sociological underpinnings of teaching and researching in IR are inevitable and readily apparent, why is there no distinct ‘East Asian tradition’? Why is the East Asian IR community relatively weak? In fact, the relative weakness of indigenous national and regional East Asian IR approaches can be understood as an extension of national academic environments, historical circumstances, and national political traditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , February 2002 , pp. 21 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

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