For someone who (albeit temporarily) left his partner and country to go to school in England with the English School, it is easy to agree with Barry Buzan: the English School remains an underexploited framework in IR. Buzan highlights one major reason for this. The methodological and epistemological pluralism of the English School makes it possible to reach out to adjacent literatures in and out of IR in such a manner that holism is secured and scientific certainty postponed. Andrew Linklater's relation to the English School over the last twenty years may serve as a sociological illustration of this. He has gone from being the official dissident of the School to becoming the principal advocate of its Kantian wing. Comparisons with American IR, where scholars of similar persuasion have been exiled to the margins of the discipline, testify to the relative pluralism and openness of the English School.

Barry Buzan's essay provides a welcome forum for discussion about the virtues and future direction of the English School as a resource for IR research. Like many American With apologies to my Canadian colleagues, I use the term American to mean US. I am uncomfortable ascribing the concerns outlined here to scholars in Canada who have intellectual traditions of their own and may well have a different perspective on these matters. constructivists, I am an admirer of English School scholarship and have found it extremely helpful in my own work. I am less optimistic than Buzan, however, about the prospects that the English School will become either a grand theory or the focus of new trans-Atlantic IR debates. It is not clear to me that grand theory status is necessary for the English School; it may not even be particularly desirable. Buzan does not define what he means by a grand theory, but, from the context of his remarks and the Wallerstein example, it would seem that grand theory requires a degree of cohesion and discipline that is antithetical to the methodological pluralism which has characterized English School work and which Buzan views as one of its strongest virtues. Giving the English School more salience in American IR debates, by contrast, would be a real improvement. Even if it does not become the focus of debate, American scholarship would be enriched by incorporation of the historical and normative orientations the English School brings. As the growing strength of constructivist scholarship in the US indicates, there is an eager audience for theoretical frameworks that provide traction on such issues. In what follows I sketch some reasons why the English School has had only limited impact on US scholarship. Specifically, I will argue that the School's lack of clarity about both method and theoretical claims has made it difficult for American scholars to incorporate it into their research. Addressing these issues might make the English School more useful to more US researchers. It might also have the converse effect of sharpening work within the School and assisting its advocates in constructing the research focus Buzan seeks.