Embracing the Particular: A Research Agenda for Globalizing International Relations

Debates on the contribution and value of area studies have punctuated the field of IR since the end of World War Two. This chapter provides a brief history of the debates between IR scholars and area studies specialists to show why international relations currently lacks the detailed regional knowledge needed to advance the Globalizing IR agenda. It reveals how critiques of area studies have always been closely connected to epistemological developments: The more IR aligned itself with the ‘scientific method’ the more it has distanced itself from area studies. The second section then discusses how methodology has played a role in restricting our regional knowledge, in particular how neo-positivist methodology can limit and proscribe research being carried out in IR. The third and final section then offers some practical suggestions for uncovering local and regional insights using pragmatic versions of process-tracing, comparative regional methods, and analyticism.