Introduction: The ‘Enormous Creative Potential of Practical Reason’

Abstract

This book is concerned with constructivism in international relations. Specifically, it is concerned with the ability of a constructivist account of the structure of normative reasoning to ground a theory of international relations capable of overcoming the poststructuralist challenge to the traditional foundations and methodology developed and adopted by the discipline of IR. While the book begins with a detailed analysis of this challenge and a consideration of the means by which IR has attempted to answer it, this is primarily an account of the conditions of international relations analysed through the lens of international political theory, but one which incorporates crucial theoretical features developed within the more mainstream discipline of IR. Ultimately, what I set out to do is to dispel the idea that the disciplines operate in necessarily distinct spaces (and that they can therefore effectively speak past one another) and instead offer an account of international relations grounded on a conception of normative reasoning capable of ‘combining’ the various elements and theoretical tools of each discipline, which I consider crucial to a true understanding of the nature of world politics.

Friedrichs, J., and Kratochwil, F., ‘On Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism can Advance International Relations Research and Methodolog)’, International Organisation, 63, 2009, pp. 701–731, p. 710