Week 1

Akler and Biersteker's article addresses the need to emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of International Relations when discussing relevant theory. They acknowledge that theories are affected by region, time, political orientation and public knowledge, and hope that greater discussion and instruction will lead to less bias in IR Theory. When evaluating course syllabi at some American Universities, it was discovered that teaching is often heavily skewed towards one school of thought, typically the realist school. American theory courses fail to do justice to the variety of substantively and politically significant approaches to IR. Their suggested approach of study would evenly focus on traditional, behavioral and dialectical theories.

The MIT and Yale professors suggest that IR Theory courses should address realism, idealism, liberalism, nationalism, imperialism, Marxism, radicalism, communitarianism, and dependencia. In doing so, they allow for theories to develop and change over time. According to Akler and Biersteker, theory should not be stagnate and a more equitable teaching method will leave adequate room for change in theories and paradigms.