According to Halliday, the development of international relations reflects the broader challenges and shifts in our society. He believes IR should be judged on the same standards of other social sciences, identifying four justifications for the field of study. It should: 1) train the mind, 2) put facts in the context of theories, 3) prepare students for working in international organization or foreign policy, and 4) provide knowledge pertinent to the resolution of contemporary issues.
My main contention with his argument for the discipline lies in his assertion that “facts on their own are dumb”. Fred Halliday believes that facts need to be organized into conceptual system and that these theories need to be taught to students. He later states that IR needs to remain substantive. In his opinion, facts are of limited utility on their own; IR should then produce theories that analyze historical processes and specific issues within them (745).
IR theories, although useful, cannot explain everything. Each school of thought possesses theories that help explain the world from their perspective- they are a lens to understand the world in which we live. Theory cannot be the answer to everything, because it does not ask all the questions. If we were to discount facts in their own right, we would never really be able to understand any event in the international system if it was not addressed by the existing theory. (For example, look at the resurgence of religion and the recent increase of terrorism by non-state actors).
2 comments:
So perhaps then we should be more involved not in grand theory building employed towards universality but, rather, understanding each case in-depth?
I feel like I might get jumped for saying this is a theory-based class, but I think case-studies are a better tool when trying to understand the world in which we live. Theory should be used to thread events together and help explain them in the context of one another, but not necessairly provide universal assertions for all events
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