The continuing failure of international relations and the challenges of disciplinary boundaries.

Abstract

This article is concerned with addressing the following hypothesis, originally presented in Millennium in 2001: International Relations theory does not influence other academic fields to the extent that it suggests that it should. This claim is re-examined in light of the growth of IR over the past decade. Using a variety of evidence, including a close examination of the Social Sciences Citation Index, I conclude that IR (still) does not have much influence outside of the IR academic community. I also argue that while it is not reasonable to expect scholars who write on global politics but belong in other academic fields or disciplines to turn to IR, the way that IR defines itself suggests that they should. Consequently, it follows that IR needs to be doing more in order to make our work of greater relevance to, at minimum, those fields of scholarship that IR borrows from. I suggest that the reason why IR has continued to have little influence in other fields is because of the way IR sets itself up as a subject concerned with an anarchical order made up of sovereign states.