Toward a Paradigm Shift in International Relations Studies

This book asks why the current IR paradigm has outlasted its utility and argues that despite changes to world politics, the paradigm of IR remains far more preoccupied with the dynamics of war and almost silent, when it comes to commenting on the conditions of lasting, global peace. Cognizant of the dominant paradigm's supposed preoccupation with seeking peace, the author shows how IR's mainstream discourses work to reproduce war.

Provides a well-placed and welcome critique of the over-theorization of war in IR Makes for a great teaching text and summation of the better part of 40 or so years of IR history Pushes our understanding of the dominant paradigm within IR from a new perspective

Auteur

Navid Pourmokhtari teaches at MacEwan University. His research interests lie in comparative politics and international relations studies with a focus on gender and feminism, social movements and revolutionary studies, and international peace and security studies. Pourmokhtari's first book, entitled Iran's Green Movement: Everyday Resistance, Political Contestation, and Social Mobilization, published in 2021. His other recent publications have appeared in Third World Quarterly, International Sociology, Against the Current, Jadaliyya, the Journal of Human Trafficking, Sociology of Islam, Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis, Foucault Studies, and the Journal of International Women's Studies.

Contenu

Chapter 1- A Brief Account of a Kuhnian Paradigm and Paradigm Shift.- Chapter 2- Why a Foucauldian-Inspired Discursive Approach to IR studies?.- Chapter 3 - The Present IR Paradigm: Genesis and Foundational Assumptions.- Chapter 4-Theory-as-Discourse: Neorealism and Neoliberalism as IR Paradigm Maintainer Theories.- Chapter 5- The IR Paradigm: Human Nature, the State of Nature and the Discourse on State Sovereignty.- Chapter 6- The Current IR Paradigm and Dominant Discourses: International Policies and Global Practices.- Conclusion-The Case for a Paradigm Shift in IR: Knowledge Surveillance, Knowledge Fundamentalism and the Present IR Paradigm's Disciplinary Gaze.