Un-Disciplining the International

Abstract

Writing in the context of the call for greater diversity, this short commentary makes a dual argument about the need to ‘un-discipline’ the discipline of International Relations. First: I return to an argument I made many years ago: the need to ‘Forget IR Theory’ and to explore the key issues in global politics without being constraint by the boundaries of existing debates. Key political problems, from climate change and pandemics, are far too complex to be understood as uniquely international phenomena and through the lenses of disciplinary debates. Second: to un-discipline is not to abandon the study of international relations. Quite the contrary, forgetting the constraining boundaries of academic disciplines can involve engaging back with the discipline of International Relations but, crucially, not on its own terms and not through the debates that have pre-set the boundaries of what is and is not thinkable. Un-disciplining is a process that entails convincing disciplinary scholars of the need to see key dilemmas in global politics in new and creative ways.