The Missing Tradition of the ES: Including Nietzschean Relativism and World Imagination in Extranational Studies

Abstract

Starting from Barry Buzan and Richard Little's recent assertion in Millennium that'international relations has failed as an intellectual project', I argue that if the study of international political theory is to learn anything from this failure, it is the need for a conversation that encourages heterologue. If such a conversation is to be of any value at all then it needs to escapethe binary dualisms or'debates'that are too often said to characterise the discipline of International Relations (IR). Instead, I argue that a reformulated English School (ES) could serve as a medium for such a conversation, providing that the missing tradition of Nietzschean Relativism is included in the heterologue. The inclusion of postmodern insights encourages us to acknowledge that states (and therefore also the idea of `international') are important fictions which rest on a world imagination. Finally, I argue that if we seek to overcome the failure of IR and engage in a conversation about international political theory that includes the missing tradition, then we will also have to acknowledge that a reformulated ES should better be understood as `Extranational Studies'.