Sociology and international relations

Legacies and Prospects

Bibliographic Data

ID5837024
AuthorsGeorge Lawson (0000-0001-9110-1883, London School of Economics and Political Science), Robbie Shilliam (0000-0002-9966-8574, b Victoria University of Wellington)
Year2010
Volume23
Issue1
Pages69-86
Publication date2010-02-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCambridge Review of International Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0955-7571 • E-ISSN: 1474-449X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09557570903433647
OpenAlexW2086551680
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited109

While sociological concepts have often been implicitly used in International Relations (IR), recent years have seen a more explicit engagement between IR and Sociology. As with any such interdisciplinary assignation, there are both possibilities and challenges contained within this move: possibilities in terms of reducing IR's intellectual autism and opening the discipline towards potentially fertile terrain that was never, actually, that distant; challenges in that interdisciplinary raiding parties can often serve as pseudonyms for cannibalism, shallowness and dilettantism. This forum reviews the sociological turn in IR and interrogates it from a novel vantage point-how sociologists themselves approach IR concepts, debates and issues. Three sociological approaches-classical social theory, historical sociology and Foucauldian analysis-are critically deployed to illuminate IR concerns. In this way, the forum offers the possibility of (re)establishing exchanges between the two disciplines premised on a firmer grasp of social theory itself. The result is a potentially more fruitful sociological turn, one with significant benefits for IR as a whole

Epistemology · Historical sociology · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociological theory · Sociology · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance