Prospects for a General Theory of International Relations

Bibliographic Data

ID6412608
AuthorsArthur Lee Burns (Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume14
Issue1
Pages25-46
Publication date1961-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8871 • E-ISSN: 1086-3338
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/2009554
OpenAlexW2331285272
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited8

How far may we hope to go in theorizing about international affairs? That question is at the center of this article, which consists of several more or less eclectic stabs at the problem.I shall be writing as though some theory of power politics were the only possible candidate for being the theory of international relations. Let that be regarded as an act of methodological faith—certainly I can think of no scientific demonstration of it, and I would rather leave the philosophy of the matter for another occasion. There are a number of stock objections against any general theory of international relations oriented towards power politics, and these I shall try to rebut, chiefly by extending and correcting my own previous efforts in the genre. I shall then introduce objections of a rather more abstract sort, and, again from my own previous work, I shall try to show that the difficulties which these latter present are indeed formidable. But I hope it will be understood that neither kind of objection need be relevant to meories of international relations other than those built around the concepts of force, power, and security

Economics · Epistemology · Faith · International relations · International relations theory · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics · Power politics · Sociology · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy

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