Hamati-Ataya, Inanna. “IR Theory and the Question of Science”. In International Relations Theory Today, edited by Ken Booth and Toni Erskine, 78-91. Chichester, West Sussex: Polity Press, 2016.

Hamati-Ataya, Inanna. “IR Theory and the Question of Science”. In International Relations Theory Today, edited by Ken Booth and Toni Erskine, 78-91. Chichester, West Sussex: Polity Press, 2016.

• The adoption of post-postivist ideologies in the 1980s majorly disturbed IR theory, which had previously functioned on a positivist basis of discovering scientific 'laws' about interstate relations. The traditional IR community felt threatened by this new ideology, fearing that, if IR was no longer a 'science', it would lose its credibility and influence as a field (78).
• The debate between the positivist and post-positivist schools in IR has not been resolved, and the discipline remains divided between the two schools. The conflict has provided opportunities for scholars who don't give two shits about theory to branch out and perform research which would not have been acceptable during the period of positivist dominance (78).
• The main theoretical contribution of post-positivism has been the general recognition of the relationship between knowledge and power, in that the ability to create legitimate knowledge is a form of power. Although widely acknowledged in IR, this information has not fundamentally changed the way in which IR is studied (79).
• If something, like IR, is determined to be a science, then certain norms about scientific inquiry apply to it. The difficulty and contention lies in determining what is and is not a science (80-81).
• The tension within IR scholarship largely resides in this conflict over whether IR is a science or not. It is particularly notable between American and British IR theory -- which assumes that IR is a science -- and European scholarship, which assumes that it is not a science. As a result half of the field is working on totally different assumptions and norms than the other half (81).
• More difficult lies in the definition of science. Since the concept of 'science' is a social construct whose specific norms have no material basis and did not exist before a certain period in history, the term is essentially meaningless, so IR could be a 'science' as much as any other field (82).
• The author celebrates a move in IR theory away from discussions of epistemology and ontology to methodology, which actually has some direct baring on how people conduct research. This transformation of theory into a practical tool is still distant, however, as these useful conversations about methodology are critiqued by snide jackass academics on the basis of violating some principle or other of larger epistemologies and ontologies (84).
• The understanding of what constitutes 'science' is incoherent in IR. IR scholars neither believe 'science' has an objective meaning nor do they fully question the idea of 'science' as a category; they are neither positivist nor post-positivist in their understandings of science. Instead 'science' is viewed as an ideal form by IR theorists, an ahistorical set of attributes to be embraced or opposed (85).
• IR also struggles to create good theory because it cannot as a field decide what the purpose of theory is. A fully positivist approach sees theory as establishing natural laws through experimentation, but many people within IR disagree with this approach. Since there is no single measurement of a the purpose of theory, people are creating theories for different reasons, and everyone is unhappy (88).
• As a discipline, IR also fails to adequately question what the purpose of even having theory is; it obsesses over categorizing examples and developing theories without a clear reason for doing so (90).
• Moreover, discussions of theory in IR fail to recognize that prominent theories serve some purpose by advancing world views which benefit a group or perspective. They, therefore, cannot be disproven with evidence, as much of their ultimate support is not based on evidence, but on benefiting someone (90).