Ikenberry, John. "Liberalism in a Realist World: International Relations as an American Scholarly Tradition". International Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (2009): 203‐219.

Ikenberry, John. "Liberalism in a Realist World: International Relations as an American Scholarly Tradition". International Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (2009): 203‐219.

• Despite America's contemporary position as the centre for the study of International Relations (IR), many of the key ideas that inform American IR are legacies of immigrant scholars; English academics in the case of Liberalism and German and Austrian academics during the 1930s for Realism (204).
• The author contends that the majority of American IR has been driven by the debate between the Realist and Liberal schools of IR theory. They have been the most historically influential and prominent in American foreign policy (204‐205).
• The development of American IR has been influenced by 4 major elements of American foreign policy during the post‐war period: the dominant role of American power, which demanded answers about America's proper place in the world; American foundation in Liberal principles; the pressures of the Cold War; the rise of social science (205).
• The 'great debates' between Liberalism and Realism have shifted over the years. They began with Realism and Idealism determining how to best maintain the Versailles order, then reemerged as geopolitical Realism versus behavioralist Liberalism and game theory during the 1960s, to which disputes over the role of states versus institutions were added in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the 'neo' versions of both schools had emerged, leading to a debate over the importance of relative versus absolute gains. Constructivism has emerged as a potential challenger in the 1990s (206).
• The debate began with Richard Carr's work "The Twenty Year's Crisis" about the failure of the Versailles peace, and ruthless attacked Liberals for being Idealists without grounding in reality (208).
• Hans Morgenthau was really the first scholar to suggest that IR theory be studied like a science, and this idea resulted in the professionalization of the field as a whole (209).
• "By the 1960s, the realist and liberal wings of the American discipline of IR were established, each pursuing its own research agendas. Liberal international theory was focused primarily on [...] regional integration, formal organizations and security communities. [...] Realists focused on the emerging logic of Cold War security relations" (212).
• Realism flourished in understanding security relations between nuclear powers during the Cold War, whereas Liberalism became increasingly popular following the collapse of the USSR to explain the condition for a democratic peace supposed to take place after the defeat of Communism (217).