The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the

The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory

The 1954 Conference on Theory, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, featured a who's who of scholars and practitioners debating the foundations of international relations theory. Assembling his own team of experts, all of whom have struggled with this legacy, Nicolas Guilhot revisits a seminal event and its odd rejection of scientific rationalism.

Far from being a spontaneous development, these essays argue, the emergence of a "realist" approach to international politics, later codified at the conference, was deliberately triggered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The organization was an early advocate of scholars who opposed the idea of a "science" of politics, pursuing, for the sake of disciplinary autonomy, a vision of politics as a prerational and existential dimension that could not be "solved" by scientific means. As a result, this nascent theory was more a rejection of behavioral social science than the birth of one of its specialized branches. The archived conversations reproduced here, along with unpublished papers by Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Nitze, speak to this defensive stance. International relations theory is critically linked to the context of postwar liberalism, and the contributors explore how these origins have played out in political thought and American foreign policy.
Country USA
Brand Columbia University Press
Manufacturer Columbia University Press
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780231152679
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Columbia University Press
Manufacturer	Columbia University Press
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780231152679
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory

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