Description
This paper will trace IR’s interaction with History and the turn to Historiographical research. It will claim that the initial introduction of History to International Relations can be linked with the development of Realism in IR. Substantively, Realists introduced IR to the study of power politics and the realization that there is nothing besides the study of states and war that matters in International Relations. Even though some of the main Realists had a strong understanding of History, this first interaction with History contributed to substantively frame in IR traditional concerns of brought from History and namely from the work of diplomatic historians. A second debate emerged that aimed to bring to light the epistemological and methodological nature of research in IR – and how dependent on History it should be. Moving away from substance, this debate highlighted how we can’t know anything without some form of (historical) contextualization of what is known. Against the tendency to move IR towards positivism, historicism was brought in to revitalize the idea that no knowledge is complete without contextual subjectivity. The third debate, aimed to return to the first initial contribution and understand how history frames knowledge in IR while, at the same time, reinforces the importance of the traditional ‘subject-matter’. The debate about “what is history” and the substantive reinforcement of the concern with order, soldiers and diplomats is highlighted. Since the 2000s, however, a new wave of research is reinventing the interaction between IR and History. Historiographical concerns have emerged that move the epistemological and methodological debate beyond an expanded yet limited understanding of knowledge towards a focus on concepts and ideas. Substantively, historiographical research questions the prevailing assumptions of the traditional historical approach: it moves beyond ‘high politics’ towards ‘low politics’, beyond hierarchy towards multiplicity, beyond the national towards the global.
