ABSTRACT
What is ‘the international’ from the point of view of social theory? Can its significance
be apprehended from within existing social theories, suitably applied? Or does it
necessitate a revision of the most basic shared assumptions of those theories-the
‘general abstractions’ by which they frame their conception of the social world itself?
What, moreover, and in the light of these considerations, is the intellectual and poli-
tical standing of Realism as an approach to international theory? In the following
exchange of letters these questions are debated by two authors who, sharing the lan-
guage and principles of historical materialism, enter the issue from different direc-
tions-and, thus far, with differing results.
