ABSTRACT
Interpretive research is alive, well, and expanding in international relations, examining an increasing range of substantive, theoretical, and conceptual problems. Interpretivists, for example, challenge conventional understandings of international security for promoting militarized solutions to confl icts and creating gendered hierarchies of issues considered to be signifi cant for international politics. They call into question the liberal assumptions of truisms regarding wealth generation and poverty relief, pointing out the voices and societies left out of these assumptions. They trace the genealogy of international legal norms and institutions to demonstrate their racialized nature in contexts of decolonization. They analyze the linguistic properties, rules and norms, discourse and power relations involved in the construction and maintenance of these and a host of other practices and processes in international relations. This chapter discusses the reasons for and bases of interpretive work in IR, focusing on its goals, its differences with non-interpretive research, and the substantive problems in world politics that have prompted its various forms to take hold. In addressing these issues, the chapter also explicates the major questions in philosophy of science and social theory that make interpretive research possible, necessary, and valid.
