ABSTRACT
It is necessary to examine the extent of diversity in the field according to multiple dimensions. This chapter focuses on the existing mainstream of International Relations (IR) and on the newly emerging Asian IR community. The reasons for choosing these two particular IR communities are twofold. First, American IR has maintained a powerful disciplinary influence by force of its institutional and financial resources, and the hard power of the United States. Second, several scholars have expected that "US parochialism" and "growing interest in IR outside the core in 'rising' countries such as China" would lead to rapid waning of American disciplinary power while opening up new spaces for the study of international relations. According to the data provided by Maliniak and others' study, more than 70 percent of contemporary IR literature produced in the United States falls within the three major theoretical paradigms – realism, liberalism, and conventional constructivism – all of which lie within the "epistemological" ambit of positivism.
