ABSTRACT
Recalling Martin Wight's famous triadic presentation of international theory realism, rationalism, and the revolutionary tradition. Der Derian discussed three approaches vying for an interpretive place in international relations (IR) at the end of the twentieth century. The approach was genealogy. The point of genealogical analysis is to trace the small, discrete and disconnected beginnings of formations we now take for granted, and now treat as if they were natural, given, or established by reason or expressive of an inner telos. This chapter highlights the account of genealogical inquiry that Der Derian thought it important that a community of scholars might derive from Nietzsche. Der Derian, in a slightly different context, once suggested that the paramount obstacle to critical investigation lies in the relationship of international theory to the ultima ratio of realism. In effect, international theory helped realism maintain its value as the common currency of international relations because it did not trouble the naturalness of its relationship to violence.
