ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I attempt to move beyond a strict investigation of whether the first debate was a complete myth, a half-truth, or historical reality. Instead, I consider the debate in light of the way in which scholars attempt to manage disciplinary identity. My own view on the status of the first debate is elaborated in an earlier article in which I argued that the debate was partly a response to the need for social identity (Thies 2002). I suggested that realists needed an out-group to contrast to their in-group, so they created a narrative history of idealism that included a fictional idealist group of scholars. The creation of this disciplinary history also allowed realists to claim progress in the generation of knowledge about the world, since they could argue that their preferred theoretical approach defeated that of the idealists. Ultimately, I identified the realist construction of what I called an idealist “myth” or “straw man” that would ultimately serve to indoctrinate generations of IR students and policymakers.
