ABSTRACT
My editor has asked me to address three themes in the final chapter of this volume: the future of international relations, international relations theory, and my research agenda. I can only speak with assurance about the last; it is the only one over which I have any control. Even here, research plans get sidetracked or transformed, and new projects emerge in response to developments in the world, intriguing ideas from colleagues and publications to which one feels compelled to respond. My introduction presents my career as a logical progression, but students of autobiography tell us that these narratives impose an order in retrospect that was not apparent at the time, and perhaps never existed.
