ABSTRACT
The differences can hardly be treated as summing to competitive theories, since integrated propositions about the interaction of key variables are conspicuously absent from most formulations. Notwithstanding their lack of theory, structure, and coherence, however, the aforementioned differences are sufficiently important to justify differentiation among students of world politics in terms of their general approach to–or perspective on–the phenomena of the field. An interesting and often unrecognized consequence of these different assumptions about the order underlying world politics is that they tend to lead to different methodologies especially suitable to carrying forward the inquiries that the practitioners of the different approaches deem important. There is a close connection between the substantive premises and methodological impulses that differentiate the various approaches to the field.
