ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what has been the unique contribution of international relations (IR) to the social sciences and humanities in three steps. First, it argues that IR has never quite been established as a field in its own right. It emerged as an extension of Political Science and has remained trapped within a borrowed definition of its subject matter. This "prison of political science" explains failure to produce ideas that can travel to other disciplines. Second, however, this was not a necessary outcome. On the contrary, IR rests upon a fundamental fact that is full of implications for the social sciences. This is the fact that the human world comprises a multiplicity of co-existing societies. Finally, the chapter considers one such idea – that of "uneven and combined development" – which could become a successful export from IR because it carries the importance of the international directly into the subject matter of other disciplines.
