ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief sketch of international relations (IR)'s development in the context of the modern sciences. The point of IR is to provide scientific analyses of the workings of international politics as the precondition for better political practice. The chapter shows that these analyses tend to attribute the shortcomings of IR studies to certain features of the discipline itself: the poverty of its subject matter, its internal fragmentation, and its immaturity. IR scholars, in sum, widely assume that the point of the discipline is to produce an accurate understanding of the dynamics of international politics that can serve as the basis for political reform. Wars, civil conflicts, and terrorist attacks characterize world politics; the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing between and within states; economic and financial crises occur regularly; global warming is accelerating; and the human rights of women, children, migrants, prisoners, political, religious, and ethnic groups are widely and systematically violated.
