Interdisiplinary approaches in international relations: An evaluation on history and theory

Abstract

This article emphasizes the importance of interdisiplinarity in the social sciences by analyzing the relationship between international relations and history. The first section examines the influence of history in the emergence of the great debates of international relations. The second section analyzes the historical context in which positivist international relations theories emerged. After these ontological and epistemological perspectives, the article concludes with an overview of how post-positivist theories have contributed to the field methodologically by making use of historical approaches. This multi-level analysis will show the long history of the interaction between the two disciplines, and further point out that historical international relations may help overcome Eurocentricism, which is an intrinsic characteristics of the main international relations theories.