International Relations as an Academic Pursuit (1972)

Abstract

This collection has concentrated on the elaboration and development of the concept of international society. But the importance of this work should not obscure the breadth of Bull’s view of international relations as a field of study. He believed that it has a distinctive subject-matter but is not ‘in the full sense’ a subject; it has its own driving concerns and questions but, at the same time, must be open to a wide range of disciplinary and methodological approaches. He maintained this view consistently, arguing, for example in a lecture given in Oxford: ‘What is international relations? It is not a subject, only a subject-matter or field of inquiry. Some subjects are disciplines, but not IR or politics. It is a subject-matter to which one can apply various disciplines: history, philosophy, law, sociology, maths.’†

Hedley Bull, ‘International Relations as an Academic Pursuit’, Australian Outlook, 26: 3 (December 1972).