Introduction The Unknown Kaplan: Synoptic Knowledge after Postmodernism

Abstract

When Morton Kaplan published System and Process in International Politics in 1957, the field of International Relations (IR) acknowledged it immediately as a groundbreaking contribution to the theorization of world politics. Kaplan proposed a systems approach to international processes that would enable IR to break with its loosely defined political-philosophical tradition and establish a solid, empirical basis for studying a particularly complex realm of reality. This work is still referenced today in IR textbooks, and almost half a century after its first publication the European Consortium for Political Research reprinted it as one of the first three volumes in its Classics series (Kaplan 2005 [1957]).

Parts of this essay appeared in an article published by International Studies Quarterly (Hamati-Ataya 2012), and are reprinted here with permission from the International Studies Association and Wiley-Blackwell.