International Studies Quarterly
Debating Global International Relations (IR): Philosophical and Meta-Theoretical Perspectives
2026-04-13
The debate over essentialism in Global International Relations (IR), illustrated by Barnett and Zarakol’s “relationalist camp” and Eun, Kristensen, and Shahi’s “pluralist camp,” reflects a deeper philosophical misalignment about what constitutes theoretical progress in IR. While the two sides offer contrasting diagnoses of essentialism, neither engages explicitly with the philosophy of science, which offers criteria for assessing progress: Kuhn’s paradigmatic change, Lakatos’s progressive research programs, and Laudan’s problem-solving capacity. Absent this meta-theoretical grounding, these debates risk talking past one another, since they employ incommensurable standards for Global IR’s advancement. This paper critically appraises the essentialism debate and proposes a three-step, gradualist model of theoretical evaluation as one viable pathway for Global IR: beginning with problem-solving effectiveness (Laudan), progressing through cumulative research programs (Lakatos), and ultimately aspiring to disciplinary-matrix change rather than wholesale theory replacement (Kuhn). The paper argues that the central challenge for Global IR is not to abandon pluralism, but to move beyond pluralism as an end in itself by making evaluative criteria explicit, fostering cumulative knowledge production, and encouraging open debate over alternative frameworks for assessing theoretical progress.