Historical Sociology in International Relations

Abstract

Historical International Relations (HIR) and Historical Sociology (HS) are intimately connected, as the recovery of historical thinking within the discipline happened largely through drawing on works of HS. Thus, distinguishing between the two is a question less of different ontologies or epistemologies, but of definition or orientation. While much of the work in HIR is sociological in character, HS covers a broad spectrum of HIR as well. At its core, HS has been concerned with understanding the roots of our current predicament. That is, how can we make sense of modernity through understanding the origins of, and paths to, modernity? Given the recent critique of the largely statist approach historical sociologists have tended to follow, we believe the most productive way of providing an overview of HS is through gauging the productive tension underlying a discussion of historical sociology vs global historical sociology. This allows for the double aim of providing an overview of HS relevant to IR, while at the same time, pointing at ways to make HS – and HIR more generally – more global.