International Relations and the `Problem of History'

Abstract

The recent emergence of the discourse of the `historical turn' in International Relations (IR) suggests that the discipline shows greater sensitivity to history. However, despite the ubiquity of more historically informed research, mainstream IR has failed to take account of the `problem of history' as highlighted by on-going debates between traditional historians and critical historiographers. According to Jacques Derrida the `problem of history' is not problematic in the conventional sense: rather it is precisely because we can never arrive at a closed historical interpretation that there is historicity in the first place. Therefore, with its continued refusal of the `problem of history', the extent to which IR has turned historical must be questioned. This article draws on Derrida's work in order to argue for an alternative approach to the way we look at the past: one that embraces rather than side-steps the radical indeterminacy of historical meaning in order to bring historicity into analyses of world politics.