International Relations: The Story So Far

Abstract

‘The Story So Far’ is the conclusion of the first centenary Special Issue of the journal International Relations. The issue marks 100 years since the birth of the academic discipline of International Relations (IR), whose institutional moment was the endowment establishing the Department of International Politics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, at the end of 1918, and its subsequent opening in April 1919. The collection of articles marking this unique event consists of reflections by a group of leading scholars on themes of continuity and change at the international level of world politics in that century. The present article considers these reflections in the context of problematising our attempts to understand the long history and complex dynamics of international relations.