Mythology or methodology? Traditions in international theory

Abstract

The development of the academic study of international relations has been peculiarly conditioned by traditions of thought. Martin Wight was the first theorist to reject the binary dualism of the founding traditions of realism and idealism, as he believed it to be ‘the reflection of a diseased situation’. In its place Wight constructed three traditions of Realism, Rationalism and Revolutionism.These served as the foundations for his lectures on international theory given at the London School of Economics in the 1950s which, as Brian Porter acknowledges, ‘have been more heard about than heard’. Due to the relative paucity of Wight's printed legacy, scholars have had to piece together the fragments of his ideas on international theory. With the publication of these twelve lectures there is now a rich resource to be mined, and for this reason, the academy of international relations owes a considerable debt to the editors, Brian Porter and Gabriele Wight, for preserving and transmitting these remarkable orations on international theory.