Abstract
In the disciplinary history of the study of international relations, the methodological experiments of Charles Merriam, Quincy Wright, Harold Lasswell and others in the University of Chicago since the early 1920s argued for a scientific approach as distinct from the traditional wisdom outlook. Textual interpretation of the Chicago School's writings is intended to show how these early conceptions may be mediated in the methodological fabric of the present research orientations. In analysing the historical meaning of these early texts, the organizing concepts and epistemic codes are related to their contemporary contexts and discursive practices. The Chicago School absorbed methodological principles from current debates concerning evolutionary theories, Social-Darwinism and Pragmatism. Their principal research object was urban community and the evolutive relationship between personality, society and environment. This scheme was supposed to apply from local communities to world-wide structures. In this sense, the Chicago School argues for a unified base for policy studies. In the history of international relations as a discipline, the Chicago School represents early attempts to define international relations in terms of reductive methodologies, participatory research, democratic institutions and pluralistic conceptions of politics. The textual interpretation shows that the Chicago School is mediating to the present two fundamental methodological issues: (a) as a research outline it takes for granted some social and political setting, a context of interpretation and prescription; (b) the scholar must imagine a position and justification for his own activities between this context and the organized body of knowledge he is supposed to represent in contemporary discourses.
Published Version
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