Abstract
This chapter summarizes the main points of the (meta)theoretical discussions and the findings of the empirical investigations carried out in earlier chapters. Following from this, the chapter also draws some critical implications for the ongoing discussion about IR pluralism, pointing out the importance of self-reflexivity and the roles of individual scholars as “organic intellectuals.” In particular, the chapter notes that self-reflexivity, combined with critical recognition of socio-epistemic issues at stake with knowledge production, serves to provide a necessary motivation to bring about change and diversity in the present state of IR. Only when critical self-reflection functions as a leitmotif for pluralism, will “socialized” disciplinary mechanisms, such as positivism-centered IR publication system and pedagogy, be changed in ways that not only accept a flourishing of diverse experiences, theories, and methodologies but also translate it to the published text and take it into the classroom.
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Notes
- 1.
I borrow this term from Wight’s study (2006: 98) on ontology of international relations.
- 2.
Here, I benefited from a discussion with Hasok Chang, Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University.
- 3.
For a more detailed account of how the initiative was created and what it does, go to http://www.isipe.net (Accessed July 15, 2015).
- 4.
In their study, two important questions—that this book has examined—remain underexplored. First, how (i.e., through what mechanisms and processes) is the standard understanding/approach in IR reproduced? Arlene Tickner (2013: 628) has recently observed that “many aspects of the inner workings of IR continue to be underexplored.” A second (and more important, in my view) question that remains to be answered is, what is required if IR scholars are to preserve their maximum autonomy within the mechanisms and processes or to change those mechanisms and processes? This latter question is the one that is closely related to the “reflexive pluralism” advocated here.
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Eun, YS. (2016). Conclusion. In: Pluralism and Engagement in the Discipline of International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1121-4_5
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