International Theory Beyond the Three Traditions: A Student's Conversation with Martin Wight (1913-1972)
Abstract
It is May 1960. Jim, an eager but somewhat anxious student, has an appointment with Mr Martin Wight, then Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE), and soon to become Dean of European Studies and Professor of History at the University of Sussex. Wight’s ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ has just been published.1 Together with ‘Western Values in International Relations’, which later appeared alongside the reprinted ‘Why’ essay in Diplomatic Investigations (1966),2 the article represents the fruit of at last four years of Wight’s research on the ‘international theory’ to be found in the ...
View more >It is May 1960. Jim, an eager but somewhat anxious student, has an appointment with Mr Martin Wight, then Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE), and soon to become Dean of European Studies and Professor of History at the University of Sussex. Wight’s ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ has just been published.1 Together with ‘Western Values in International Relations’, which later appeared alongside the reprinted ‘Why’ essay in Diplomatic Investigations (1966),2 the article represents the fruit of at last four years of Wight’s research on the ‘international theory’ to be found in the intellectual history of the West. Jim is worried, however, that it seems to contradict some of Wight’s earlier arguments, in lectures that Jim heard at LSE, and, in the course of the conversation, inquires how Wight’s thought on international theory and the ‘society of states’ is evolving after his initial experiments, in those lectures, with the ‘three traditions’.3
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View more >It is May 1960. Jim, an eager but somewhat anxious student, has an appointment with Mr Martin Wight, then Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE), and soon to become Dean of European Studies and Professor of History at the University of Sussex. Wight’s ‘Why is there no International Theory?’ has just been published.1 Together with ‘Western Values in International Relations’, which later appeared alongside the reprinted ‘Why’ essay in Diplomatic Investigations (1966),2 the article represents the fruit of at last four years of Wight’s research on the ‘international theory’ to be found in the intellectual history of the West. Jim is worried, however, that it seems to contradict some of Wight’s earlier arguments, in lectures that Jim heard at LSE, and, in the course of the conversation, inquires how Wight’s thought on international theory and the ‘society of states’ is evolving after his initial experiments, in those lectures, with the ‘three traditions’.3
View less >
Book Title
The Return of the Theorists: Dialogues with Great Thinkers in International Relations
Subject
International relations