everyday politics, the notions of left and right help in comparing
approaches as well as understanding the “great debates” that have
marked the history of international relations.
“Normal science” as disseminated in academic textbooks is a good
place to start to see how neglected the left–right terminology is in
international relations theory.^90 One should first know in this regard
that a widespread practice of contemporary “normal” international
relations is to summarize the theoretical debates of the field into
typologies that are structured around a few basic criteria.^91 Admit-
tedly, the standard classifications diverge as to both the number of
theories and their exact names. Experts disagree, for example, on
whether realism and neorealism are distinct schools of thought, or
whether liberalism and neoliberal institutionalism ought to be amal-
gamated. Yet beyond these academic disputes, normal science recog-
nizes four major intellectual traditions in international politics:
realism, which stresses the promotion of the national interest; liber-
alism, which centers on the process of cooperation; neoMarxism,
which highlights the inherently conflictual nature of capitalism; and
constructivism, which emphasizes the role of ideas. Each tradition is
typically characterized by its distinct concepts, its specific units of
analysis, and its own view on the motives of actors and on the inter-
national system.
Despite their undeniable usefulness, standard typologies of inter-
national relations theory are far from perfect. They tend, for instance,
to marginalize alternative schools of thought such as postmodernism
and feminism. More importantly, however, they present the different
theories as if they were mutually incommensurable, and, furthermore,
most classifications exclude any idea of measurement.
The incommensurability of the classifications of international
relations theories can be illustrated in two major ways. First, the
(^90) Thomas S. Kuhn,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago
91 Press, 1962, p. 10.
See, for example, Paul R. Viotti and Mark. V. Kauppi,International Relations
Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism, second edition, New York, Macmillan,
1993, p. 10; Stephen M. Walt, “International Relations: One World, Many
Theories,”Foreign Policy, no. 110, 1998, 29–46, p. 30; Karen A. Mingst,
Essentials of International Relations, second edition, New York, W. W. Norton,
2003, p. 79; Charles W. Kegley, Jr., and Eugene R. Wittkopf,World Politics:
Trends and Transformation, tenth edition, Belmont, Thomson-Wadsworth,
2006, pp. 47–48.
The core currency of political exchange 223