Saving the Discipline: Plurality, Social Capital, and the Sociology of IR Theorizing

For several decades, the field of International Relations theory has been
preoccupied with its own methodological and theoretical plurality. As a
consequence, IR scholars have proposed a range of different solutions
to this “problem.” In doing so, they have drawn from different sources
of social capital in the field, allowing them to base their legitimacy on
the ways they relate to “progress” and the status quo. Drawing from
Bourdieu’s sociology, this article will explore five different strategies for
“saving the discipline” and show how they relate to different kinds of
scientific capital and power relations in the field. It will also explore the
ways in which social conventions (such as politesse) can be used as tools
for symbolic violence. The article will finish by arguing that rather than
a problem to be resolved, plurality functions as an organizing principle
regulating social power relations in the field.