International Relations and the Problem of Difference

This work developed out of the growing sense that International Relations as a discipline does not assess the quality of cultural interactions that shape, and are shaped by, the changing structures and processes of the international system. IR has long had little to say about the motivations of individuals, about the interactions of communities, or about the role of identity. Inayatullah and Blaney re-imagine IR as a uniquely placed site for the study of differences. They suggest that IR might be organized explicitly around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness and difference.