Great Debates

Abstract: Within the community of academic students of international politics today there is a deep epistemological rift over the extent to and ways in which we can know our subject. Speaking very broadly, on one side stand what have become known as 'positivists', who think we can get closer to the truth about international politics, but only if we follow the methods which have proven so successful in the natural sciences. And on the other side stand ‘post-positivists’, who think we do not have privileged access to the truth about international politics, and least of all through the methods of natural science. Although it can seem far removed, this epistemological disagreement actually matters quite a lot to our collective efforts to make sense of the real world, since we cannot avoid taking some position on it, and those positions affect the questions we ask, the methods we use to answer those questions, and ultimately the kinds of knowledge that we produce. Perhaps for this reason what may seem more a dispute for philosophers than political scientists has become one of the ‘Great Debates’ (the Third) in the discipline of International Relations (IR), and, indeed, it arguably underlay the ‘Second’ Debate between behaviouralists and traditionalists in the 1960s as well.

Abstract: In recent years, there has been an explosion of educational practices and curriculum resource materials that make use of the broad concept of media literacy. Media literacy has been defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms (Aufderheide, 1993). It is a term used by a growing number of scholars and educators to refer to the process of critically analyzing and learning to create one’s own messages in print, audio, video, and multimedia. Its emphasis is on the learning and teaching of these skills through using mass media texts in primarily school-based contexts (Alvarado, Gutch, & Wollen, 1987; Brown, 1991; Hobbs, 1994a; Piette, 1997). Media literacy, though, is a concept whose broad definition and range of applications lead to diverse approaches, creating some intriguing conflicts and tensions. Tyner (1992) has drawn parallels between the emerging media literacy movement in the United States and the parable of the blind men and the elephant, each of whom senses a tiny part of the whole. Educators and scholars with disciplinary backgrounds in media studies, the fine and performing arts, history, psychology and sociology, education, and literary analysis each may vigorously defend one’s own understanding of what it means to access, analyze, evaluate, or create media texts without a full awareness of the extent of the complexity, depth, or integrity of various other approaches. Illustrating the antagonism generated by this diversity, at the founding convention of the Cultural Environment Movement in St. Louis in April 1996, Bob McCannon, a leader of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, noted that, “Whenever media literacy educators get together, they always circle the wagons—and shoot in!” Does the wide diversity of perspectives among educators serve as a source of strength for the emerging media literacy movement, or does it suggest the essentially problematic nature of recent attempts to define and implement such an expansive and unstable concept as media literacy? The tensions that are generated when media educators come together may limit the ability of educators to collaborate on projects of significant national or

Abstract: With a view to providing contextual background for the Special Issue, this opening article analyses several dimensions of 'The end of International Relations theory?' It opens with a consideration of the status of different types of theory. Thereafter, we look at the proliferation of theories that has taken place since the emergence of the third/fourth debate. The coexistence and competition between an ever-greater number of theories begs the question: what kind of theoretical pluralism should IR scholars embrace? We offer a particular account of theoretical engagement that is preferable to the alternatives currently being practised: integrative pluralism. The article ends on a cautiously optimistic note: given the disciplinary competition that now exists in relation to explaining and understanding global social forces, International Relations may find resilience because it has become theory-led, theory-literate and theory-concerned.

Abstract: The history of the discipline of International Relations is commonly told in terms of ‘Great Debates.’ These intellectual clashes resolved little and, indeed, continue to this day. Underneath this ...