China Social Science Review

No.4, 2020

Area and States Studies in International Relations: The Turn to Practice and the Discipline Approach

(Abstract) 

Zhang Yun

The field of international relations has long felt its way forward by drawing on the interdisciplinary interweaving of political science, sociology, history, economics and other fields. At one time, the issue of the commensurability of the three paradigms of international relations and of international and domestic studies touched on the core propositions of the ontological debate in international relations, but it did not go deeper due to the lack of practice-oriented theoretical feedback. In the ontology of international relations, area and states studies have the value of practice and are thus conducive to linking up international relations theory and practice and scholarship and policy, providing a broad space in the sense of practice for dialogue between international relations and other disciplines. This will provide a new impetus for the development of the international relations field.