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MUCH CURRENT RESEARCH AND TEACHING IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IS RESTRICTED TO NARROW THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL AREAS. IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE GLOBAL DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL LIFE, SCHOLARS MUST REPLACE THEIR CURRENT PARTICULARIST INQUIRIES WITH A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE DISCIPLINE, FOUNDED ON A DIALECTICAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. THE GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS, WHICH HIGHLIGHTS THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN HISTORY AND NATURE, CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD THROUGH PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION.

Argues for a philosophical approach, in contrast to concentration on narrow areas of research.

The study of social sciences in general and the discipline of International Relations (IR) in particular, always remained the areas of less scholarly significance, because the leading academic circles remained less-inclined towards the non-western production of knowledge in the international system. The main discussions of IR generally revolve around the western discourse and approaches to knowledge. The end of the decades-long Cold War and the elimination of the Soviet Union from the world politics allowed the Western academic circles to influence the production of knowledge in the international system. In this way, the production of knowledge and the promotion of knowledge ignored the non-western academic perspectives. Contrary to conventional academic patterns, there is a need to realize the significance of non-western literature in academics while updating the conventional academic patterns. In this scenario, this paper attempts to address the questions of the production of knowledge and promotion of knowledge on the basis of relative perspectives. While emphasizing the non-western or non-American approaches to knowledge, the central theme of the paper endeavors to highlight the importance of the non-western way of looking at world politics.

The disciplinary history of international relations (IR) is usually told as a succession of theories or "isms" that are connected to academic schools. Echoing the increasing criticism of this narrative, we present in this article a new perspective on the discipline. We introduce concepts from linguistics and its method of digital discourse analysis (DDA) to explore discursive shifts and terminological entrepreneurship in IR. DDA directs attention away from schools of thought and "heroic figures" who allegedly invented new theories. As we show exemplarily with the rise of "regime theory," there were entire generations of IR scholars who (more or less consciously) developed new vocabularies to frame and address their common concerns. The terminological history of "international regime" starts in nineteenth century international law, in which French authors already used "régime" to describe transnational forms of governance that were more than a treaty but less than an international organization. Only in the 1980s, however, was an explicit definition of "international regime" forged in American IR, which combined textual elements already in use. We submit that such observations can change the way in which we understand, narrate, and teach the discipline of IR. DDA decenters IR theory from its traditional focus on schools and individuals and suggests unlearning established taxonomies of "isms." The introduction of corpus linguistic methods to the study of academic IR can thus provide new epistemological directions for the field.

Prompted by Hagmann and Biersteker's (2014) call for a critical pedagogy of international relations, this article addresses the "taught discipline" of international relations arguing that the field needs a sustained and systematic debate on the role of IR pedagogy. In typical disciplinary stocktaking, scholars focus primarily on the "published discipline" and the "practiced discipline," leaving a gap in our understanding of a major component of academic international relations—teaching. This article maps the discipline's intellectual system of influence and exchange to demonstrate the attenuated influence of the taught discipline. Then it presents critical questions to initiate a robust debate on the place, purpose, and scope of IR pedagogy. The purpose here is to improve the quality and thoughtfulness of classroom teaching, and to explore the underappreciated potential of the taught discipline as a site of rejuvenation in the intellectual life of international relations.

On 22–23 November 2016, the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick hosted a lively conference on research 'impact', a key component of the Research Excellence Framework (REF)—the periodic peer review in UK Higher Education to evaluate the quality of academic work, in turn determining how nearly £2 billion of annual research funding is allocated among competing institutions. In contrast to many other conferences and workshops about impact, a feature of REF that has generated much fevered commentary across the university sector about the public value of academic research, our event was tightly focused on impact as it relates to the discipline of Politics and International Studies. Featuring presentations from a range of academic and non-academic constituencies—including journalists, government officials, and representatives from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE),1 the creator and (at the time of writing) controller of the REF—conversation was particularly timely, owing to the publication, a few months earlier, of the eagerly awaited Stern Review on the future of university research assessment. This special issue contains selected papers from the conference, with the goal of shedding light on how the discipline as a whole, but also its varied composite parts, is responding to the impact agenda in the lead up to REF2021, now looming close on the horizon. We are grateful to the contributors for their participation and for opening up many new facets to the ongoing dialogue about impact.

This introduction provides an overview of the gendered nature of politics and international relations, before a brief summary of the articles that make-up this special issue.

The ability to conduct academic research is partly a function of the timeavailable for it, especially relative to teaching and administrative obligations.1 For the last decade, both the number of students enrolled at Germanuniversities and the number of full-time professors has remained atabout the same level. The number of wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter, doctorallevelresearch assistants, however, has increased by more than half, andthe number of Lehrbeauftragte, those on temporary teaching contracts, hasincreased by three-quarters. There is thus no lack of personnel to helpprofessors meet teaching or administrative obligations, or to assist onresearch projects.2 Nevertheless, and particularly in the humanities, Germanprofessors complain about their teaching burdens, about addedadministrative tasks their universities place upon them,3 and about whatthey see as new pressures to bring in funding or produce results.4 That theHistorikertag, the biannual meeting of German historians, had "Boundaries"(2010) and "Resources—Conflicts" (2012) as the overarching themesfor its last two meetings seems in keeping with this sentiment.