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The crucial feature of the period 1946–1958 in France, in many respects, has been the contrast between the changes which have occurred in French society and the performance of a political system which seemed to repeat and to magnify the vices of the Third Republic's last years. On the one hand, the image of a static France obstinately clinging to protectionism, to a pastoral or artisanal ideal, to the security afforded by restrictive practices and state favors, was becoming obsolete. On the other hand, the political system appeared unable either to deal with the tensions, economic growth and change created in society, or to define a coherent policy for overseas affairs.

It has become customary to begin a discussion of the nature and present state of the discipline of international relations with a number of complaints. This article will not abandon the custom; indeed, its purpose is, in the first place, to state the conviction that many of the problems we face in our field can be solved only by far more systematic theoretical work than has been done in the past—a conviction shared by most writers. Secondly, however, I will try to show that recent approaches to a general theory of international relations are unsatisfactory, because each one is, in its own fashion, a short cut to knowledge—sometimes even a short cut to a destination that is anything but knowledge.