Discontent, but Also Blind? Understanding the Discipline of International Relations in Greece

Abstract

This article pursues the brief and systematic description of the conditions under which the scientific work in the name of International Relations has been produced locally, namely in Greece. The narration unfolds on the basis of four sets of factors: a) the institutional structure of I.R., mainly in terms of university structure, b) the role of society, i.e. the so called external elements of science like ideology and foreign policy, c) the science-society relationship and the meaning of science and d) the theoretical content. The critical reconstruction of the self-image demonstrates that presentist tendencies in self-reference (whereby the intellectual past is seen through the perspective of the present) may characterize non Anglo-Saxon communities as well. Such tendency is viewing the development of I.R. mainly as a confrontation between the study of international law and that of international politics or between political realism and its critiques like liberalism or critical approaches. But this hides or downplays the actual mechanisms through which the discipline had indeed been under-developed.