Knud Erik Jørgensen

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Aarhus University

Many scholars have employed the notion of American hegemony in their meta-studies of the discipline and enthusiastically discussed what could be done about it. However, by the early 21st century, this image is so ‘last century’—not least because a new trend is emerging that questions whether hegemony is the right place to start. The article examine...

During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union’s international relations have become more substan...

In contrast to science, it is in science fiction fairly common to encounter and explore parallel worlds. In International Relations (IR) we tend to shy away from the possible existence of parallel worlds. According to a widespread worldview in the field there is, as Stephen Walt has put it, “one world – many theories” (Walt 1998). In this brief ess...

The realist theoretical tradition has never enjoyed a strong position in Europe. During recent decades, although it is commonly claimed otherwise, it even seems to have lost its limited traction and most of its relatively few representatives. The aim of the article is to analyse this evolution, highlight how realist theorists have contributed limit...

The aim of the article is to develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of foreign policy paradigms. In order to develop such a framework, we review the wider literature on policy paradigms and adapt it to the field of foreign relations and diplomacy. Adaptation includes the explication of key concepts, such as identity, values, goals, means a...

This chapter designs a new home for the discipline, the human sciences, a home that is a veritable mansion encompassing both the social sciences and the humanities. The chapter argues that while scholars conventionally define the discipline as a social science, it is increasingly an empty signifier and, in addition, raises questions about what a so...

This chapter takes a truly diverse take on ‘diversity’, arguing that the discipline, including its sub-disciplines, is as close to diverse as it gets. The chapter accounts for both those who believe diversity is a threat to discipline and those who believe in ‘diversity unlimited’. It offers a way forward, arguing that diversity and discipline are...

This chapter addresses explicitly the issue of the discipline’s origin and distribution, specifically the multiple gardens in which gardeners cultivate and nurture it. In turn, this raises the issue of the terroir, that is, the soil in which it grows and which cause distinct characteristics, for instance universalism and parochialism. The chapter a...

This book demonstrates that the global community of International Relations scholars during the last 100 years have managed to create a mature and accomplished discipline. The book argues that it should be recognised as such. Seven key concepts structure the book, each concept enabling a critical examination of an important dimension of the discipl...

This chapter is an inquiry into the community of scholars who self-identify as IR scholars, that is, the gardeners who aim at making the growth of discipline a constant feature. They nurture the discipline and defend it against its enemies. The chapter examines the norms, values and standards of the profession, demonstrating how these change over t...

This chapter looks into the ubiquitous but in the IR literature rarely analysed term ‘discipline’. How, when and why did disciplines emerge? What did they replace? When did IR join the family of scientific disciplines? The chapter make a plea for a broad definition, one that goes beyond its theories (though they are important) and a definition that...

This chapter acknowledges that subject matter traditionally plays an important role in defining the scope of discipline. Given that the issue goes to the bone of being a discipline, fierce debates characterize the development of the discipline. However, the chapter argues that such debates turn out to be less and less fruitful. Hence, instead of jo...

This chapter summarizes the approaches and arrivals of the book. It shows how the seven concepts help us getting under the skin of frequently mentioned but rarely advanced issues, for instance concerning subject matter or the disciplinary functions of theory. The chapter also points to some of the false dichotomies and unfruitful dilemmas (discipli...

This chapter does not introduce IR theory as such but instead introduces the craft of theorizing and highlights the important functions theories have for the development and nature of the discipline, for instance the spine functions of defining a core and representing synthesized knowledge. Moreover, the chapter argues that IR is a dynamic discipli...

The hour of reckoning is when one confronts past mistakes and decides what to do next. Russia’s war in Ukraine reveals numerous European mistakes in the past and accelerates the development of a new foreign policy paradigm. The article examines the emerging policy paradigm and how it organizes the politics of EU foreign policy. Moreover, the articl...

The hour of reckoning is when one confronts past mistakes and decides what to do next. Russia’s war in Ukraine reveals numerous European mistakes in the past and accelerates the development of a new foreign policy paradigm. The article examines the emerging policy paradigm and how it organizes the politics of EU foreign policy. Moreover, the articl...

Introduction It is intriguing, almost amusing, to watch how the disciplinary terroiriste have entered the discipline of International Relations in the last few decades, sometimes called just IR, presumably to avoid too much discipline. Terroir and denominazione origine are no longer a domaine resérvé for wine, cheese or foie gras. For the IR terroi...

Introduction Continuing to apply concepts that scholars frequently use in passing but that merit closer examination, this chapter focuses on community. However, the community in focus is not the international community or its rhetorical or other functions. Nor is it the imagined communities of nations or the communities on Scottish or Indonesian is...

Introduction In recent decades, diversifiers have repeatedly made calls to move beyond hegemony and towards more diversity in IR. There is no apparent end to how diverse the discipline should be, nor any end to how diverse diversity can be. With its plurality of theoretical traditions, myriads of methodologies to serve the theories, a dozen subdisc...

Introduction The contrast could not be starker between arguing, on the one hand, that IR is ‘an American social science’ (Hoffmann, 1977; see also Grosser, 1956), thus reducing IR to no more than a distinct social science in America, and, on the other hand, that IR is a ‘craft discipline’ (Jackson, 2000) or, according to Michael Donelan (1978), tha...

Introduction This chapter traces the nature of theory, including changing conceptions of it. Given that the book is about a discipline that is defined to some degree by its theories, such a chapter seems almost obligatory. That scholars often define the discipline by its theories indicates that the significance of theory for the discipline is consi...

What is International Relations? The previous chapters present in many ways a synthesis of an archipelago of insights about the discipline of IR, a discipline that is not always recognized or appreciated but that is practised by thousands of scholars around the world daily. I have drawn on, reproduced, reconstructed and combined a rich collection o...

As international relations enters its second century as an academic discipline, leading expert Knud Erik Jørgensen provides a provocative assessment of its past, present and future. The result is a concise and challenging appraisal of the discipline, one which both celebrates its value and maps possible future directions.

Introduction Subject matter matters in an almost existential fashion, not least because scholars conventionally insist on using it to define the discipline. Hence disciplines are frequently defined by the subject areas they cover and perhaps for good reasons. Think about it. Within a discipline, it intuitively seems justified to expect a common und...

Discipline. From the Latin discere, to learn. Introduction Having examined its subject matter and situated the discipline in the human sciences (i.e. in the combined environment of the social sciences and the humanities), we should address an issue that goes to the bone of this book but which is strangely avoided in much IR disciplinary self-reflec...

As international relations enters its second century as an academic discipline, leading expert Knud Erik Jørgensen provides a provocative assessment of its past, present and future. The result is a concise and challenging appraisal of the discipline, one which both celebrates its value and maps possible future directions.

The chapter outlines the rationale of the book and contextualizes the liberal theoretical tradition within the discipline of International Relations as well as in relation to broader currents of political thought, with a view to building bridges between disciplinary, theoretical and intellectual history. Moreover, the chapter introduces the agenda...

This chapter concludes the volume and presents wider perspectives. While common threads within the liberal tradition can be identified, its various strands often do not recognize family resemblance but make a priority of highlighting differences. Moreover, the chapter highlights how liberal scholars throughout Europe contribute to make the liberal...

This book examines how the liberal international theory tradition evolved in Europe. It includes nine chapters focusing on both historical and contemporary branches of liberal IR theorizing. The combined portrait of the prominent IR theory orientation shows a long and rich theoretical tradition but also a tradition that the scholarly community rare...

It is a review article, reviewing the following two books: Conceptual history in the European space, edited by Willibald Steinmetz, Michael Freeden, and Javier Fernández-Sebastián, New York, Berghahn Books, 2017, 311 pp., $149.00/£110.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-78533-482-5In search of European liberalisms: concepts, languages, ideologies, edited...

Addressing the issue of EU foreign policy, this article analyses one of the European institutions, the EEAS, and examines how the EEAS navigates in a European landscape characterised by a handful of main foreign policy paradigms. In particular, we ask how the EEAS has adjusted its foreign policies in the light of competing paradigms. In the first s...

The Covid-19 pandemic marks a shift in the EU's approach to the multilateral system. Just at a time when the EU aspires to avoid being crushed between the US and China, the World Health Organization (WHO) became one of the new battlegrounds in world politics. This norm-setting international organization for health was already under pressure due to...

The Covid-19 pandemic marks a shift in the EU’s approach to the multilateral system. Just at a time when the EU aspires to avoid being crushed between the US and China, the World Health Organization (WHO) became one of the new battlegrounds in world politics. This norm-setting international organization for health was already under pressure due to...

(LAST) Call for Participants - Deadline 14 January 2020 Check www.eisa-net.org

The paper examines if English School theorists share conceptualizations, for instance international society, balance of power, via media, with continental European theorists.

This is a major new edition of a highly regarded textbook on International Relations theory which combines coverage of the main contending theories and approaches with cross-cutting coverage of key current issues and debates; of the philosophical foundations of IR theory; and of why different theories are addressed to different research agendas.

In this chapter, we provide a conceptualization of Europe, aiming to contribute to ambitions of mapping the pluralistic universalism of international political thought globally. To this end, we study European intellectual traditions not with the intention to create an enclosed space which separates itself from other spaces, but our understanding of...

In this chapter, we argue what we understand as tradition. Traditions have historical roots and origins. As a theoretical tradition is nothing without theorists to constitute, reproduce and change it, we also focus on the contributions of individual theorists. And traditions, like history, are characterized by both continuities and discontinuities...

In this chapter, we spell out what we mean by reconstruction. The purpose of reconstructing the theoretical traditions including their main characteristics, origins and trajectories as they have evolved in Europe in the twentieth century is threefold: providing concise accounts of broad lines of development and major changes and continuities over t...

This chapter explores how reflexivity represents a promising tool to improve the global circulation of IR. Taking as a starting point the literature highlighting scholars’ responsibility regarding the social and political effects of their discourses, it shows how making explicit the socio-historical conditions of academic productions contributes to...

This chapter examines the debates about IR’s disciplinary status. It argues that despite the numerous critiques, IR is a discipline and operates as such in numerous different parts of the globe. In doing so, this chapter explores the different definitions of what it means to be a discipline and argues that based on a structural and sociological acc...

This chapter positions the book series in the context of the growing concerns of the lack of diversity in IR. Since the 1980s, scholars have been addressing this challenge by mapping “Global IR” and promoting pluralism in the discipline. In comparison with “scholars from the Global South”, European IR scholars still have to properly engage with the...

This chapter asks the question “what does it mean to be hegemonic” in the discipline of IR? It argues that there are two common modes of being hegemonic; an IR community exercises its hegemonic position institutionally and/or intellectually. Exploring the different ways in which an IR community can be hegemonic, this chapter makes the claim that th...

Preface Theorizing is among the most important activities that take place within scientific disciplines, and theories make one of the constituent parts of a discipline. Scholars therefore routinely talk about the discipline of IR and its theories, and because scholars cherish theoretical knowledge, they prime students with the contents of IR 101 sy...

The paper rests on the assumption that theoretical knowledge is valuable. However, such an assumption cannot be taken for granted. Indeed the first objective is to examine the comparative advantages of theoretical knowledge. Second, if 100 theory building workshops would make a difference, what exactly would the difference be? After all, movie prod...

The paper aims at critically examining various ways in which analysts of European foreign policy in their/our studies represent or promote political preferences. Moreover, the paper examines the degree to which politics might have an impact on the findings in studies of European foreign policy. Finally, the paper will demonstrate that while this fe...

This book is about European IR theoretical traditions, their origins, and key figures. Theorizing is among the most important activities that take place within scientific disciplines. Scholars therefore routinely talk/debate about the discipline of IR and its theories, theories are often used to form the pedagogical backbone of IR and theories are...

This article critically examines the promises and pitfalls of realist explanations of power politics in Europe. Starting with the pitfalls and drawing on a previous paper about the end of the realist tradition in Europe, Jørgensen argues that realism is a theoretical tradition (among several others) and that as such realism’s utility as an explanat...

The paper rests on the assumption that theoretical knowledge is valuable yet such an assumption cannot be taken for granted indeed the first objective is to examine the comparative advantages of theoretical knowledge. Second, if 100 workshops would make a difference, what exactly would the difference be? After all, movie production is said to be do...

This final chapter, by Knud Erik Jørgensen, offers conclusions and puts the book in a wider perspective by identifying the ways in which it talks to and is challenged by other strands of literature, particularly on foreign policy. When it comes to conclusions, Jørgensen emphasizes that the EU is not always the inflexible, set-in-stone international...

The chapter sets the scene for the more specifıc chapter and provides a general overview of the EU's engagement in world politics and economics.

The Book: Two major themes in contemporary international relations—Sino-European relations and global governance—are both addressed in this volume. In its focused analysis of Sino-European relations, global governance serves as both a topic for analysis and a conceptual framework to join together individual chapters. Featuring perspectives from a d...

Den Europæiske Union er en stadig vigtigere aktør i det internationale samfund. For at belyse EUs betydning behandler dette kapitel: i) EU som international aktør, ii) europæisk udenrigspolitik og iii) hvordan Unionen er forberedt på det 21. århundredes centrale udfordringer, herunder forholdet til de andre stormagter

In contrast to science, it is fairly common in science fiction to encounter and explore parallel worlds. In IR, we tend to shy away from the possible existence of parallel worlds. According to a widespread worldview in the field, there is, as Stephen Walt (1998) has put it, " one world— many theories. " In this brief essay, I will explore three par...

Despite rumours about the opposite, the realist tradition never took root in Europe. In this paper I analyze how the tradition seems to come to an end. In order to reach the conclusion I analyze various criteria, including numbers, impact and innovation capacity.

The rejoinder reviews the conditions under which solidarism and regional international societies can can thrive and become objects of analysis

In an increasingly globalized world, the classic images of foreign policy as a political practice conducted by sovereign states has become increasingly inadequate. However, rather than tackling the transformation of foreign policy as a process of both scholarly and immediate political interest, foreign policy analysis and International Relations th...

The chapter provides an overview of and introduction to the different ways in which European foreign policy has been theorized. The chapter is followed by eight chapters, each offering a comprehensive review of the main theoretical orientations.as well as how they have been applied in empirical research

This chapter provides a general overview of trends and advances in research on European foreign policy. It coves the period app. 1954-2014

Typologies of international relations theory show considerable variation in classification: ‘perspectives’, ‘paradigms’, ‘the isms’, ‘schools of thought’ and ‘traditions’. The aim of this paper is to discuss the promises and limits of reconstructing theoretical traditions, specifically in Europe. As for the problematic aspects of thinking in terms...

No abstract

During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union's international relations have become more substan...

At the turn of the century, high-level European policy-makers concluded that the European Union (EU) was punching well below its weight and that the European voice in global affairs should be strengthened. The European External Action Service (EEAS) was supposed to be the means to achieve that end. However, given that the creation of the EEAS becam...

In this rejoinder we appreciate Ben Rosamond and Alex Warleigh-Lack’s addition to our typology of dialogues, yet restate our main reasons to remain sceptical about the outcome of a dialogue between European Studies and New Regionalism.

The article provides a rare glimpse of the politics of political reearch in Europe