Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-mnklg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T22:13:40.933Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

IR in France: state and costs of a disciplinary variety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2014

MATTHIEU CHILLAUD
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of disciplinary variety in French International Relations (IR) from the perspective of Bourdieu's scientific field theory. The tug of war between ‘dominants’ and ‘pretenders’ for the control of IR as ‘their’ discipline in French academia originates from the difficulty of (only) one discipline, that is, political science, monopolising IR. Compared to other subfields of political science, IR is the field of research that borrows most from other scholarly disciplines. These difficulties strengthened the imperviousness of French IR to the works of IR scholars from the Anglo-American world; until very recently, insularity and particularism could not proceed much further. This period matches roughly to one in which IR was dominated, in France, by law and history. Today there is still a very strong influence of this period when scholars from disciplines other than political science distrusted IR theories. Other reasons related to the issue of the disciplinary variety of IR, for instance the absence of a general acknowledgment of the peer-review system, may contribute to the complexity, if not confusion, which characterises the identify of French IR.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2014, pp. 803 - 824
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2014 

The place of international studies within French political science sometimes fuels hallway, end-of-conference or hiring-committee conversations. But this topic usually only mobilizes unwavering or blasé supporters or, at best, gets passing condescension from some understanding friends; more often, [the International Relations researcher] earns only the disregard of colleagues devoted to less odd fields of research.

François Constantin, Le monde existe, nos instances d'évaluation scientifique l'ont peut-être rencontré, 1999.Footnote **

Have the die been cast? Is there anything to add to François Constantin's rather blunt but certainly accurate assertion? Arguably, it is worth expounding on a problematic issue that has hitherto stimulated only incomplete and skewed interest.Footnote 1 We postulate that the place of International Relations (IR) in French political science clearly makes no exception to the iron law according to which ‘maverick’ disciplines struggle to find a proper, acknowledged place in the galaxy of scholarly sciences.Footnote 2 To put it bluntly, the question to be asked is whether political science can pretend to have a monopoly over IR. The affiliation of IR with political science in the Anglo-Saxon world goes primarily back to the works of the founding fathers of realism. Hostile to idealism and extremely critical of the disciplinary eclecticism that prevailed during the interwar period, they argued that only political science had the necessary epistemological tools for understanding the world as it is and not as it should be.Footnote 3 Nevertheless, in France, IR did not take hold very firmly. It was quite a bit later that a generation of political scientists began using social science methodologies that were destined to liberate the discipline from public law. Even so, at least until the beginning of the 1960s, IR was still a virgin field within the academic field of political science. Initially, approaches to IR were separated from political science and were strongly dominated, instead, by law and history. Even now, the issue is not really settled. Moreover, there is a consensus regarding the problem of the compartmentalisation of IR largely shared by all French scholars interested in IR, notwithstanding their disciplinary origins. In France, IR suffers unmistakably from a disciplinary identity problem. Not only is the monopoly over the field of IR research contested, but also within political science, IR seems to be simply its poor relation. Bogged down in parochial conflicts and personal disputes, French IR scholars admit this and sometimes even bemoan the lack of open-mindedness, but even so, some of them are deeply reluctant to accept dialogue with and contradiction from their colleagues in other disciplines (and even sometimes within the same discipline). IR scholars still have problems forming associations on the national scale and even if this is changing,Footnote 4 the parish-pump quarrels continue to hinder the emergence of a homogeneous community.Footnote 5 In any event, this situation does not facilitate attempts to ‘deghettoise’ the French IR community, which is marked primarily by its inward-looking character. It is true that there was reluctance in the community of IR scholars, having almost shut itself off from the rest of the world, to follow the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ mainstream in the field of IR. If this is less true nowadays, IR theory still has trouble finding favour among French scholars.

Over the past few years, there has been a prolific literature on the sociology of the discipline of IRFootnote 6 probably due to the broader awareness of the Anglo-American bias, which is itself the product of an overrepresentation of American and British scholars and publications, but also the result of a community's construction of an object of study defined by the same community.Footnote 7 As regards the state of IR in France, a certain literature, penned in FrenchFootnote 8 or in English,Footnote 9 has shown the nature of French peculiarities without really paying attention to the disciplinary variety of IR and more importantly its consequences for making IR an homogeneous field of research. This literature, however, has not really explored fully and comprehensively the issue of the consubstantiality between the practice of isolationism which has characterised the community of IR scholars vis-à-vis the rest of the world and the disciplinary variety of IR. Very few of their authors have actually oriented their inquiries towards the difficulties of IR to find its feet due to the competition between social science disciplines. Differently (and complementary) to that literature, our paper contends that due to its cross-disciplinarity and because it is a multifaceted field of research – as a result, the place of theories is erratic – IR has problems fitting (exclusively) into political science.

We shall do this by taking French IR itself to be a field and thus open to analysis using Bourdieu's scientific field theory. According to the French sociologist, society is an interweaving of fields. These fields are treated on a hierarchical basis in which the dynamics of fields arises out of the struggle of social actors developing a certain disposition for social action conditioned by their position to try to occupy the dominant positions within the field. This is basically a social space where actors compete for the control of the rare items, in other words capital. In the case of the scientific field, it is a social field like any other, with power relationships and monopolies, conflicts and strategies, interests, and profits. There is a conflict for the monopoly of scientific competency, understood as the capacity to speak and act legitimately (that is to say in an authorised manner and with authority).Footnote 10

Some specificities of the scientific field of French IR

IR in France presents some features that remain elusive to outsiders in many respects. First of all, it is worth noting that, whereas the American mainstream was the reference point for IR in many countries, it took time before French academics gave up their self-centred perspective. Meanwhile, other disciplines, mainly history and law, annexed the academic field of IR. This has had consequences on the current, odd status of IR in the field of social sciences. In addition, the lack of acknowledgement of IR scholarship is fuelled by the question of its utility and its relevance in the ‘real’ world. Furthermore, the issue of publications, which concerns not only IR as such, tends to stimulate a ‘process of self-reproduction’ of French weaknesses.

French IR against the current

It has unquestionably become a cliché that the discipline of IR, as such, is definitively American. Stanley Hoffmann says as much in the title of his seminal article: An American Social Science: International Relations. Footnote 11 Undoubtedly, the jury is still out whether it has changed.Footnote 12 We defend here the proposition that this uncertainty is the result of a competition between agents who represent their own discipline and seek supremacy over this field for the control of capital, which takes the form of knowledge and ultimately the monopoly over scientific authority (prestige, recognition, authority, fame, etc.).Footnote 13

Whereas French universities, in the 1950s showed strong circumspection at the hands of this new ‘discipline’ coming from the US, advocates of a historical perspective on the study of IR tended to disqualify IR theory as ‘a smoke screen’.Footnote 14 Jörg Friedrichs and Ole Wæver, both insightful observers of national peculiarities of the discipline, talk bluntly about the French IR community's ‘academic self-reliance in the face of American intellectual hegemony’.Footnote 15 Smouts confirms that by arguing that ‘[m]ainly, the discipline of international relations in France remained dissociated from issues which were debated in the Anglo-Saxon world during the same period.’Footnote 16 IR was almost a closed book for the French, who were sceptical, impervious, or bluntly indifferent to what might happen in the US, and the price of this independence was near-isolation in relation to the American community. The French discipline of IR seemed to be at a greater distance from the Anglo-American mainstream than any other Continental European community of scholars.Footnote 17 To be sure, Raymond Aron (1905–83) and his disciples, such as Stanley Hoffmann and Pierre Hassner, were well known in France as well as abroad. Nevertheless, they seem to be the exception that proves the rule. This brutal assessment would also be true in other French-speaking countries, such as Switzerland and Canada, where references to French scholars of IR are rare.Footnote 18 Friedrichs and Wæver note additionally that the ‘distance is reciprocated by the Anglo-American mainstream and by most Western European communities of International Relations scholars’. Pursuing this assessment, they mention Didier Bigo as an exception; Bigo ‘became in one decade the second most visible French scholar abroad …. Bigo became a leading European player in the emerging field of critical security studies and securitization theory … partly as an outgrowth of active participation in the ISA journal International Political Sociology’.Footnote 19 While they are right in arguing that Bigo is well known abroad, they forget to mention that he is somewhat at the periphery of the community of French IR scholars. Describing Bigo's works, Wæver even talks about the so-called ‘Paris School’.Footnote 20 This term conveys an impression of strength, yet this ‘school’ comes nearly down to Bigo and his handful of PhD candidates. His Centre d'Études sur les Conflits is almost a one-man enterprise. His work, including his journal Cultures et Conflits, by filling a narrow niche, is rather at the fringes of the French mainstream in IR.Footnote 21 It is probably because Bigo works extensively in English with foreigners and scholars evolving outside French academia that he is known abroad. Moreover, it seems that certain French authors or ‘intellectuals’ are better known abroad than among the French themselves. For instance, Foucault's workFootnote 22 has stimulated research in some IR theories, especially in critical approaches, whereas in France he remains marginal in the work of IR scholars.Footnote 23 Another telling example: recently, the Danish scholar Rebecca Adler-Nissen has edited an intriguing book on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's key concepts applicable to IR. Among the only two French scholars who contributed a chapter, there was … Didier Bigo.Footnote 24

In their remarkable article on the situation of IR French academics based on the TRIP (Teaching, Research and International Policy) project (2011), Dario Battistella and Jérémie Cornut, by demonstrating with supporting data the marginality, in France, of ‘French theory’ (with inter alia Michel Foucault) and the ‘Paris school’, corroborate our proposition developed above. Answers to questions asking if IR scholars have ever heard of the ‘French theory’ and the ‘Paris school’ show that the majority (54 per cent) of the respondents have never heard of either the first one (it is familiar for 28 per cent whereas 17 per cent have heard about it but are unable to explain what it is) or the second one (percentages being respectively 75 per cent, 11 per cent and 14 per cent).Footnote 25

Depsite the fact that IR does not constitute a distinct field of study, its affiliation with political science took time to be established.Footnote 26 Even now there remains some reluctance to admit this. IR draws on certain scholarly disciplines and creates some subfields in connection with specialists who are still considered to represent their original discipline.Footnote 27 How can we explain this compartmentalisation?

IR began to mushroom in the UK and especially in the US just after the First World War, with the aim of stimulating research in the wake of Wilsonism.Footnote 28 The agenda was to find a cure for the pains contracted during the First World War. It was the halcyon era of ‘liberal internationalism’. Nevertheless, as the League of Nations failed in its mission of pacification, realism began to replace liberal interventionism, thanks to the work of thinkers such as E. H. Carr (1892–1982) and Hans Morgenthau (1904–80). Political realism went along with the near elimination of the concept of IR as a subdiscipline of law. Nothing on this scale occurred in France.Footnote 29 Quite the opposite! Friedrichs notes that, in the 1940s and 1950s, some scholars were confident that French expertise, with its solid roots in diplomatic history and international law, was better equipped to build up a coherent IR theory than Anglo-American social sciences. Step by step, IR was gradually established in France as a subdiscipline of political science during the academic reforms of the 1960s, but ‘few scholars opted for political science to guide their scholarly production. The large majority continued to borrow their theoretical wisdom from the establishment academic backgrounds of international law and diplomatic history.’Footnote 30 Atheoretical, and even empirical, the bulk of French IR was impervious to the feuds which took place in America.Footnote 31

The issue of the utility of IR

Professional outlets for students or specialists in IR (theory) may be problematic to find. To begin with, while it is not atypical to change positions (academic, political advisor or official, pundit, journalist, etc.) on a regular basis in numerous comparable countries, in France the compartmentalisation is firmly established in the culture. It is extremely rare (though not impossible) for an academic to have a position in the upper levels of administration, or vice versa. As Jean-Jacques Roche emphasises, there is an absence of links between the highest political functions and scholars in IR; consequently, academic expertise is bound to stay confined to its own sphere.Footnote 32 Indirectly, this has the consequence that most scholars, in their ivory towers, are barely aware of the professional realities of the non-academic world, and are unable to support their students in pursuing non-academic career paths. It is detrimental, then, that outlets for IR scholars in the academic world are extremely limited. Those who have completed a doctoral dissertation in political science marked IR and are lucky enough to be hired are not even guaranteed IR teaching, insofar as the allocation of lecturing tasks still depends on factors that are not always rational. Thus, some political scientists are forced to teach courses in public law because their institution already has enough courses in political science, even while some IR courses may be run by lawyers without any expertise in (political science of) IR. Jean-Jacques Roche, one of the most famous French IR scholars, reports, not without irony, that when he was hired at Sciences po Grenoble, his IR profile was not really considered to be an asset. This is why he was asked to teach comparative institutions rather than IR.Footnote 33

To pose the question of whether IR is useful is also to question the utility of IR theories. If the student wants to become a pundit or a journalist, does (s)he really need to be good at IR theory? And even if (s)he wants to become a researcher in a think tank, does (s)he need to know theoretical traditions and currents of thoughts in IR?Footnote 34 IR theories may be accused of not responding to the demands of the paymaster, increasingly seeking immediate results. As meagre as it is, public financing remains crucial, as it can provide a basis for research which does not respond stricto sensu to the typical demands of clients. The problem is that France, unlike other countries, has no endowments that could stimulate research by measures exempted from taxation.Footnote 35 In contrast to other comparable countries, like Britain and Germany, this dearth of powerful endowments to stimulate research is extremely detrimental to the development and strengthening of an already fragile discipline.Footnote 36 It would be dangerous to conclude that, as IR theory cannot demonstrate its economic value or potential, it is inevitably confined to a secondary role or condemned to disappear.Footnote 37 As far as high civil servants are concerned, chiefly those who work for the Quai d'Orsay, they do not necessarily see the point of theory. International issues are still seen, to a certain extent, as being a state prerogative. Hence, French diplomats – who are usually described as being obsessed with logic and principles at the expense of practical results – often try to be their own theorists, which leaves little room for academics normally fulfilling that role in other fields.Footnote 38 Most courses taught at the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) only deal with theory at the margins.Footnote 39 The problem is comparable in media. The pundit is asked to enlighten the public. He must be clear and should avoid jargon; failing this, his toolbox of theories may become mumbo jumbo to the general public. In such a context, ‘empirical-descriptive’ approaches may match what is expected of the media better, even though this work has no conceptual content. In all events, public intellectuals tend to be more visible in the French media than IR scholars.Footnote 40 France has a long tradition, which may take foreigners aback: the active political role of the ‘intellectuals’. French intellectuals have been expected to intervene in the political debates of the day, and have considered themselves to be entitled and obliged to do that. Very frequently, this extends beyond debate to action. For instance, the ‘philosopher’ Bernard-Henri Levy (who is not an academic) has played a significant role in pushing President Sarkozy to intervene in Libya. It would be almost unthinkable for a standard academic scholar – as brilliant and diplomatic as he may be – to bear a similar role of the Prince's advisor. In any case, his political theories would likely have less effect than any kind of alleged philosophical theories.Footnote 41

The issue of publications

Within the field, producers have as clients ‘only their direct competitors. For this reason, the latter are the least inclined to accord scientific value to the products offered without first subjecting them to examination.’ In the case of the academic field, producers and competitors put their propositions to the test within reviews in a framework in which there are, in principle, standards.Footnote 42 However, in France, these standards are not necessarily followed.

Firstly, unlike most other countries, in France there is no acknowledgement of the system of peer-review. In this regard, a weird hybrid system has been established. Other than a handful of journals,Footnote 43 no academic journal uses the peer-review system. In loco, most of them use the concept of ‘Comité de lecture’ or ‘Comité de rédaction’ in order to give a scientific veneer. In principle, the system is the following: when someone submits a paper, the director or the editor of the review will choose someone within the comité or will give the paper to all the members of the comité. The standard of anonymity may or may not be respected. After a rigorous reading (in principle), some amendments will be proposed. Reality is a bit more complex and departs from this theoretical procedure, in the sense that very few journals in fact use this system. It is usually the editor who will decide whether an article is accepted or not. It seems that most ‘scientific’ journals take advantage of the great confusion between the English expression ‘peer-review’ and the French ‘comité de lecture/rédaction’. As all journals have a ‘comité de lecture’ and/or a ‘comité de rédaction’ on the second cover page, all of them pretend to use a scientific method in selecting articles. Blind reviews by academic peers is similarly lacking in academic books. While there is undeniably a significant production of books in international relations (atlases, manuals, theses, etc.), there is no scientific counterweight, mainly because they are very rarely peer-reviewed. Certain publishers saturate the markets of books with rather disreputable scientific content. This is usually the case when the cover of the book presents the author as a ‘géopoliticien’, a catchall expression that has the sole advantage of being a selling point. The absence of a peer-review system does not mean that the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. There may be some excellent books, but the conditions in which they have been published do not grant them a priori scientific credibility.

This leads us to a second peculiarity: in France, it is extremely rare to find French publications in English; for better or worse, Shakespeare's language is the entry cost for global visibility. Speaking of publications by French scholars about EU integration, Andy Smith argues rightly that ‘the low visibility of French political science in international publications and debates about the EU can, of course, be partially explained as a problem of language. There is no getting away from the fact that until very recently most French lecturers and researchers have been remarkably slow to publish and present their work in English.’Footnote 44 The problem is not the language per se Footnote 45 – even if only French-speakers can access this literature – but rather a true lack of credibility, a discipline, especially IR, usually being assessed according to international (essentially English-speaking)Footnote 46 criteria rather than national ones. Publishing in French means to deprive oneself of a bigger audience but also to refuse the constraint of having to follow textual and publishing conventions that are a product of historical conditions accepted as a norm.Footnote 47

Moreover, it is probably because of the linguistic incongruence that the system of peer-review is not acknowledged.Footnote 48 In any case, French scholars seem to be much less concerned than their colleagues in other countries, by the law of necessity, ‘publish or perish’.Footnote 49 In addition, their participation in international conferences is not necessarily an advantage for their career. This situation may be problematic and is, at all events, an obstacle to the deghettoising of French IR. Thirdly, it must be acknowledged that the lack of interest in IR theory is reflected by an absence of journals specially dedicated to theory. While there are some sporadic articles on IR theory, they will be next to more empirical articles. Observe also that some significant contributions to IR theories have been published not in IR reviews, but in the Revue française de Science politique (Aron, Hoffmann, Duroselle, etc.).Footnote 50 The oldest IR review is Politique étrangère launched in 1936 in the framework of the Centre d'Étude de Politique étrangère, which became the Institut français de Relations internationales in 1979. Nowadays, it defines itself as a policy-oriented journal. In 1991, Pascal Boniface, in the framework of the Institut de Relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), launched the journal Relations internationales et stratégiques, which later became La Revue internationale et stratégique. Despite a rather provincial image at the outset, it is now considered to be an important journal in the field of IR, even though sometimes the authors' profiles may not be very academic. An interesting initiative was launched in 2000 with the Annuaire français de Relations internationales, run at first by Jean-Jacques Roche and Serge Sur, and afterwards by Serge Sur alone, following a personal dispute between the two. It publishes around sixty papers a year by a wide range of contributors, all in line with IR. Among the few journals that are willing to accommodate papers with a more theoretical perspective are Critique internationale and Cultures et Conflits. The first one is edited from within the IEP of Paris and the second is edited by Didier Bigo within the Centre d'Étude sur les Conflits. Nevertheless, their editorial doctrines are different. Contributions in Critique internationale are characterised by a certain eclecticism, insofar as they are drawn from the social sciences (political science, sociology, history, economics, demography, and anthropology) and related disciplines (law and political philosophy). This reflects the transdisciplinary spirit of the research agenda of CERI (Centre d'Études et de Recherche internationale).Footnote 51 There is also the interesting review Politiques européennes, a journal that accommodates high-quality articles (in French and in English) related to the European construction. We must also include journals in geopolitics, such as Hérodote, Outre-Terre and Géoéconomie, and in strategy, like Stratégique and Défense nationale.

In addition, the question of the scientific acknowledgement of journals has recently been relaunched. The Agence d'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement supérieur (AERES), created in 2007, has tried to construct a system of classification with a list of scientific journals for each section of the Conseil national des Universités Footnote 52 (CNU), ‘the aim being to set in order to facilitate the action of reviewers according to minimal criteria’.Footnote 53 Thunderous protests from the community of political scientists against the criteria of assessmentFootnote 54 led to a softening of methods but not to the rejection of the principle of a list.Footnote 55 Note that this list jumbles together all kinds of reviews in political science, regardless of their subdisciplines. Additionally, some prestigious reviews of IR are not listed. Others, just as significant (from the perspective of the author of these lines), are named in the lists of other disciplines.Footnote 56 This demonstrates not just the complications for IR of positioning itself in the galaxy of social sciences but also the problems of meeting international rankings and the lack of acknowledgement for ‘big’ international reviews.Footnote 57

The uncertain place of theory and the elusive balance between eclecticism and syncretism

Because IR is a crossroads discipline, the blurred definition of its disciplinary borders has consequences on the identification of its proper field of study.

International Relations at the crossroad of other disciplines

Several disciplines can claim the paternity of IR: history and law in particular, to which we may also add geography. In regard to sociology, it is probably the discipline closest to political science.

The leading lights of the French school of IR history were Pierre Renouvin (1893–1974) and his disciple Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (1917–94). In their Introduction à l'histoire des relations internationales, both tried to transcend the limits of traditional, atheoretical French scholarship.Footnote 58 They used their encyclopaedic knowledge to overcome the limitations of incidental history and the factual features of traditional diplomatic history. To that end, Pierre Renouvin formulated some general propositions about the interaction between the ‘deep forces’ of history (that is, geographic factors, demographic conditions, economic forces, financial issues, national feeling including nationalism and pacifism) and the activities of statesmen. The history of IR now sought to replace the history of diplomacy.Footnote 59 According to Renouvin, traditional diplomatic history, which settled for describing relations between states from a purely political angle – that is, interactions between statesmen – was indeed over simplistic.Footnote 60 Renouvin and Duroselle were both dubious about the actions of political scientists. They saw them as a sort of ‘illusionists’ using a nebulous vocabulary, unconcerned by empirical realities. ‘The expression “theory of international relations” enjoys a certain prestige since it entails that some initiates know the secret of things and inhabit a congenial sort of twilight zone favourable to the most abstruse interpretations.’Footnote 61 Duroselle warned about ‘the return in force of the scholastic that we thought dead, which consists in seeking the truth not in phenomena or events, but in the writings of gurus’ and against ‘the abuse in the reification of concepts: too many researchers think they have made a discovery when they construct concepts. Most of them find there only the possibility of concealing the vacuum with a thick cloud of woolly words.’Footnote 62 If relations between historians of IR and political scientists of IR are peaceful nowadays, there still remain some after-effects. Josepha Laroche argues that because the discipline of history of IR was predominant in France, it contributed to constructing a representation of IR characterised by ‘an exclusive predominance granted to the diplomatico-strategic dimension; a postulate that there would be a watertight compartment between the domestic and the international; the methodological refusal to grant to the analysis the proper place of non-state actors and economic phenomena’. These features, according to the same author, are also found within international public law. International law ‘sees international relations exclusively as interstate relations; overestimates the state and diplomatico-strategic relations; grants legal norms an excessive effectiveness and regulatory capacity, to say the least; to the contrary, it is unaware of the existence and the decisive weight of numerous other actors – those chiefly without legitimacy, such as mafias – which nevertheless have a decisive impact on international relations’.Footnote 63 It is true that, as shown in the first part of this article, IR was extremely influenced by the work of lawyers. But is this really so important? Moreover, even the political scientist Marie-Claude Smouts notes that ‘the line between the development of contemporary international public law and international politics is blurred, and the contribution of French legal scholars to the understanding of international relations has not been insignificant’.Footnote 64 For instance, the famous lawyer Georges Scelle (1878–1961) went beyond international law sensu stricto in his analysis of the international society. Nevertheless, the problem may not be the paternity of IR per se, but rather the dynamics of self-reproduction between academics belonging to the same discipline. Thus, Smith notes that ‘French political science emerged in the 1950s and 1960s essentially as a complement to, rather than as competition for the teaching of public law. Many of its founding members had been trained as lawyers, and most of them continued to conduct their research and teaching in the formalist style of their forefathers.’Footnote 65 Additionally, the international law tradition tends to describe international institutions chiefly atheoretically. This is reflected by the content of numerous books in IR published by lawyers.Footnote 66 We may add to this the conflict between law on one hand and, on the other, political science, which seeks to progressively emancipate itself from law. Nowadays, while the affiliation of IR with political science is widely accepted in universities, there are still some ‘pockets’ here and there where legal or historical traditions are present, even to the point that IR courses are run by lawyers.

While the association between geography and political science is quite old – though the graft has not taken wellFootnote 67 – the tie between geography and international relations has been rather marginal, though not missing entirely. Jean Gottmann (1915–94) published La politique des États et leur géographie in 1951.Footnote 68 The work of Jacques LévyFootnote 69 and Michel FoucherFootnote 70 must also be mentioned. Gérard Dussouy, previously a high school geography teacher, later a professor of political science at the University of Bordeaux (after having written a doctoral thesis on the link between geography and IR),Footnote 71 has recently published a treatise in three volumes on geopolitics.Footnote 72 Nevertheless, it is Yves Lacoste who is considered the pioneer of the French school of geopolitics. Originally coming from the radical left and a specialist of underdevelopment, Yves Lacoste shocked a number of his peers by publishing ‘La géographie, ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre’ (‘The main use of geography is to wage war’) in 1976.Footnote 73 That same year, he established the French geopolitical journal Hérodote. His first publications received a frosty reception, even (and particularly) among his colleagues on the left, most of them fearing a rehabilitation of Nazi Geopolitik. The violence of the arguments within the academic community following Yves Lacoste's publications led to an extremely rare sanction: in 1980, the minister of research Alice Saunier-Seïté – who was originally a geographer – decided to demote him from Professor to Maître de Conférences (Associate-Professor).Footnote 74 Although his work is indubitably of high quality, he is considered to be a nonconformist in the French IR community even now.

Apart from an exclusively theoretical approach, or a purely historical perspective, the sociology of IR sees international facts as social facts. The first scholar to point out the link between IR and sociology was Jacques Vernant (1912–85), in an article entitled Vers une sociologie des relations internationales in the review Politique étrangère. Though it remained relatively unnoticed – probably because the author, the general-secretary of the Centre d'Étude de Politique étrangère, was considered a maverick in the academic world – this article deserves credit for being the first to emphasise the importance of IR being composed, first and foremost, of ‘social facts’. ‘Events or IR are in an environment, namely international society … The international society is, doubtless, a specific form, but it is not radically heterogeneous from societies in general.’Footnote 75

Raymond Aron also espoused a sociological approach to IR. Defining sociological history as the ‘indispensable intermediary between theory and events’,Footnote 76 he argued that a social theory of IR had to be equidistant from general theory and atheoretical historical scholarship. He had a decisive influence on major research in IR, yet he represented a minority trend in French sociology, probably because he was more influenced by German (Weber) than French sociology (Durkheim). His method, ‘historical sociology’, was to broaden and systemise the traditional approach of diplomatic history.Footnote 77

However, it is Marcel Merle, author of Sociologie des relations internationales, who is considered to have ‘created’ the discipline of IR in universities. He was the first scholar to create a new subject, almost ex nihilo, apart from the more ‘empirico-descriptive’ ones taught so far. ‘It seems that sociology applied to the study of international relations can help by projecting a systematic perspective on a lot of confused events and phenomena which cannot be properly understood if studied separately.’Footnote 78 According to two scholars from Sciences po Paris, Marie-Claude Smouts and Bertrand Badie in their book Le retournement du monde. Sociologie de la scène internationale (coming originally from their teaching at Sciences po), sociology is the best means to reconstruct theoretical frameworks.

There is a need firstly to reconstruct knowledge, since the contemporary international order is constantly moving away from classical paradigms. Beyond the realist models, which postulate exclusive state sovereignty, or organicist models, which give in to the illusion of the a priori integration of international systems, the sociology of international relations has a duty to reconstruct its theoretical framework. This can be achieved by drawing on new horizons opened up to it by advances in internal sociology, comparative politics and the study of transnational flows.Footnote 79

Didier Bigo, who launched the review Cultures et Conflits in 1990 succeeded Marie-Claude Smouts' teachings at Sciences po. He has promoted an approach to IR that aims to blur the internal and external sociology; he calls this ‘international political sociology’. Frédéric Charillon and Guillaume Devin, also from Sciences po, should also be mentioned. Both took an interest in the sociology of international relations. The former became interested in foreign policy in the framework of political sociologyFootnote 80 whereas the latter wrote an interesting short book Sociologie des relations internationales:

by constructing a large enough framework of analysis, the aim consists in emphasising continuities and discontinuities in the mode of actions, constraints and dynamics that actors contribute to creating but into which they are also, more or less involuntarily, taken. That is the perspective proposed here under the name of ‘sociology of international relations’, but which could be called ‘world politics’ or ‘international politics’ elsewhere.Footnote 81

In addition, in France there is a strong tradition of area studies being closely linked to IR. Smouts sums it up as follows: ‘Country or regional specialists who use the methods of political science to analyse the political nature of societies other than French society are considered – perhaps mistakenly – to be International Relations scholars and are grouped in the same research centres as those who are interested in phenomena reaching across national boundaries.’Footnote 82 According to Friedrichs, this is probably because of France's colonial past.Footnote 83 It is, moreover, the reason why considerable research on developmentFootnote 84 and on humanitarian issuesFootnote 85 has been conducted in France. A significant number of IR scholars took a particular interest in the Third World. As in all social sciences, some socialist authors have tried to use Marxist tools in their works. The theory of imperialism, research on the relation between underdevelopment and the export of raw materials or dependence on foreign capital have led some academics to take interest in international economic exchanges and relations between political forces on which they depend.Footnote 86 Some politically engaged theories of IR mushroomed in the 1970s. The pioneer in that regard was Pierre-François Gonidec, professor at La Sorbonne. He attempted to introduce the political ideology of orthodox Soviet Marxist-Leninism into the study of IR.Footnote 87 Edmond Jouve also dedicated most of his work to the Third World.Footnote 88 The Third World has seen the looting of its resources substituted with political subordination. Jouve was the first of many authors to apply neo-Marxist notions like néo-impérialisme, échange inégal, développement inégal, and développement du sous-développement. Footnote 89 In fact, Third-Worldism was an ideology aiming more to promote the interests of former colonised countries than a rational doctrine. The existence of French ‘sovietology’ should also be mentioned, which may have voiced criticisms, questioning whether the field was perhaps too politically committed.Footnote 90

While this Marxist approach was quite significant, surprisingly, neither peace research nor conflict resolution met with any major success. However, it is worth mentioning Gaston Bouthoul (1896–1980), creator of the term ‘polemology’, a neologism meaning the ‘science of war’ (from the Greek ‘polemos’ and ‘logos’). He wanted to promote a new discipline aiming to prevent war via a more profound understanding of its causes.Footnote 91 Rather critical of peace researchers whom he suspected of being excessively value-loaded and action-oriented, Bouthoul argued that it was necessary to leave aside considerations of values. His institute, the Institut français de Polémologie (IFP), was set up in 1945 in his small Parisian flat, and in fact remained a one-man enterprise until 1965. Actually, his project to create a new discipline met with a harsh reception in universities. Neither Marxist nor completely in line with the orthodox sociological approach, he remained at the fringes of universities, as many ‘handicaps’ kept him from taking up an academic career. In spite of strong intellectual debate following his numerous publications, his project did not survive his death in 1980.

Last but not least, it is imperative to mention strategic studies and other ‘subfields’ of IR. From the 1950s, teaching, research, and publications in the area of strategic studies began to increase in significance, but their significance declined concomitantly with an acknowledgment of the broader agenda of security studies. Hervé Coutau-Bégarie (1956–2012), political scientist and historian, was at the origin of the renaissance of ‘strategy’ as a discipline. He published a monumental treatise on the subject.Footnote 92 It is regrettable that his work, despite its remarkable quality, is marginal in the French scientific field.

IR is therefore at the crossroad of a set of disciplines; nobody questions that. Serge Sur talks about ‘methodological pluralism’.Footnote 93 Different approaches will be used depending on the object of study. For Roche, ‘international relations stems from both history and law. It is also at the confluence of philosophy and sociology and hence integrates an increasingly significant economic dimension. Its development is fuelled by successive borrowings.’Footnote 94 If this eclecticism is widely accepted, the fact remains that there is an issue: on the one hand, interdisciplinarity is promoted by everyone – notwithstanding their original discipline – but on the other hand, political scientists (probably because they tend to jealously guard their own specificities and prerogatives) may pretend that only their discipline has the necessary epistemological tools to conduct IR, arguing that too much eclecticism can only result in shapeless syncretism. Political scientists ‘are taken up to strategies of conservation aiming to insure the perpetuation of the established scientific order’.Footnote 95

If a scholar who is not a political scientist by background decides to engage in IR, s/he may decide to give up the initial discipline and convert to political science. If not, the problem may arise that neither colleagues in political science nor the administration will accept the scholarship quality of the IR scholar based in political science but not abiding by the rules of the discipline. For political scientists, the issue is to know how far IR can borrow from other disciplines, while remaining in the field of political science, whereas for lawyers, historians, geographers, sociologists, etc., the issue is to know how far they can pretend to conduct IR research without being suspected by political scientists of conducting some kind of ‘adulterated’ science.

The variety of disciplinary fields dealing with international issues prevents the setting up of an autonomous discipline that would claim privilege over this object of study however still elusive. IR has been unable to construct scholarly knowledge with discrete boundaries and, as nature abhors a vacuum, academics from all kinds of disciplines put forward the propinquity of their expertise, in order to appropriate a fragment of the field of IR and proclaim themselves specialists of IR. We return to our initial problem: is it possible to be a specialist of IR without being a political scientist? The question may be in the identification of the gap between theory and reality that leads to the issue of the utility (or futility) of the theorisation of IR.

From empirical description to abstruse conceptualisation

‘Policy-oriented scholars conduct empirical work or policy work without feeling an obligation to explicitly engage theory or justify themselves by pointing to theoretical implications. French IR theory is probably even more removed from policy than in most other countries.’ Friedrichs and Wæver's assertion brings the French painfully back to Earth. Why are so few French IR scholars seduced by theories? In any event, this ‘atheorism’ is a strong peculiarity of France.Footnote 96 Ole Wæver noted, in his seminal article about the development of IR in America and Europe in the journal International Organization, that ‘most French IR scholars do empirical or policy work without the obligation felt by American scholars to locate themselves theoretically or to justify an article by referring to theory implications’.Footnote 97 For his part, Jean-Jacques Roche notes that there is indeed an abundant literature on IR:

work on international relations displays much heterogeneity between strictly empirico-descriptive approaches and approaches conceptualized to the extreme, where the discussion about instruments eventually outweighs the analyzed object. Between these two extremes, an abundant literature has mushroomed – an abundance witnessed by numerous manuals – dealing with foreign policy as well as ‘common goods’, power as NGOs, producing crisis models or making an inventory of diplomatic vocabulary.Footnote 98

Nevertheless, in this literature, the room for theories is extremely tight. The problem is that the atheoretical French culture leads to ‘simple scholarly position papers, without method, which just shape sparse information on the basis of a plan aiming to demonstrate the anticipated conclusion’.Footnote 99 Already in 1982, Dominique Colas, professor of political science at Sciences po Paris, wrote in a report for the Minister of Research that ‘in the field of international relations and problems of strategy, one notices an obvious poverty … in the development of conceptual frameworks and models of intellection’.Footnote 100

Excessively abstruse? Useless? Just hair-splitting quarrels among erudite scholars? It is not rare to hear, among pundits, students and even scholars that theory is a waste of time. For others, theory is an unwelcome ‘must-do’ activity (once lectures on IR theories are over, one hurries to forget them). Questions like ‘Why theory?’ pop up very frequently.Footnote 101

Mocked for their incomprehensible jargon, IR theories are often the laughing stock of sceptics.Footnote 102 Unconvinced by the answers proposed by a very few political scientists in favour of IR theories, some scholars continue to have a disparaging attitude toward IR theory, though on a different scale, and may even accuse the zealots of being pedantic. Those who carry out IR according to the ‘empirico-descriptive approach’, defining themselves as ‘pragmatists’, set out to analyse particular situations in a concrete way. Even among those who disparage their colleagues for conducting empirico-descriptive IR, there is no consensus as to the existence of an IR theory as such, even if the existence of conceptual tools to analyse IR is generally accepted. Thus, Raymond Aron had to admit the impossibility of discovering a general theory of IR.Footnote 103 Espousing a sociological approach to IR, he argued that a social theory of IR has to be equidistant both from general theory and from atheoretical historical scholarship. Marie-Claude Smouts also acknowledged that there was no such theory; according to her, a theory of IR did not exist: ‘I am extremely sceptical about a theory of IR. If there were one, we would know it.’Footnote 104

French scholars seem to be faithful to their traditions, so well-described by Galtung in his seminal article dedicated to intellectual style in the world. He suggests that the French style may care more about form than content; the power of the Gallic (French) style of ‘conviction is due less to logical structure than to a certain artistic quality that Gallic social-science prose very often possesses, particularly when spoken and written by its true master’. It likes the use of ‘bons mots, double entendres, alliterations and various types of semantic and typographical tricks … Typographically this can become even more clear by seeing to it that there is some kind of correspondence between the first and last word on the printed page. The aesthetic aspect – balance, symmetry – matters.’Footnote 105 If one takes for granted Galtung's suggestion that the French are keener to stress the importance of form than of content, one may easily understand why the empirico-descriptive lens seems to be ‘enough’ for understanding IR. The mode of reasoning would be fundamentally different from the American research article format, in which theories are implemented more logically.

Conclusion

It seems that IR in France suffers from the complex of Janus, the Roman god with two faces, a difficulty contracted in the 1950s, whereas political science, barely established, failed to integrate IR in its epistemological wing. Its two faces are, on the one hand, a multidisciplinary approach in which political science would be of equal value with law, history, geography, etc. and, on the other hand, a multidisciplinary approach in which political science would supervise the other disciplines. Each of those who espouse either the first approach or the second one will do their utmost to defend ‘their’ fiefdom and denounce the ‘sham’ of the advocates of the other approach. And even political scientists of IR, trying to defend ‘their’ own paradigm, spar between them. At all events, the variety of IR will stay an issue as long as the scientific authority will be disputed between several different disciplines. Considering the slightly quaint perfume emitting from French IR (system teaching, research, and even publication) but also and particularly the diversity of disciplines which gravitate around IR in French academia, it would be an understatement to argue that France could hardly integrate the international ‘main stream’.

The conflict for getting the monopoly of the scientific authority and consequences in terms of acknowledgement of utility of theories came to an anomalous situation, which can only flabbergast those who take an interest in the state of non-American IR. For that matter, the most radical of them could argue, reductio ad absurdum, that there is no IR in France. If the field of study labelled IR is a kind of discipline defined by its own theories, knowledge of ‘its theories’ is thus a precondition for being acquainted with the discipline. But as there is no theory, and therefore logically no knowledge of these theories, there is no IR. Blunt and provocative, this reasoning – which is in fact a syllogism – should be kept in perspective and reframed according to the following observation. More and more scholars are willing to use theories in the formulation of their problematic issues. Additionally, it would be unfair to assume that they start from scratch. As we have seen, there have been some theorists. France is not a totally ‘theory-free zone’. The problem is that the stiff competition and the salient corporatism between academics particularly penalise the visibility of the work of those who pretend that it is necessary to use theory in the field of IR research.

References

** Translations of French texts quoted in this article are unofficial translations by the author.

1 If the author of this article is French, he has presently no position in France. Participant-observer indeed, he does not defend any ‘schools’ and does not belong to any networks.

2 Keep in mind that this article focuses on the state of IR in France and not in French-speaking countries. It might be confusing for non French-speakers to make the distinction to the extent that the language is the same. In Africa, in Canada, in Belgium, in Luxembourg and in Switzerland, the situation is absolutely incomparable to France. Additionally, some French academics have made a significant international breakthrough in IR abroad, chiefly in Québec or in Africa but do not qualify for inclusion in this article. On the other hand, some academics that do not have the French citizenship but have always been working in France will be included.

3 Vennesson, P., ‘Les Relations Internationales dans la Science Politique aux États-Unis’, Politix, 11:1 (1998), pp. 181–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 For instance, note the existence of the Association des internationalistes (Association of IR scholars) set up in 2010. It gathers most of French IR scholars notwithstanding their original disciplines (political science, geography, history, economics, and law).

5 In order to understand the peculiarities of French IR, it is necessary not to underestimate consequences of the numerous internal conflicts. According to Constantin: ‘The current situation results, first of all, in the history of a subject planned in certain curricula of universities; and like all subjects, international relations has been the object of covetousness, provoking its appropriation by fraternities or parishes who claim the monopoly of useful knowledge and attempt to neutralize, or even excommunicate, all applicants not acknowledged by the inner circle, according to power struggles between faculties, if not between colleagues.’ Constantin, F., ‘Les Relations Internationales dans le Champs Scientifique Français ou les Pesanteurs d'une Lourde Hérédité’, La Revue Internationale et Stratégique, 47:3 (2002), pp. 91–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Let's mention also the Heisbourg Report (2000), titled officially Mission d'Analyse et de Proposition Relative à l'Enseignement et à la Recherche en ‘Relations Internationales’ et ‘Affaires Stratégiques et de Défense’, in which the word ‘barony’ is bluntly penned for describing the natural tendency of IR scholars to claim a monopoly of IR by the yardstick of their own discipline. Appointed in November 1998 and led by François Heisbourg, this commission had to make some propositions inter alia for reforming IR curricula in French universities. See François Heisbourg, Mission d'Analyse et de Proposition Relative à l'Enseignement et à la Recherche en ‘Relations Internationales’ et ‘Affaires Stratégiques et de Défense’ (2000), available at: {http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics//004001058/0000.pdf} accessed 2 October 2013.

6 See the illuminating introduction of the book edited by Tickner, Arlene B. and Wæver, Ole on IR outside the US. ‘Introduction: Geocultural Epistemologies’, International Relations Scholarship Around the World (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 1–31Google Scholar. The authors have edited a brilliant book examining the ways in which IR has evolved and is practised based on 16 cases. Incidentally, notice that this piece of work belongs to the growing documentation on IR outside the Anglo-American mainstream. See also Tickner, Arlene and Blaney, David L. (eds), Thinking International Relations Differently (Routledge, 2012)Google Scholar.

7 This is the observation made by Brown, Chris in his chapter ‘Fog in the Channel: Continental International Relations Theory Isolated’, in Crawford, Robert M. A. and Jarvis, Darryl S. L. (eds), International Relations – Still an American Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), pp. 203–19Google Scholar.

8 In French, let us list Dario Battistella's analysis in the acute chapter, which ends the last edition of his manual. Battistella, Dario, ‘Les Relations Internationales en France’, in Battistella, Dario (ed.), Théories des Relations Internationales (4th edn, Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 2012), pp. 689–721Google Scholar. The author, professor at Sciences po Bordeaux and well-known for being one of the few academics committed in favour of theories in IR, by analysing the evolution of IR (in political science) within the French academia, deals especially with the issue of theories; he argues that ‘theories … remains at the fringe compared to what is agreed to call the sociology of international relations’. There are also all the very interesting articles in the issue of the journal Revue Internationale et Stratégique dedicated on the state of IR in France. ‘Relations Internationales. La Tentation d'Exister’, La Revue Internationale et Stratégique, 47:3 (2002), pp. 77–167. N. Ragaru, ‘L'État des Relations Internationales en France’, pp. 77–81; M.-C. Smouts, ‘Entretien. Les Relations Internationales en France: Regard sur une Discipline’, pp. 83–9; F. Constantin, ‘Les Relations Internationales dans le Champ Scientifique Français ou les Pesanteurs d'une Lourde Hérédité’, pp. 90–9; J. J. Roche, ‘L'Enseignement des Relations Internationales en France: les Aléas d'une “Discipline-Carrefour”’, pp. 100–7; A.J.R. Groom, ‘Les Relations Internationales en France: un Regard d'Outre-Manche’, pp. 108–17; J. Laroche, ‘La Mondialisation: Lignes de Force et Objets de Recherche’, pp. 118–32; P. Ryfman, ‘Vers une “École Française” d'Analyse de l'Humanitaire?’, pp. 133–44; F. Petiteville, ‘L'Union Européenne, Acteur International “Global”? Un Agenda de Recherche’, pp. 145–57; G. Mink, ‘La Conversion de la “Soviétologie” Française après la Disparition de son Objet d'Étude’, pp. 158–67. Indeed, most of these authors are both judges and parties. In that sense, by analysing IR as an objet and as a subject, their axiological neutrality might be dubious. Yet, their analysis remains very relevant.

9 For instance, Henrik Ø. Breitenbauch carried out an intriguing doctoral dissertation at the University of Copenhagen under the supervision of Ole Wæver on the difficulties of the disciplinary field of IR in France go beyond a certain Cartesianism. By showing how French IR has evolved less comprehensively than transnational-American IR research practices toward an ideal-type form of the modern social science article, one of his main proposition is that compulsory standards of forms (chiefly the famous French school essay, la dissertation) have a central role in this area. Henrik Ø. Breitenbauch, Cartesian Limbo. A Formal Approach to the Study of Social Sciences: International Relations in France, PhD Thesis submitted to the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen 92008). His dissertation was recently published under the title International Relations in France: Writing between Discipline and State (London: Routledge, 2013). For his part, Chillaud published a policy-oriented paper in the journal European Political Science analysing the development of IR within French academe and reviewing the scholarly output of IR teaching. Chillaud, M., ‘International Relations in France: The “Usual Suspects” in a French Scientific Field of Study?’, European Political Science, 8 (2009), pp. 239–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In a chapter in an edited volume, Giesen, by taking stock of the development of IR in France but also in other French-speaking countries, between 1945 and 1994, touches upon in a very fragmentary fashion our problematic issue. The author, who explores the Francophone particularities (not only in France), identifies the scholarly practice as one of the main reason of the peculiarities in France. Giesen, Klaus-Gerd, ‘France and other French-speaking Countries (1945–1994)’, in Jørgensen, Knud Erik, (ed.), International Relations in Europe: Traditions, Schools and Perspectives (London: Routlege, 2006), pp. 19–46Google Scholar. Last but not least, let's mention the chapter on IR in Western Europe written by Jörg Fridrichs and Ole Wæver in the intriguing book edited by Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver. Friedrichs, Jörg and Wæver, Ole, ‘Western Europe. Structure and Strategy at the National and Regional Levels’, in Tickner, Arlene B. and Wæver, Ole (eds), International Relations Scholarship Around the World (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 261–86Google Scholar. There is also the chapter on France in the book penned by Jörg Fridrichs. In the two texts, the authors, by examining the development of IR studies in France, have a similar approach: they try to identify the reasons which contribute to the construction of the ‘French mansion’ as a part of many ones into a wider community. Friedrichs, Jörg, ‘International Relations Theory in France: three Generations of Parisian Intellectual Life’, in Friedrichs, Jörg (ed.), European Approaches to International Relations Theory. A House with Many Mansions (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 29–46Google Scholar.

10 Bourdieu, P., ‘Le Champ Scientifique’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 2:2–3 (1976), p. 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Hoffmann, S., ‘An American Social Science: International Relations’, Daedalus, 106:3 (1977), pp. 41–60Google Scholar.

12 The very stimulating book International Relations – Still An American Social Science (2001) is telling. The very few references to French IR are made by the Francophone and Francophile British IR scholar A.J.R. Groom. See A.J.R Groom and Peter Mandaville, ‘Hegemony and Autonomy in International Relations: The Continental Experience’, in Crawford and Jarvis (eds), pp. 157–63.

13 Bourdieu, ‘Le Champs Scientifique’, p. 91.

14 Duroselle, J.-B., ‘La Nature de la Politique Internationale’, Politique internationale, 4 (1979), p. 111Google Scholar.

15 Jörg Friedrichs and Ole Wæver, ‘Western Europe. Structure and Strategy at the National and Regional Levels’, in Tickner and Wæver (eds), p. 263.

16 M.-C. Smouts, ‘Les Relations Internationales en France. Regards sur une Discipline’, p. 84.

17 Jörg Friedrichs, ‘International Relations Theory in France: three Generations of Parisian Intellectual Life’, in Friedrichs (ed.), p. 29.

18 F. Constantin, ‘Les Relations Internationales dans le Champs Scientifique Français ou les Pesanteurs d'une Lourde Hérédité’, p. 90.

19 Friedrichs and Wæver, ‘Western Europe. Structure and Strategy at the National and Regional Levels’, p. 263.

20 Ole Wæver, ‘Aberystwyth, Paris: Copenhagen. The Europeanness of New “Schools” of Security Theory in an American Field’, in Tickner and Blaney (eds), pp. 48–71.

21 This could astonish foreigners who usually take for granted that the ‘Paris School’ is a major school of thought in France.

22 See, for example, the contributions in the forum dedicated to Foucault and IR in the journal International Political Sociology. IPS forum contribution, ‘Assessing the Impact of Foucault on International Relations’, International Political Sociology, 4:2 (2012), pp. 196–215. Broadly speaking, the philosophers who became so influential in Anglo-Saxon social sciences had little impact on IR scholarship in France itself.

23 A quick glance at the works of French IR scholars shows that – with the exception of Didier Bigo's – Foucault is very rarely quoted. Of course, this is absolutely not the case in philosophy and in sociology.

24 Bigo, D., ‘Security’ in Adler-Nissen, Rebecca (ed.), Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR (London and New York, Routledge, 2012), pp. 114–30Google Scholar.

25 Battistella, D. and Cornut, J., ‘Des RI Françaises en Émergence. Les Internationalistes Français dans le Sondage TRIP 2011’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 63:2 (2013), p. 309Google Scholar.

26 Well shown by the chapter penned by Favre, Pierre and Dada, Nadine, ‘La Science Politique en France’, in Commission Européenne and IEP de Paris (eds), La Science Politique en Europe. Formation, Coopération, Perspectives, Conférence d'Évaluation (Paris: Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1996), pp. 214–49Google Scholar.

27 Have in mind that political science – including IR – is taught in two kinds of institutions. The first, comprising the nine Instituts d'Études Politiques (IEPs), constitutes the most prestigious institutions of graduate education and research in French political science. IEPs that are considered to be Grandes écoles (literally ‘Great Schools’) are higher education establishments outside the mainstream system of public universities. Unlike French public universities, which have an obligation to accept all candidates in the same academic field, the selection criteria of Grandes écoles are competitive. The most prestigious IEP is the one in Paris (Sciences po Paris). Semi-autonomous public establishment, it arose from the old École libre des Sciences politiques in 1945. Afterwards, eight other IEPs were created. These institutions with selective recruitment are relatively independent in comparison with the universities to which they are administratively attached. The other type of institution where teaching takes place is the faculties of law, in which there are some law curricula but also often political science curricula (usually on the master level). This dates back to 1954, when a national regulation introduced political science as a compulsory discipline. Note that in law curricula, (which usually also include courses in other social sciences, such as sociology and political science), IR courses are usually run by lawyers, whereas in political science curricula they are run either by lawyers or political scientists. What is really odd in the French system is that political science is not exclusively taught in either IEPs or faculties of law.

28 It is usually taken for granted that IR emerged in 1919 and developed through the first great debate between realists and idealists. Yet, some scholars have contested this ‘myth’. This benchmark has been called into question, for instance, by Barry Buzan who has been carrying out an intriguing research programme on ‘the long 19th century’ as axial time of world politics. See Buzan, Barry and Lawson, George, ‘The Global Transformation: the Nineteenth Century and the Making of Modern International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly, 59:1 (2013), pp. 1–15Google Scholar. Nonetheless, without challenging the rise of IR before World War I, we prefer to stick to that date as a starting point to assess the trajectory of French IR in view of the fact that it has been since 1919 that IR has been considered as an academic field of research within universities.

29 We are extremely well informed about the various disciplines that dealt with international issues during the interwar period, thanks to the chapter by Pierre Renouvin in the fascinating book edited by UNESCO in 1950. Renouvin, Pierre, ‘La Contribution de la France à l'Étude des Relations Internationales’ in UNESCO (ed.), La Science Politique Contemporaine. Contribution à la Recherche, la Méthode et l'Enseignement (Paris: UNESCO, 1950), pp. 578–92Google Scholar. This book is a real mine of information on the institutionalisation of political science all over the world.

30 Friedrichs, ‘International Relations Theory in France: three Generations of Parisian Intellectual Life’, p. 30.

31 There were, however, some attempts to give IR its spurs. Aron, Raymond, a pioneer in that regard, published Paix et Guerre entre les Nations (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1962)Google Scholar. In English, Aron, Raymond, Peace and War. A Theory of International Relations, trans. Howard, Richard and Backer, Annette (Garden City, New York: Double Day, 1966)Google Scholar. Nevertheless, this was more of an essay than a manual. Marcel Merle (1923–2003) published La Vie Internationale in 1963, and afterwards Sociologie des Relations Internationales. Merle, Marcel, Sociologie des Relations Internationales (4th edn, Paris: Dalloz, 1988)Google Scholar. Step-by-step manuals integrating debates on major IR theories were published. Some of these were written by academics coming from Sciences po and the CERI (Centre d'Études et de Recherche internationale). Originating from inside political science, this trend transposed its methods and approaches from the national to the international level. It is worth mentioning Badie, Bertrand and Smouts, Marie-Claude, Le Retournement du Monde. Sociologie de la Scène Internationale (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, Dalloz, 1992)Google Scholar and Badie, B. and Smouts, M.-C., ‘The Turnaround of the World’, Geopolitics, 5:2 (2000), pp. 85–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Smouts, Marie-Claude (ed.), Les Nouvelles Relations Internationales. Pratiques et Théories, (Paris: Presses de Sciences po, 1998)Google Scholar and Smouts, M.-C., ‘The Meanings of Violence and Its Role in Legitimation. Cultures et Conflits’, Mershon International Studies Review, 39:1 (1995), pp. 111–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the launching of the review Cultures et Conflits by Bigo. Other work was conducted in the framework of realism and strategic issues. The main advocate of this approach is Jean-Jacques Roche. Roche, Jean-Jacques, Théories des Relations Internationales (8th edn, Paris: Montchrestien, 2010 [orig. pub. 1994])Google Scholar and Relations Internationales (Paris: L.G.D.J., 2001). Dario Battistella published a very stimulating manual, which comes from his teachings at Sciences po Bordeaux. Dario Battistella, Théories des Relations Internationales. Josepha Laroche, professor of political science at La Sorbonne, espouses a sociological approach to IR, chiefly from the perspective of international political economy. Laroche, Josepha, Politique Internationale (2nd edn, Paris: LGDJ, 2000 [orig. pub. 1998])Google Scholar. Pascal Vennesson took an interest in military sociology. Vennesson, Pascal, Les Chevaliers de l'Air. Aviation et Conflits au XXe siècle (Paris: Presses de Sciences po and Fondation pour les Études de Défense, 1997)Google Scholar. See also Caplow, Theodore and Vennesson, Pascal, Sociologie militaire (Paris: Armand Colin, 2000)Google Scholar. Frédéric Ramel, elected recently as professor of IR at Sciences po Paris, published an interesting book, with David Cumin, Philosophie des Relations internationales and a fascinating essay on the concepts of ‘polarisation’ and ‘seduction’ in IR. Ramel, Frédéric and Cumin, David, Philosophie des Relations Internationale (2nd edn, Paris: Presses de Sciences po, 2011 [orig. pub. 2002])Google Scholar; and Ramel, Frédéric, L'Attraction Mondiale (Paris: Presses de Sciences po, 2012)Google Scholar. Thomas Lindemann is almost certainly the only scholar in France to work exclusively on constructivism, a research agenda neglected by most French researchers. Lindemann, Thomas, Penser la Guerre. L'Apport Constructiviste (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008)Google Scholar. Sabine Saurugger from Sciences po Grenoble wrote what is probably the first manual to make the link between theory and European Union studies. Saurruger, Sabine, Théories et Concepts de l'Intégration Européenne (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2009)Google Scholar. Franck Petiteville who teaches at the same place, got interested on the concept of mu ltilateralism in IR. Petiteville, Franck, Le Multilatéralisme (Paris: Montchrestien, 2009)Google Scholar.

32 Roche, ‘L'Enseignement des Relations Internationales en France’, p. 101.

33 Ibid., p. 104.

34 There are three major French ‘think tanks’ (Institut français de Relations internationales/IFRI, Fondation pour la Recherche stratégique/FRS and Institut de Relations internationales et stratégiques/IRIS) to which one may add a research centre integrated into the military administration (Institut de Recherche stratégique de l'École militaire/IRSEM) and another one that depends on the Centre national de Recherche scientifique (CNRS), the Centre d'Étude de Recherches internationales (CERI). If the latter is certainly the most open to theories, this is probably because it belongs to the CNRS (a state organ) and as such it does not fear the paymasters' vagaries.

35 We might point out, nevertheless, that some significant French academic institutions were set up thanks to American foundations. For example, the prestigious La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme was mainly financed by the Ford Foundation. Let's also mention the Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques, which was financed inter alia by the Rockfeller Foundation.

36 J. Hubert-Rodier, ‘Enquête: le Pays Manque de Laboratoires d'Idées en Matière de Relations Internationales’, Les Echos (25 April 2007).

37 Even in the US, the problem is similar. In a Washington Post column, Joseph Nye has lamented the growing gap between theory and practice in the field of IR. ‘Scholars are paying less attention to questions about how their work relates to the policy world, and in many departments a focus on policy can hurt one's career. Advancement comes faster for those who develop mathematical models, new methodologies or theories expressed in jargon that is unintelligible to policymakers’. Joseph Nye, ‘Scholars on the Sidelines’, Washington Post (13 April 2009). One of the reasons is that there is a persistent chasm between what ‘suppliers’ of social research offer and what the prospective ‘users’ of this research seek.

38 See the intriguing rapport made by Marc Loriol , Françoise Piotet, and David Delfolie, Le Travail Diplomatique. Un Métier et un Art, Rapport de recherche pour le ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes (MAEE), Laboratoire Georges Friedmann – UMR 8593 (December 2008), available at: {http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/rapportfianl_sociologue.pdf} accessed 2 October 2013.

39 Friedrichs and Wæver, ‘Western Europe. Structure and Strategy at the National and Regional Levels’, p. 267. Jean-Michel Emery-Douzans, a prominent French scholar at Sciences Po Toulouse, has conducted extensive works on French elites and particularly on énarques (graduate of ENA). He addressed chiefly the issue of their atheoritical curriculum in his book, La Fabrique des Énarques (Paris: Économica, 2001).

40 Friedrichs and Wæver, ‘Western Europe. Structure and Strategy at the National and Regional Levels’, p. 263.

41 Chillaud, M., ‘Strategic Studies in France. Plus Ça Change’, Res Militaris (an online social science journal), 3:1 (2012), pp. 6–7, available at: {http://resmilitaris.net}Google Scholar.

42 Bourdieu, ‘Le Champ Scientifique’, p. 91.

43 We might mention inter alia the Revue Française de Science Politique, Critique Internationale, Culture et Conflit, Revue d'Étude Comparative Est/Ouest, Politique Européenne. The journal Politique Étrangère has adopted a hybrid system. Some of the articles are selected through a process of peer review, others are not.

44 Smith, A., ‘French Political Science and European Integration’, Journal of European Public Policy, 7:4 (2000), p. 663CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Even though it is really annoying that some expressions in English are lost in translation in French. The most illustrative example is the neologism securitisation translated absurdly in French by sécurisation, which means in English (as well as in French) the action to make safe.

46 There is an excellent synthesis on this issue by d'Aoust, A.-M., ‘Accounting for the Politics of Language in the Sociology of IR’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 15:1 (2012), pp. 120–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It's worth noting that the author is French-Canadian and not French.

47 This aspect has been analysed by Bourdieu and Wacquant. See Wacquant, Loïc and Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Sur les Ruses de la Raison Impérialiste’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 121:121–2 (1998), pp. 109–18Google Scholar.

48 It is worth noting that a new journal, the European Review of International Studies, is to be launched in 2014. Published in English by the German publisher Barbara Budrich and sponsored inter alia by the Association of the Internationalistes and the Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l'Ecole Militaire, the editors are the Francophone British academic A.J.R. Groom and the director of CERI, the French Christian Lequesne. Indeed, this journal cannot be considered as being sensu stricto part of the IR French community. Nonetheless, the fact that it integrates international standards, chiefly the peer-review one, may bode a positive evolution.

49 It would be interesting to carry out a thorough study on the problematic issue of publication and advancement in academic careers. It seems it is thanks to their extremely protected status that French academics can possibly pursue a career without being obliged to publish. Jobard's study, which concerns only researchers from the Centre national de recherche scientifique, offers a few comments to add to the discussion. Jobard, Fabien, ‘Combien Publient les Politistes, la Productivité des Politistes du CNRS et leurs Supports de Publication’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 60:1 (2010), pp. 117–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Incidentally, the first to host papers in IR was precisely the Revue Française de Science Politique (founded in 1951). Battistella and Cornut notice that in the TRIP survey, 22 per cent of the respondents who are IR scholars say the Revue française de science politique is the journal where they would like to publish. That journal is the second one after International organization (41 per cent). Batisttela and Cornut, ‘Des RI Françaises en Émergence. Les Internationalistes Français dans le Sondage TRIP 2011’, p. 317.

51 CERI is a research centre in political science with strong links between IR and area studies, and between domestic political systems and the sociology of international ones. The meaning of its earlier acronym was Centre d'Études des Relations internationales. To stress the complementarity between IR and comparative political sociology, it was eventually decided, in 1976, to change the name to Centre d'Études de Recherches internationales, with an alteration of ‘Relations’ to ‘Recherches’ (research).

52 The CNU, which is made up of academics, is the state organ in charge of accreditation for PhD scholars who intend to continue in the academic world just after they defend their doctoral dissertation. Without the ‘passport’ granted by the CNU, it is not possible to apply for a position in a university or in an IEP. The CNU is divided into groups of sections. There are as many sections (77) as there are disciplines – but IR is not among them. It is worth noting that, from a strictly legal perspective, all theses – whatever their discipline – can be qualified by any kind of sections. In addition, a qualification granted for a section is worth legally for a qualification granted by all the sections. Nevertheless, this is evidently a legal fiction. Because of the scarcity of positions, the candidate will have no chance of being hired if his qualification does not match the discipline of the position. It is technically possible for a non-politist to be ‘accredited’ by the section in political science. The doctrine of section 04 accepts for qualification theses, which are not political science theses, if three conditions are met. Firstly, ‘beside the excellence of the dissertation’, it must deal with subjects of direct interest to the discipline of political science. Secondly, the PhD, through the doctoral dissertation and scientific articles, must show that s/he masters ‘tools and methods of research of the discipline. He must demonstrate his capacity to mobilize the scientific literature and theories used in political science.’ Thirdly, ‘the presence of a politist among the members of the jury’ is essential. Conseil national des universités, section 04, Rapport annuel d'activité. Qualification aux fonctions de maître de conférences et de professeur des universités (Session 2012), p. 17, available at: {http://www.afsp.info/omasp/cnu/rapports/rapportcnu2012.pdf} accessed 2 October 2013. The problem had been acute with lawyers who supervised doctoral dissertations labelled IR but in political science. If there is no legal hindrance for a professor of public law to supervise PhD candidates in political science, it is, according to Pierre Sadran the former president of the CNU with whom the author of these lines had an interview in January 2012 ‘on behalf of deontological grounds that the CNU demand that supervisors be politists’. Before the introduction of the agrégation of political science in 1973 which constituted de jure the autonomy of political science, academics wore two hats: public law and political science. They could supervise doctoral dissertations in either of the two disciplines.

53 Phone interview with Jacques de Maillard, member of the AERES Commission, 2 January 2012.

54 See Communiqué de presse en date du 14 octobre 2008 of the French association of political science in which it ‘questions the criteria initiated’ available at: {http://www.afsp.msh-paris.fr/activite/2008/afsp141008aeres.pdf.} accessed 2 October 2013.

55 Liste des revues AERES pour le domaine SCIENCE POLITIQUE (Mise à jour le 29 January 2010) available at: {http://www.afsp.msh-paris.fr/activite/2008/afsp141008aeres.pdf.} accessed 14 June 2012.

56 For instance, in the public law list (Annuaire Français de Relations Internationales) or in the geography one (Hérodote).

57 Another aspect of the problem is that international rankings include rarely non English-speaking journals.

58 Renouvin, Pierre and Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, Introduction à l'Histoire des Relations Internationales (Paris: Armand Colin, 1964)Google Scholar.

59 Duroselle, J.-B., ‘L'Étude des Relations internationales: Objet, Méthode, Perspectives’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 2:4 (1952), pp. 676–701CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Histoire des Relations Internationales’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 6:2 (1956), pp. 399–405.

60 Duroselle, J.-B., ‘Pierre Renouvin et la Science Politique’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 25:3 (1975), pp. 561–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, Tout Empire Périra (Paris: Armand Colin, 1992), p. 17Google Scholar.

62 Quoted by Merle, M., ‘Sur la “Problématique” de l'Étude des Relations Internationales en France’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 33:3 (1983), p. 406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Laroche, Josepha, ‘Science Politique et Relations Internationales: Mettons les Pendules à l'Heure’, in Darras, Éric and Philippe, O. (eds), La Science Politique, Une et Multiple (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004), pp. 210–1Google Scholar.

64 Smouts, M.-C., ‘The Study of International Relations in France’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 16:2 (1987), p. 281CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is worth mentioning that Marie-Claude Smouts, like Marcel Merle, were initially both lawyers.

65 Smith, A., ‘French Political Science and European Integration’, Journal of European Public Policy, 7:4 (2000), p. 666CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 An intriguing work on the link between IR and international law is made in the book Droit international et relations internationales, published after a colloquium in 2008 dedicated to this issue. Société française de Droit international, Droit International et Relations Internationales. Divergences et Convergences (Paris: Pedone, 2010)Google Scholar.

67 It is worth mentioning André Sigfried (1875–1959), who was among the founding fathers of political science in France and a disciple of the famous French geographer Paul Vidal de La Blache (1845–1918). His major book, Le tableau politique de la France de l'Ouest (1913) was a geographical and sociological explanation of electoral behaviour that set the foundation for political science.

68 Gottmann, Jean, La Politique des États et leur Géographie (Paris: CTHS, 1951, re-edited in 2007)Google Scholar. See also his intriguing article, in English, ‘Geography and International Relations’, World Politics, 3:2 (1951), pp. 153–73.

69 Lévy, Jacques, Géographies du Politique (Paris: Presses de Sciences po, 1991)Google Scholar and ‘Geopolitics after Geopolitics: A French Experience’, Geopolitics, 5:3 (2000), pp. 99–113.

70 Foucher, Michel, Fronts et Frontières: Un Tour du Monde Géopolitique (Paris: Fayard, 1991)Google Scholar, ‘La Fin de la Géopolitique? Réflexions Géographiques sur la Grammaire des Puissances’, Politique étrangère, 61:1 (1997), pp. 19–31 and ‘The Geopolitics of Front Lines and Borderlines’, Geopolitics, 5:2 (2000), pp. 159–70.

71 Dussouy, Gérard, Quelle Géopolitique au XXIe siècle? (Paris: Les Éditions Complexe, 2001)Google Scholar.

72 Dussouy, Gérard, Traité de Relations Internationales: Tome 1, Les Théories Géopolitiques (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006)Google Scholar, Traité de Relations Internationales: Tome 2, Les Théories de l'Interétatique (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2007) and Traité de Relations Internationales: Tome 3, Les Théories de la Mondialité (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2009).

73 Yves Lacoste, La Géographie, ça Sert, d'abord, à Faire la Guerre (Paris: Maspéro, 1976).

74 The anecdote is described by G. Minassian, ‘La Révolution Géopolitique Inachevée’, Le Monde (3 August 2010).

75 Vernant, J., ‘Une Sociologie des Relations Internationales’, Politique Étrangère, 17:4 (1952), p. 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 Aron, Paix et Guerre entre les Nations, p. 62.

77 Aron, R., ‘Une Sociologie des Relations Internationales’, Revue française de Sociologie, 4:3 (1963), pp. 307–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Merle, Sociologie des Relations Internationales, p. 3.

79 Badie and Smouts, Le Retournement du Monde. Sociologie de la Scène Internationale, p. 19 and Badie and Smouts, ‘The Turnaround of the World’, p. 93.

80 Charillon, Frédéric (ed.), Politique Étrangère. Nouveaux Regards (Paris: Presses de Sciences po., 2002)Google Scholar.

81 Devin, Guillaume, Sociologie des Relations Internationales (Paris: La Découverte, 2007), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

82 Smouts, ‘The Study of International Relations in France’, p. 283.

83 Friedrichs, ‘International Relations Theory in France: three Generations of Parisian Intellectual Life’, p. 32. See also Duroselle, J.-B., ‘Les “Area Studies”. Problèmes de Méthodes’, Bulletin International des Sciences Sociales, 4:4 (1952), pp. 674–84Google Scholar. The article is a bit old but still very relevant in order to understand the consubstantiality between the French colonial legacy and the precocious study of area studies. Yet, it did not avoid a belated emergence of IR in French academia.

84 See, for instance, Feuer, Guy and Cassan, Hervé, Droit International du Développement (Paris: Dalloz, 1985)Google Scholar.

85 Ryfman, ‘Vers une “École Française” d'Analyse de l'Humanitaire?’, pp. 133–44.

86 Deriennic, Jean-Pierre and Moïsi, Dominique, ‘France’, in International Studies in Six European Countries, A Report to the Ford Foundation (Ford Foundation publisher, 1976), p. 44Google Scholar.

87 Gonidec, Pierre-François, Relations Internationales (Paris: Montchrestien, 1977)Google Scholar.

88 A small but very telling detail is that Edmond Jouve, supervised the doctoral thesis of the daughter of Gaddafi until recently.

89 Jouve, Edmond, Relations Internationales (Paris: PUF, 1992)Google Scholar.

90 Mink, ‘La Conversion de la “Soviétologie” Française après la Disparition de son Objet d'Étude’, pp. 158–67.

91 Bouthoul, Gaston, Traité de Polémologie. Sociologie des Guerres (3rd edn, Paris: Payot, 1991)Google Scholar.

92 Coutau-Bégarie, Hervé, Traité de Stratégie (7th edn, Paris: Économica, Institut de Stratégie comparée, 2011 [orig. pub. 1999])Google Scholar.

93 Sur, Serge, Relations Internationales (Paris: Montchrestien, 1995), p. 41Google Scholar.

94 Roche, Jean-Jacques, Relations Internationales (Paris: L.G.D.J., 2001), p. 5Google Scholar.

95 Bourdieu, ‘Le Champ Scientifique’, p. 96.

96 The atheorism in IR is, in France, inversely proportional to the place of theories in other disciplinary fields of research such as philosophy. Even if this is not the place in that paper to pursue the debate, it would be, however, interesting to carry out research on the whys and the wherefores of this paradox.

97 Wæver, O., ‘The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations’, International Organization, 52:4 (1998), p. 709CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 Roche, Jean-Jacques, ‘Relations Internationales (théorie des)’, in Mesure, S. and Savidan, P. (eds), Le Dictionnaire des Sciences Humaines (Paris: PUF, 2006), p. 990Google Scholar.

99 Ibid.

100 Colas, Dominique, ‘La Recherche entre Sciences Juridiques et Sciences Politiques’, in Godelier, Maurice (ed.), Les Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société en France. Analyse et Propositions pour une Politique Nouvelle. Rapport Remis à Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Ministre d'État, Ministre de la Recherche et de l'Industrie, sur l'État des Sciences Sociales en France (Paris: Collection des rapports officiels. La Documentation Française, 1982), p. 365Google Scholar.

101 The most intriguing article on that issue is undoubtedly the one written by Guzzini, S., ‘The Significance and Roles of Teaching Theory in International Relations’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 4:2 (2001), pp. 98–117Google Scholar.

102 A telling example is the way, not really respectful, that Jean-Baptiste Duroselle talks about IR theorists. ‘They invent obscure concepts, with grandiose names, and a simple purpose: smoke screen hiding the objective … I see haughtily running wild so many under-Lyssenkos, so many fanatic intolerant, so many obscurantists, or simply so many naives and gulls.’ Duroselle, ‘La Nature de la Politique Internationale’, p. 111 and p. 112. Remember that Lysenkoism – in reference to the Soviet alleged biologist and agronomist – is usually used as a metaphor for describing the manipulation of a scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological skewness.

103 Aron, R., ‘Qu'est-Ce Qu'une Théorie des Relations Internationales?’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 17:5 (1967), pp. 837–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

104 Smouts, ‘Les Relations Internationales en France. Regards sur une Discipline’, p. 85.

105 Galtung, J., ‘Structure, Culture and Intellectual Style. An Essay Comparing Saxonic, Teutonic, Gallic and Nipponic Approaches’, Social Science Information, 20:6 (1981), p. 830CrossRefGoogle Scholar.