Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 1, No.2, Spring 1999, pp. 39–60 © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 39 A Certain Idea of Science How International Relations Theory Avoids the New Cold War History ✣ William C. Wohlforth T he attitude of mainstream scholars of world politics toward the relationship between science and history is much like the Bolsheviks’ at- titude toward the relationship between socialism and capitalism. Josif Stalin may have had only the vaguest idea of what the socialism he was supposedly building would look like, but he was absolutely certain of one thing: It would not be capitalism. Today’s political scientists lack a single vision of what a science of international relations is, but most of them can agree on one thing: It is not history. In this article, I explain why the topic is so problematic, show that it need not be so, and make the case for how some of the new information ought to be assimilated. To get an idea of the barriers to updating theory in response to new historical evidence, consider two related facts. First, there is no docu- mented case of a noted scholar of international relations (IR) who has changed his or her view of any theory in response to fresh historical evi- dence. There are, however, cases of scholars who have abandoned theo- ries whole hog in response to other sorts of evidence, such as statistical findings, events, or failed predictions. 1 So the problem is not the relation- ship between theories and evidence, but the relationship between theories and historical evidence. 2 Second, in the field today there is no sense of sus- pense concerning new revelations about the Cold War. If the top refereed 1. In one of the best examples, a founder of regional integration theory abandoned it in part be- cause it failed to anticipate one perturbing variable: Charles de Gaulle. See Ernst Haas, “The Ob- solescence of Regional Integration Theory,” Research Series no. 25, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1975. 2. Throughout, I restrict my comments to international relations as practiced by American politi- cal scientists. By “IR scholars,” I mean political scientists who study international relations, though I recognize that historians are also scholars of international relations. For a contrasting, more op- timistic, view, see the introduction to Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, “Diplomatic His- tory and International Relations Theory: Respecting Differences and Crossing Boundaries,” International Security, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer 1997), pp. 5–21.