1 International Relations at the End: A Sociological Autopsy Peter Marcus Kristensen University of Copenhagen Forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly 2018 Abstract Recent interventions suggest that the discipline of International Relations has moved beyond grand theories and debates towards mid-range theorizing and quantitative hypothesis testing. Whether as a result of great debates or of their end, scholars identify a pervasive fragmentation into insular camps. This article subjects these claims to a sociology of science analysis. It applies network analytical methods to dissect the structure and dividing lines of the discipline: its dominant camps, the relationship among them, and their relative role in the discipline. It identifies several citation camps, primarily delineated by theory, but also methods and subfields. The realist, liberal institutionalist and constructivist camps occupy a central role. All three ‘isms’ are identifiable as separate communities. But are also more closely intertwined and cross-contaminated than the fragmentation argument suggest. At the margins of the three isms, connecting via constructivism, we find three theoretical camps of post- structuralism, English School and neo-Marxist critical theory. Separate from the theoretical region are two camps of formal modeling, methods, and quantitative studies of inter- and intra-state conflict. Both grand theories and quantitative hypothesis-testing are among the most cited works in the discipline, but it is still the theoretical camps, the three isms in particular, that give International Relations its distinctive sociological structure. Beginning at the End The International Relations discipline seems to be in crisis. 1 Recent diagnoses suggest that if the discipline has not already come to an “end” (Sylvester 2007, 551; 2013, 609; Dunne, Hansen, and Wight 2013, 405), it has experienced three fundamental changes: First, the grand theories or ‘isms’ 2 that once constituted its intellectual core are in decline; Second, simplistic, methods-driven hypothesis testing has overtaken the discipline. To the extent the field still produces theory, it does so in the form of more eclectic, middle-range theorizing; Third, the discipline-wide ‘great debates’ that historically structured the field have waned, if not ended. Most recent surveys agree with these three trends, and that the discipline is experiencing growing fragmentation, but disagree on whether this is a result of the grand theories and debates or their waning. Some argue that theory has always been the “lodestone” of the discipline. They therefore lament the lack of new grand theories, “big ideas” and “big questions.” They complain of a focus on 1 I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Inanna Hamati-Ataya, Cullen Hendrix, Robert Keohane, Ian Manners and Ole Wæver for comments on the earlier drafts of the paper as well as my colleagues at the University of Copenhagen for their excellent comments at a revise and resubmit seminar. The usual disclaimer applies. 2 The concept of ‘isms’ is used in various ways, but typically to refer to the three mainstream International Relations theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism.