The Present Course of International Relations Research

Abstract

This is a good time to ask what are the important emerging trends in research in international relations. In the first place, the problems of world politics today are as arresting in their implications for the security and well-being of peoples everywhere as they have ever been; at the same time, they seem less subject to human control. Secondly, a generation of experimenting and high-level groping with international problems has produced, or ought to have produced, some valuable conclusions about how to proceed in carrying out fruitful research in the field. Finally, the impressive advances made in various branches of the social sciences in the last few years have provided some interesting new tools and skills that ought to be of great help to the political analyst working on the international level.