Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations

Abstract

Yosef Lapid clarifies the nature of recent critical reflection on international theory and contributes to opening the discourse on the subject. However, he understates the diversity, the historicism, and the critical nature of post-positivist inquiry and exaggerates the extent to which pluralism, perspectivism and relativism have taken root in international relations. He is also insufficiently critical of post-positivism and does not say enough about the problem of criteria for evaluating alternative explanations. His article is essentially a preface to a larger project, one yet to be undertaken, a project which will need more concrete, self-reflexive, nuanced research that takes post-positivist criticisms seriously and constructs plausible alternative explanations of important subjects.