@article{204046,
  keywords = {international relations theory, paradigms, realism, liberalism, constructivism},
  author = {Helen V. Milner and Ryan Powers and Erik Voeten},
  title = {The Myth of the Eclectic IR Scholar?},
  abstract = {<p>What does the decline in paradigmatic self-identification mean for how international relations (IR) scholars think about the world? We answer this question with a 2020 survey among nearly two thousand IR scholars. We uncover a two-dimensional latent theoretical belief space based on scholarly agreement with conjectures about the state, ideas, international institutions, domestic politics, globalization, and racism. The first dimension separates status quo{\textendash}oriented scholars from more critical scholars. The second dimension captures the realist{\textendash}institutionalist divide. We have three key findings. First, non-paradigmatic scholars vary greatly in their theoretical beliefs. Second, measurement invariance tests show that there is a similar structure underlying the beliefs of paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic scholars. Third, we find no evidence that non-paradigmatic scholars rely less on their theoretical beliefs in making predictions about conflict, institutions, political economy, democracy, and human rights. Instead, the positions of scholars in the two-dimensional theoretical belief space rather than self-assigned paradigmatic labels correlate with predictions about the world. Our findings suggest that non-paradigmatic scholars are not so different from self-identified Liberals, Constructivists, and Realists, although the decline of paradigmatic self-identification may still matter for how scholars organize debates and disciplinary divides.</p>
},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {International Studies Perspectives},
  volume = {24},
  chapter = {308},
  pages = {308-335},
  month = {10/2022},
  url = {https://academic.oup.com/isp/article-abstract/24/3/308/6761002},
  doi = {10.1093/isp/ekac012},
  language = {eng},
}