The theory of International Relations (IRT) is either derived from or followed in praxis. Its origin dates to the time of the evolution of the discipline of International Relations as a separate field of study. International Relations commenced formally in the aftermath of the First World War at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1919. There are four inter-paradigm debates in IRT without many heated exchanges. Furthermore, the respective proponents were evaluating and honing specific theories in changing times and the dynamism of the state of flux in discipline and practise in international relations. Two debates are on variants of realism, liberalism, Marxism, and international political economy, while the other two are focused on the methodological, epistemological, and ontological domains – behavioralism vs. post-behavioralism, positivism vs. post-positivism. The fifth debate started from the 1990s when the post-cold war era began, but the questions are neither novel nor innovative. The thinking may be smart, but the state of affairs has new features with a constant essence of existentialism.
The debates are grander and its resolution unachievable given the posture in principle, either hardening or relaxing. There are extremes or hardliners, and there are moderates or softer corners, or flexible or liberal scholars. Now, discourses are expanding in order to enter the fifth debate. This is based on international thought and practice shaping the discourse and outlining a thematic notion of aspirations for not only the West or Euro-American Social Science, but also a vocation in the Non-West. There are similarities and differences in political thought. But the revival of local learning, knowledge, and wisdom is beginning simultaneously with the momentum of globalisation and capitalism, in personal academics, if there is no state education. More importantly, the triumph of liberal democracy and open society is a precursor to fostering debates and discussions when a society interacts with the ideals and realities of the Western Enlightenment.
The enlightenment is neither Western nor Eastern nor non-Western. I believe it is universal, and that the journey of our search for knowledge and wisdom is eternal and perpetual. The tenets of relations without frontiers, politics without borders, or games nations play and relations among nations bespeak public and international affairs based on human nature that is universal in ethos, creed, and traits. At the same time, the individual is now local and global due to the rapid fifth-generation speed in information and communication media to access or obtain related or concerning matters or business. So everyday affairs are influenced by local imperatives and global changes. Climate change, pandemics, and economic interests apart from conventional diplomacy in politics and security are challenging and cannot be solved by a single individual or nation-state as they are incapable of mitigating without a concerted approach. There is a convergence of interests and a diverse or alternative solution, with the latter’s divergence in thinking that reveals dialectics in world politics.
The debates in International Relations are mainly about isms and research methodology. When this domain enters the non-Western realm, its intellectual efficacy, provocations, and shortcomings, as well as its impetus to knowledge heritage, unfold or stimulate. The scope of the avant-garde and agent or academic provocateur widens and becomes broad-based. Some demand inclusion in mainstream IRT and some wish to be identified as an exceptional circle of the intellectual legacy of knowledge heritage.
Due to the space of time and circumstances of a changing world, global public opinion has perception and experience either known or unexpressed. Some talk of chaos theory or complexity theory to understand and explain why world affairs are getting disarrayed or erratic with restlessness and un-peace of the spectre of capitalism, modernity, and the libertarian spirit. Transformations are happening and transitions occurring every decade evince different consciences of competitiveness, struggle, and survival through strategic actions and overtures.
Scholars say the fifth debate would be no different from disagreements in the erstwhile four debates. Others, on the other hand, have no conceptions of the dissimilar debate aside from those conventional isms and research rigour that become hardened or relaxed. To some, the earlier debates were pointless and futile because they did not involve radical departures or theoretical concedes. It is a continuum or sham when human knowledge and human nature are universal. Some state that “the theory is dead, long live the theory.” As we know, the beginning of international relations is time immemorial and its end is unknown. Ideologies and interests shape or define the historiography of IR. Thus, the fifth debate will be on the enduring grandeur of IR and IRT in unveiling the universe and multiverse of discourses to an emerging global public square. Space and time would be expanding as well as contracting depending on the state of global nature and its responses to human nature.
