International Relations and the Problem of Difference

International Relations has long had little to say about the motivations of individuals, the interactions of communities, or the role of identity. This title re-imagines IR as uniquely placed for the study of differences, suggesting that IR could be organized around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness and difference. International Relations and the Problem of Difference has developed out of the sense that IR as a discipline does not assess the quality of cultural interactions that shape, and are shaped by, the changing structures and processes of the international system. In this work, the authors re-imagine IR as a uniquely placed site for the study of differences as organized explicitly around the exploration of the relation of wholes and parts and sameness and difference-and always the one in relation to the other.