The study of international relations in Japan: towards a more international discipline

We deploy Waever’s sociology of science approach in acriticalcomparison of the American and Japanese international relationsacademies.We argue that there are four great debates in the American academy,andfour traditions of scholarship in the Japanese academy. We describethesedebates and traditions in some detail, and identify andexplain points ofcontact and difference between the two respectiveacademies. We conclude bymaking a general case for methodologicalpluralism and offer reasons why theJapanese international relationsacademy is keen to sponsor a journal whichis, in the wordsof Waever, able to ‘draw on national traditions whilekeepingup with American developments’.