Great Debates (international relations)

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Scholars Michael Barnett Zbigniew Brzezinski Hedley Bull E. H. Carr Daniel Deudney Michael W. Doyle Cynthia Enloe James Fearon Martha Finnemore Robert Gilpin Samuel P. Huntington John Ikenberry Robert Jervis Peter J. Katzenstein Robert Keohane Henry Kissinger Stephen D. Krasner John Mearsheimer Hans Morgenthau Joseph Nye Kathryn Sikkink Susan Strange J. Ann Tickner Immanuel Wallerstein Stephen Walt Kenneth Waltz Alexander Wendt
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In international relations theory, the Great Debates refer to a series of disagreements between international relations scholars.^[1] Ashworth describes how the discipline of international relations has been heavily influenced by historical narratives and that "no single idea has been more influential" than the notion that there was a debate between utopian and realist thinking.^[2]

^ Ken Booth, Michael Cox, Timothy Dunne,The eighty years' crisis: international relations 1919-1999, Issue 1, p1: "The story of international relations is conveniently told in a series of 'great debates'.
^ LM Ashworth, Did the Realist-Idealist Great Debate Really Happen? a Revisionist History of International Relations,International Relations, Vol. 16, No. 1, p31 (2002)