Dilemmas “Putting the ‘isms’ in Their Place: A Dilemma-led Approach to Teaching IR Theory”

How can IR theory be taught without resorting to a parade of ‘isms’? This chapter presents an innovative approach to teaching IR theory developed for an undergraduate distance learning IR module in the UK. The ‘dilemma-led’ approach bids to overcome common shortcomings of IR textbooks and teaching schedules that lead with theory chapters, divorced from and pre-empting substantive issues. Students are introduced first to relatable or prominent dilemmas facing participants in world politics, then identifying an underlying dimension of the international—e.g. conflict versus cooperation, top-down versus bottom-up governance, or justice versus injustice. Only after grappling with issues and underlying dilemmas are ‘isms’ (realism, liberalism, constructivism etc.) introduced as required tools to decode, organize and unpack such dilemmas. This, it is argued, facilitates a more engaged and engaging pedagogical approach that brings ‘isms’ in, not as reified discipline-defining paradigms, but as broad and diverse tools with demonstrated strengths and shortcomings.