Introduction

The introductory chapter problematizes the present status of IR studies in terms of its failure to contribute in any significant way to preserving global peace in the new millennium. By highlighting the concerns raised by a number of luminaries within IR studies, one is left in no doubt that the discipline has failed as an intellectual and political project. In light of this critique, I make a case for a Kuhnian-inspired paradigm shift in IR studies. In particular, I argue that, as a paradigm, IR advances a mode of knowledge relations and knowledge practices that tell us everything about war and almost nothing substantive on how to achieve a lasting, global peace, and herein lies the rationale, indeed urgent need, for a paradigm shift.