Journal of International Relations & Foreign Policy

Communities of International Relations in Emerging World: Neither Resistant to the Positivism nor Beyond Debates
Rafael Duarte Villa, Marilia Souza

Abstract
When one focus in the last 10 years, some scholars strengthen the question of whether we were beginning a period that could be called “beyond debates” in theory of international relations. Some researches concluded that, specially on the epistemological aspect, the world is divided between the positivist theory that is practiced in the United States, and the disbeliefthatprevailsin many partsof the world about the merits of positivism. When one reviewed some of the data derived from TRIP 2011 we can clearly observe that the conclusion above must be reviewed. When we look at the applicability that epistemological perspectives have in communities of international relations in some countries of intermediate power, such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey, we realize that there is not in such countries a clear epistemological hegemony neither a strong reaction to the positivism nor a enthusiasm visible with the post-positivism. In fact, this paper points out the thesis on the existence in communities of international relations of countries of intermediate power of an epistemological and methodological pluralism manifested in the form of a theoretical hybridity.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jirfp.v2n3-4a5