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Theory or Practice? The State of International Relations in Poland

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Abstract

The subject of this article is the state of the discipline of International Relations (IR) in Poland. In the communist era, IR was an arena of ideological confrontation. The political science approach was based on Marxist ideology. The transformation after 1989 can be described as a transition from real socialism to common sense realism, and hence an approach that is practical, but lacking in more far-reaching theoretical reflection. The closure of this gap is inevitably a slow process. However, it has been possible to sense some creative spirit within the discipline recently, as is attested by the publication of a series of major works by Polish and foreign authors, initiating a debate on the condition of IR and the establishment of the Polish International Studies Association. However, the state of the discipline in Poland will require a raising of the level of teaching at Polish universities, not least through a fuller account being taken of research methodologies and theories.

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Notes

  1. The participation of the communist countries within the framework of the IPSA proved to be a matter of internal dispute. When, in 1954, IPSA Executive Secretary Jean Meynaud invited Soviet representatives to the Stockholm Congress this met with a critical response from the Association's President, W.A. Robson. In the end, the Russians were accepted, but Meynaud resigned from his post as Executive Secretary (Boncourt, 2010: 43).

  2. Latour (1999: 80–112) identified five types of scientific practices: linking and knotting, mobilising, autonomising, building alliances and creating public representation.

  3. Mirosław Sułek (2004, 2010) is an exception as he uses qualitative methods to make international forecasts and simulations.

  4. In Polish IR, the approach taken by international law is understood as a normative theory (See Symonides, 2005) Still, some books regarded as the classics of normative theories have been published in Polish (Rawls, 1994, 2001; Walzer, 2010; Żuradzki and Kuniński, 2009).

  5. I express acknowledgements for the comments to this section made by Kacper Szulecki, Anna Visvizi and Anna Wojciuk.

  6. The occasionally encountered Polish names belong to persons who live in the West. For example, Krzysztof Pelc who is a contributor to International Organization is a Canadian of Polish origin, although he quotes Polish as his native language.

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Czaputowicz, J. Theory or Practice? The State of International Relations in Poland. Eur Polit Sci 11, 196–212 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2011.69

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